Tag: oil painting techniques

4 reasons not to paint on cheap canvases from Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, Lowes & alike. Canvas review

Posted on by veronica

Do you shop at these places for canvases? Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Lowes or online art supply retailers? When everything doubled or tripped in price in the art supplies section, these affordable canvases seem to be a steal. But are they really worth it? Stop 🛑 painting on these canvases now!

canvas and art supplies review

Video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oxygIkpOwLA

4 reasons to stop painting on cheap canvases from Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, Lowes & alike.

Here are 4 reasons to stop buying cheap canvases at craft stores:

  1. Cheap wood doesn’t hold the frame in a long run unless you frame the art soon after its completion. The frames are often crooked and the stretcher bars are not stapled together. It could be all right for a small canvas but not for a big one because large canvases need more support to hold everything up together.
  2. You can’t be confident selling your art that’s produced using crappy art supplies. These canvases will begin to degrade within your lifetime (and this is a very conservative estimate).
  3. This material is not a high-quality canvas. I can’t even tell you what it really is. It can rip and ripple easily. Constant flactuations in room temperature cause cracks in art. This material is asking for trouble.
  4. This gesso (the white ground that covers panels and canvases) is not a high-quality gesso either. And that’s the biggest problem with the craft canvases in my opinion, because oil paint doesn’t form a permanent bond with this surface. It doesn’t stick even if it looks ok on the first sight. It’s very easy to damage the surface. Any shuffling of a painted art rubbed against something will damage the art. I’m not sure that acrylic paint forms a bond with this surface either. Beware.

Combine this horrible surface with low-quality, cheap paints and you got yourself a painting that will crack, fade and change it’s shape pretty soon. Do you really want that?

Affordable alternatives: paint on these high-quality panels instead

Here are some very good alternatives to paint on.

high quality panels for oil painting

Paint on panels:


My personal preference is a medium-textured panel like Ampersand gessobord or aluminum panels by Artefex. Artefex Alcotpanel is aluminum panel with a primed cotton canvas mounted on ACM and ready to paint on. Da vinci pro wood boards are also very good.

The gesso quality is very important. Golden products are very good. I’m not an affiliate of any of these companies. I just like the quality and price of their art supplies. Panels don’t fluctuate with a change in room temperature or humidity unlike canvas. Old art looks ok painted on wood panels… Raphael Premium Archival OIL PRIMED linen panels are designed for oil painting only because their gesso is oil-based, not acrylic-based like the majority of gesso brands sold today. https://amzn.to/3VRUSBt

colored pencil manual veronica winters
These art instruction books are on sale on Amazon!

Paint on canvas:

If you prefer the lightweight of a canvas, try working on a Belgian linen or more affordable canvas like Unprimed Cotton Duck #10 – Uniform Canvas Surface. It should be heavy and uniform. It’s best to buy a canvas in a roll rather than in a blanket format. The blanket could have creeses that are difficult to get rid of.
It can be a challenge to buy a good canvas shopping online because you can’t see or touch it. Some canvases have a very thin thread and you can almost look through them. Look into the numbers to understand which one is good. For example, unprimed cotton duck #10 is a thick material…

I hope this post and video helps you decide on your art materials choices or at least save you some real frustration and disappointment when you see your art scratch, crack or fade.

canvas review

Some art supplies available on Amazon:

Da vinci pro panels —https://amzn.to/3RTIduu

panels without gesso – https://amzn.to/3SfBJHx

Raphael Premium Archival OIL PRIMED linen panels (for oil painting only!) https://amzn.to/3VRUSBt

Ampersand gessobords-https://amzn.to/47ygmWg

Golden gesso: https://amzn.to/3TTwn4p

Gamblin oil paint and linseed oil – https://amzn.to/3vGNi1u ; https://amzn.to/47wvXph

Natural Pigments- https://www.naturalpigments.com/paints.html

Spray varnish – https://amzn.to/48OXyDn

Tombow mono eraser – https://amzn.to/3FXS9gI

Daler Rowney System3 Rich Gold Imitation 59ml Acrylic Paint Tube – https://amzn.to/48GA5nQ Alternative metallic acrylic gold paint – https://amzn.to/3vxx6je

If you’d like to support my work, check out the Amazon links or make a purchase from my shop. Every bit helps and you’re a part of my push forward!

How to paint realistic details by studying famous art & artists through art history

Posted on by veronica

When I travel and visit art museums, I study the art. I often take pictures of closeups and details in the oil paintings to see how famous artists conveyed realism through texture and detail in their masterpieces. Some top art museums have digital art collections available to view and even download online these days but many don’t.

I find it enjoyable to take pictures of jewelry, fabric, bows, gowns, metal, gold, silver and other details I see in art. I learned a lot by studying such detailed paintings and if you’re interested in the realist oil painting techniques, I suggest making painted copies of your favorite paintings. I hope this blog post can inspire you to do just that. Enjoy!

All photos are taken by me- Veronica Winters unless noted otherwise. Also, many famous paintings are in the public domain and can be downloaded for free from art museums websites like the Met, the National Gallery of Art, etc.

Agnolo Bronzino-Eleonora of Toledo with Her Son Giovanni-painting details-blog
Agnolo Bronzino, Eleonora of Toledo with Her Son Giovanni, painting details of pearls and fabric. | photo: V. Winters. From 1539 to 1572, Bronzino served as the court painter to Cosimo I, duke of Florence. The Florentine artist, Bronzino painted in the Mannerist art style – emotionless figures and hyperrealist painting details of jewelry and fabric gowns.
Bronzino
Titian, a closeup of hands, fur and jewelry rings | photo: V. Winters
Holbein-the ambassadors closeup
Holbein, The ambassadors, a closeup of fur. National Art Gallery in London. Notice how soft the fur looks in comparison to carefully painted golden details in fabric.

A close up of a painting showing white lace, Metz, France. Photo: Veronica Winters
Art closeup at the CA’ d’ ORO palace in Venice, Italy
Sargent, Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears, a closeup of a white gown, Huston art museum

lady reading letters of Heloise and Abelard-1780-A. dAgesci
Auguste Bernard d’Agesci, A lady reading letters of Heloise and Abelard, 1780, oil painting, Art Institute of Chicago

Titian, Portrait of a Lady, a golden earring and pearl detail, the Pitti palace, Italy

Some ribbon and fabric details at the Smithsonian National Art Gallery
Turin, Italy. Here the meticulously created details of fabric are layered over the initial painting of a fancy yellow jacket.
oil painting closeup-the Soumaya Art museum, Mexico city, Mexico
oil painting closeup, the Soumaya Art museum, Mexico city, Mexico | I love the variety of textures created in this fabric.

veronica winters painting

white fabric detail-Smithsonian
White fabric detail at the Smithsonian National Art Gallery. | Notice how abstract the details look painted over the base color. Stroke direction and curvature are essential to describe forms, shapes and textures.

how to paint realistic details-white fabric and gold details- the Smithsonian
White fabric and gold details, the Smithsonian. | Notice, how gold reads as gold because of few light highlights added to the general shape of these golden accents. How to mix gold color: You should use browns with a touch of either red or yellow (depending on the reflected light) to color mix gold color. It’s not about mixing lots of yellow into the oil paint, rather it’s using ochre and brown oil paint like raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber and bunt umber to create the shape first and then adding some strategic highlights over it where the light hits it the most.
Élisabeth-Louise VigĂ©e Le Brun, The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de RougĂ© with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien 1787. Image downloaded from the Smithsonian website. | This is a beautiful closeup of the female face that shows how to paint hair, face and fabric. The hair is always soft in classical art painting. The fabric has soft edges but definite highlights. The earring has the most defined edge. French female painter, VigĂ©e Le Brun was a self-taught artist who got quickly noticed by her future husband – famous art dealer – Jean Baptiste Pierre Le Brun. The artist enjoyed both the opulent lifestyle and career in Paris and way beyond France, painting the wealthy and royals in Austria, Russia, Italy, Germany, England, etc. She is known for her official portrait of Marie-Antoinette. Her high-paying clientele loved her art style – creative poses based on classical ideals, realism and color choices.

Élisabeth-Louise VigĂ©e Le Brun The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de RougĂ© with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien 1787
Élisabeth-Louise VigĂ©e Le Brun, The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de RougĂ© with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien 1787. Image downloaded from the Smithsonian website. | Although I find Le Brun’s art less intriguing in terms of subject and meaning, I think her ability to paint realistic gowns and details is supreme. Notice how she catches the light on fabric in broad strokes of golden pink. We can feel the shimmer of fabric looking at this intense turquoise-blue and a lush golden sash.

details of hands and animal-the Smithsonian
details of hands and animal, the Smithsonian.
de heem details-the Smithsonian
de Heem, still life painting detail, The Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art | The seventieth-century painter, de Heem is one of my favorite Dutch still life painters who captured life of the wealthy in lux objects and food items. I learned a lot about classical realist painting by studying Dutch art, mainly composition, color choices and objects’ texture. His deliberate compositions feature careful balance of all objects and textures. Usually a piece of fabric leads the eye to the focal point. The background has subtle colors that support high-contrast still life.
de Heem, oil painting details of glass, fabric and silver. The Smithsonian.
Dutch painting of donuts and sweets at the Smithsonian.
Dutch painting of sweets at the Smithsonian.
ringling art museum_Munari_still life with plates
Munari, still life with plates, closeup, the Ringling Museum of Art.
Lavinia Fontana, jewelry painting detail, The Smithsonian
Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Costanza Alidosi, closup of jewelry- c. 1595, oil on canvas, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington. | Famous female artist of her time, Fontana lived in Bologna, Italy in late1500s. It was highly unusual to have a name and a career as a female artist in Europe before late 19th century. It was also a strange choice to depict the mythological nudes at that time. Like other female artists of the past, she was trained by her father- Prospero Fontana in the late mannerist style. When she married, her husband became her manager; Apparently Lavinia made a lot of money painting portraits of noblewomen and religious subjects for churches because she had a big family of 11 children whom she supported!
Golden jewelry and fabric details at the Smithsonian
Lace and jacket fabric details at the Smithsonian.
Rembrandt, Lucretia, 1664, dress details. The National Gallery of Art (Smithsonian) has 737 works of art by Rembrandt! Notice how abstract the strokes are describing texture and light of the fabric. These are thick strokes with deliberate rotation and movement of the brush.
Rembrandt, Lucretia, 1664, dress and jewelry details. Notice how the artist uses greys to juxtapose colors. Thick, painterly strokes shape and sculpt the subject.

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Reasons why da Vinci Mona Lisa is still here: how to use your art supplies in oil painting correctly

Posted on by veronica

Technical reasons why Mona Lisa is still here

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a scientist and an inventor. In his mind, his remarkable abilities to perfect the oil painting techniques were secondary to his numerous other interests. That’s one of the reasons why so few da Vincis exist today. Tall, handsome, and charming Leonardo was great at building relationships and finding patrons for his military, scientific, theatre and art projects, which he rarely finished.

As an inventor, he also loved to experiment with his art materials, using new, untested methods and processes that led to a number of disasters. His greatest surviving disaster-achievement is the “Last Supper” mural painted inside a church in Milan. It began to chip off the wall during his lifetime! It happened because he disregarded the traditional fresco painting technique. Leonardo painted the picture on a dry wall instead of a wet plaster, and experimented with oil, tempera and other materials combining them in a new, untested method. The mural has endured a number of renovations since then, but only restored and computer-generated models can show us his genius: perfectly sculpted figures set in triangular sub-compositions. The admission to the museum requires multi month booking to see the mural, which attests to his long-lasting enigma.

It’s not a surprise that da Vinci experimented with “Mona Lisa” that he began working on in 1503. Obviously, this painting had held a very special place in Leonardo’s heart since it had never left his hands until his death. Da Vinci’s drawing of the figure was absolutely perfect, and his creation of a soft landscape behind her using the sfumato technique was his signature invention. I’m not going to talk about the mystery of the sitter, the beauty of this composition, or the artist’s preoccupation with the painting. There is numerous literature written about these topics. Rather I’d like to illustrate the importance of art materials used in the oil painting.

The artist played with the technical aspects of the painting itself that deteriorated its surface at a much faster pace than it normally would. The exposure to light and humidity darkened and discolored the pigments. Fine details in the face got lost as dyes mixed with the paint faded. Her brightly colored attire changed to shades of browns and black that we see today. Further applied varnishes during the early restorations darkened the painting even more, and today it has a rather colorless appearance of yellowed browns.

Italian painter, Giorgio Vasari was the first to write a comprehensive book about famous artists preceding his generation that he titled “lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects.” In his notes he reviewed the “Mona Lisa” as follows:

“The eyes had that luster and watery sheen always seen in life … the nostrils, rosy and tender, seemed to be alive … The opening of the mouth seemed to be not colored but living flesh.”

Georgio Vasari

These are the words that describe the mastery of the artist that we sort of see here, only if we could take the sunglasses off to see the real colors.

So what happened to the painting? Because the artist painted on a poplar panel (soft, non-durable and susceptible to insect attacks wood) that was removed from its original frame, the surface couldn’t withstand the changes in humidity. It warped and cracked. In the 18th century the braces were added in the back of the painting to stabilize the crack, and later the added frame and cross braces helped to stop the continuous warping of the panel. Over the centuries the panel had actually shrunk!

Today you can see the painting in the Louvre that’s kept in a bulletproof glass case. It’s rather small (21×30”) and it’s hard to enjoy the beauty of it, jumping over the heads of so many tourists surrounding it with phones. To preserve the priceless artwork, this painting is kept in a climate-controlled room with a 50% (+\-10%) humidity and 18-21C (68-70F) temperature. To compensate for fluctuations in relative humidity, the case is supplemented with a bed of silica gel treated to provide 55% relative humidity (source: Wikipedia)

These are computer-generated models of the famous painting showing us true colors the Mona Lisa probably had when Leonardo had just painted it. In these models we can see the pinks and the blues that Vasari mentioned that have faded over the centuries.

Source for the images: World Mysteries at http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/digital-restoration-of-leonardo-da-vincis-mona-lisa/ Other sources: Art history lessons | the Natural Pigments at http://www.naturalpigments.com/blog | Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

Mona Lisa in the Louvre

If you’re interested to learn more, the Louvre museum website is a great source. Here you can see Mona Lisa up-close and personal going through the digitized images completed by the Louvre museum:

Close ups: http://focus.louvre.fr/en/mona-lisa/

Overview: http://focus.louvre.fr/en/mona-lisa/understand/most-famous-painting-world

Scientific tests: http://focus.louvre.fr/en/mona-lisa/compare/scientific-tests

This diagram is taken from the Natural Pigments website. NP produces lightfast, high-quality materials for professional artists.

11 Classical Oil painting techniques rules

If you are serious about creating permanent oil paintings, always consider using the best art materials that includes the painting substrate. the longevity of art depends on the environment you place it in. The best conditions you can set in your home or office must include:

-constant room temperature

-low humidity level

Also, don’t expose your oil paintings and especially watercolors and drawings to extreme sunlight, heat oxidation and high humidity. These are the main causes for art deterioration.

-Don’t wash the surface with water!

-Don’t paint on super smooth or glossy surfaces because the paint doesn’t stick or form a permanent bond with the substrate.

-Don’t use a lot of medium as it weakens the oil paint. Use a little bit of linseed oil to help the paint flow.

-Ideally, it’s best to paint with a lead white, no the titanium white or worse the flake white. Lead white holds everything together like a glue and minimizes cracking.

-If you don’t paint large, stick to painting on professional panels, the surface of which doesn’t fluctuate as much as canvas.

-Have strong stretcher bars and frames that keep the canvas flat and unchanged.

-Use the linseed oil to form the most durable paint film, although it may yellow more than the walnut oil. The walnut oil is also a very good medium that dries much slower then the linseed oil.

-Don’t use the oil paint that contains the safflower oil.

-Always paint on a previously dry layer!

I hope these oil painting techniques tips will help you use your art materials correctly. Learning the rules helps artists create permanent paintings that you can be proud of and confident selling!

+ Updated. First written in October, 2016.

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5 Tips in Realist Oil Painting Techniques for beginners & beyond

Posted on by veronica

Traditional oil painting techniques means painting natural forms from life. Academic studies are based on copying reality as close as possible to life through still life and figure painting. Classical painting method consists of daily drawing from life. That’s why when you visit the art studios at the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York, The Art Students League or the Ryder’s School in Santa Fe, you’ll see students copy objects and draw from figure all day long for weeks, months and even years.

I spent many years learning how to draw realistically and then how to paint with oils well. I must say that realist oil painting is a lot more challenging than drawing because color mixing is not the same as shading in colored pencil or painting in watercolor. In drawing artists shade via subsequent layering to build up a range of values. In painting we have to “guess” correct color, value and color temperature in one stroke! It requires good understanding of color mixing and lots of practice. In this article I’d like to explain several important factors that affect the quality of your oil paintings. Let’s dive right in.

contemporary realism still life with blue vase and starfish-oil on panel-12x16-veronica-winters
contemporary realism still life with blue vase and starfish, oil on panel, Check out a short Video course


1. Invest in quality art supplies & understand their properties

Painting with oils could be a lot of fun when you understand how to use the art supplies in oil painting correctly. Of course, you shouldn’t break the bank by buying pricey art supplies. Painting with high-quality paints really makes a difference in the end result. I’m going to mention budget art supplies that are still good quality. I’ll also explain what to look for buying them in art stores.

Oil Paint

I use professional-grade oil paint. It has high pigmentation, so one small tube lasts for a very long time painting daily. Gamblin colors, Natural Pigments, Michael Harding and Utrecht oil paints are high-quality, yet affordable.

If you want your oil paintings to last, you must use White oil paint that has PW6 pigment and nothing else in it. Most white paint contains additives that break down the paint much faster that leads to deterioration of your entire painting! For instance, Winsor&Newton titanium white has PW6 and PW4 mixed with safflower oil in it. Gambin colors are mixed with high-quality linseed oil. It’s not that important when you paint as a hobby or for practice but it becomes important when you sell art to savvy art collectors. I have written an extensive post about oil paint here: https://veronicasart.com/oil-painting-techniques-whats-the-lightfastness-of-paint/

Panels & canvases

Panels for oil and acrylic painting

In general, panels for oil painting are much better than canvases because they don’t fluctuate much as room temperature and humidity change. Canvases tend to curve and deteriorate, especially in humid climate. Canvases expand and contract a lot due to temperature changes causing paint to crack in the long run. That’s why you can see the cracks in master paintings in art museums today. If you’re a beginner, it’s not your concern, but if you paint professionally, you should paint on panels.

I recommend: Ampersand Gessobord (medium texture, professional white panels) & Jack Richeson toned gesso hardboard panels (toned surface is great to start painting in full color. It gives a warm undertone to colors!

Canvases have a very big advantage however. They’re light and easy to carry. Canvases can be stretched to any size. Large panels are very heavy and it’s difficult to find large panels selling online. When they arrive, the corners may be damaged.
Fredrix canvases have good quality-to-price ratio for beginner artists. Utrecht canvases (and other Utrecht art supplies) are high quality that don’t cost you a fortune. They are good for beginners in oil and acrylic painting.

Brushes & mediums

Brushes must have a spring to them, meaning that they should keep their point well while painting. It’s best to test the brushes at the art store as opposed to buying unknown brands online. A lot of them are too soft or don’t come to a nice point. Here I have an extensive post written about the brushes. I recommend oil painting brushes manufactured by the Rosemary brushes & Co.

Oil paint mixes with mediums for oil painting. All paints already have some oil mixed into the pigment in your tubes. You need a little bit of medium in the 2nd and subsequent layers of painting to develop transparency and vividness of color. I also use the medium to clean up the brushes during the painting process when I switch between the colors. Clarified, cold press linseed oil is the best for oil painting because it’s stable. One disadvantage, it yellows quite a bit over an extensive period of time. Walnut oil doesn’t yellow. It slows down the drying time of oil paint however. If you’re slow, this is a great medium to work with. I recommend Sennelier Clarified Linseed Oil. Buy a small bottle. It lasts for a very long time.

Varnishes & palettes

You’ve got to have medium-toned palette for oil painting. It doesn’t really matter if it’s wood or plastic. What matters is its size and hue. You need a large one to have enough space to mix colors. Medium-toned panels are great since most of the oil painting techniques involve painting on a medium-toned surface (The underpainting in browns or greens or grays preps the painting for color layers). I have a rectangular, 10×14 palette made in Italy –Feather’s touch palette. You’ll find a great selection on this site: https://www.jerrysartarama.com/

Varnishes come in sprays and liquid form. My absolute favorite is Grumbacher final varnish for oil and acrylic painting, matte. It gives me a very even coat in seconds. Many artists like Gamblin varnishes. Please know that both the surface and space must be super clean! Varnishes attract dust like a magnet and then it’s a pain to remove any tiny hairs from the surface. Usually, you varnish oil paintings in 6 months after painting or you could wait on varnishing your oil painting even longer. Spray two-three times outdoors in low humidity environment.

Also, have at least one palette knife to mix batches of paint.

Additional art supplies: https://veronicasart.com/5-great-art-supplies-to-use-in-your-drawing-and-painting/

video courses by veronica winters
Check out free previews of my video courses here:: https://veronica-winters-art-school.teachable.com/


2. Paint everything from life!

Paint still life with oils from Life. Direct observation is key. There is no better way learning to see how light turns the form!

Links to how to set up a still life: https://veronicasart.com/how-to-paint-still-life-step-by-step-oil-painting-techniques/

3. Precise prep drawing is a must to create realistic oil paintings

oil painting techniques step by step

Drawing skills are super important! Prepare a full-scale preparatory drawing in accordance with classical oil painting techniques. You can read about it here: https://veronicasart.com/how-to-use-graphite-transfer-paper-to-trace-designs-for-drawing-and-painting/

4. Direct vs. Indirect painting

There are different approaches to color mixing in painting. The Impressionists painted without the use of black. Their paintings taught me to see colors in shadows. The old masters painted with black. I don’t know how Velasquez or Caravaggio would work without the use of black. Their high-contrast paintings taught me to focus on placement of shadows, not the details. Vermeer and Ingres have subtle, controlled palettes that reveal beauty through color unity.

caravaggio wall in borghese gallery-veronica winters art blog
Caravaggio art takes the entire wall space at the Borghese gallery. Photo: veronica winters


Direct oil painting technique

No matter what oil painting style you choose, never put acrylic paint over your oil paint! High-quality acrylic paint is ok underneath the oil paint. Always paint following the fat-over-lean rule with oil paint. Meaning that you start out with very thin paint using no medium and progress painting, building up thicker layers with more oil and linseed oil.

Direct oil painting technique is oil painting in full color right from the start. It doesn’t have the underpainting layer done in one hue. However, oil painting in full color often has 2-3 layers, depending on the artist’s style of painting.

Direct painting in full color became very popular among the Impressionists and landscape artists who began sketching outdoors in mid. 19th century. This change happened due to the simplification of the entire manufacturing process of oil paint. Artists could finally buy colors in tubes to carry them around to paint outdoors.

In this video I explain the difference between direct and indirect ways of painting. These are classical oil painting techniques that can be used in combination to achieve the desired effect.

Indirect oil painting technique

Indirect oil painting technique is the most used traditional oil painting method. It’s about creating an underpainting in one color only and then layering the colors in subsequent layers. This method has several variations.

It could be done in black-and-white (grisaille) or in low chroma greens ( white skin has a lot of green in the shadows). The grisaille oil painting technique allows the artist to develop values in shades of grey.  Values are more important than colors because values express the 3D effect, the illusion of something being round on a flat surface. The same is true for painting in low-chroma green-greys. You can find many classical art studies in art museums when artists painted in grisaille only or made an earlier version of a finished, full-color painting. Ingres comes to mind here.

ingres odalisque

Grande Odalisque in Grisaille and full color by Ingres | http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436708

Here are two versions of the Odalisque painting completed by the 19th century French artist – Ingres. Usually, the grey monochrome painting looks like a finished work of art in its own right. Technically, it’s painted on a tinted, warm brown surface. So this warmth shows through the shades of grey. Every layer must be thoroughly dry before continuing painting. If you paint over the wet layer, you not only mix the colors you don’t want to mix, but also make the paint fragile and easy to crack in the future!

Grisaille means ‘grey’ in French. It’s an oil painting technique that has been used by artists for centuries. Grisaille means painting in monochrome or shades of grey. Usually it refers to creating underpainting. Sometimes other low chroma colors are added. For example one of the Italian painting techniques is painting in shades of low-chroma green. So shades of grey look greenish (because skin tones in white people look greenish).

The Ringling museum of art, De Heem, "Still life with parrots"
The Ringling museum of art, De Heem, “Still life with parrots” | Here you can see grey-green sections in the painting where the color layers wore off to reveal a complete underpainting!
My grisaille palette is Gamblin titanium white+ ivory black + Burnt Sienna. Burnt sienna is a warm brown that 'warms up' the greys.

Why do you need to know about this oil painting technique? You learn to see values as opposed to color and to create volume on a flat surface in just two colors! It trains the eye to see and paint a wide range of tones. In classical oil painting training artists painted in greys and then added colors over the underpainting.

5. Combining the effects: sfumato, glazing & scumbling

Glazing means applying oil paint very thinly over the dry layer. Glazing gives you the effect of transparency. This technique requires the use of linseed oil or walnut oil to dilute the pigments. Strong paper towel is needed to wipe off some of the paint to create the thinnest layer possible.

Glazing is useful to unite all shadow areas and to glaze the colors in progression, creating special effects. You can do glazing multiple times when each layer dries completely. Also, know that each new layer darkens the surface. So plan ahead and paint your values a bit lighter, knowing that they’ll be darker via glazing in the end. I show the glazing technique in a short video course painting painting the blue vase.

Check out my oil painting class here.

Scumbling means applying light, opaque paint over the previous layer. Scumbling is great to paint fog, mist or to lighten up any area, uniting the surface as well. It’s possible to create fuzziness on the fruit or softness on the cheeks you can observe in classical paintings.

Astral Dream, close up, oil painting

Sfumato is an Italian term that means super soft shading. Sfumato gives haze or smoky effect to oil paintings. Leonardo is widely credited for the invention and use of this painting technique. If you look at his late paintings, the transitions between the tones are super soft with no visible edges, especially in the skin tones. The background is hazy.

Mona Lisa, detail

You can achieve such effect by carefully blending every new layer of paint with a separate (clean from paint), soft brush. Paint application is different too.

Why do you need this technique? Objects go out of focus and fade as they recede in space. So you’ve got to soften the edges a lot to show this aerial perspective. Skin tones are also very soft. Personally, I’m far away from this method of painting as I like to have strokes in my paintings but I often look at da Vinci’s work to push myself to create softer shading.

If you’re interested in da Vinci’s work, I like this wide format, hardcover book by Pietro C. Marani titled “Leonardo da Vinci, the complete paintings.”


This is one of my most popular videos I made years ago explaining the underpainting techniques, grisaille, glazing, and other color painting techniques.

One more thing. Paint the same object from different angles and under different lighting conditions. This will help you understand how light turns the form. As you can see painting with oils requires thorough understanding of materials, subject and styles to become good at it. Hope this article gives you plenty of information to start painting with oils like a pro! Thank you for reading and if you’d like to keep in touch you can subscribe to my VIP list or follow my art on Instagram, and YouTube. Good luck!

To read how to varnish your art, go here: https://veronicasart.com/fixatives-varnishes-what-you-need-to-know-to-preserve-your-art/

Check out visionary art for sale

How to improve art skills by taking great pictures for colored pencil drawing and painting

How to take great pictures for colored pencil drawing and painting

Posted on by veronica

If artists paint in figurative realism style, most rely on photography these days. Model fees, time constraints, lighting and studio conditions – all add up in a puzzle we have to organize and manage, if we paint from life. While painting from life is a must for realist artists to get the skill going, perfecting photography is also a necessary skill. Because colored pencil drawing is such a slow medium to work in, almost all artists rely on their references to create art as opposed to drawing from life. Sometimes it takes weeks to complete one colored pencil drawing, and we have to rely on our photo reference to capture story, composition, design, color, and details. That’s why great photography becomes key to artistic success. Let’s master it!

How to take great pictures suitable for colored pencil drawing and painting

It took me years to understand how to see the light turning the form and how to pick pictures, capturing that light. I used to play with pictures from fashion magazines that looked incredibly beautiful, yet they were missing something I couldn’t quite figure out what. Some were OK for black-and-white drawing but none of them were good for oil painting. Why?

All magazine pictures are Photoshoped heavily, getting rid of important information necessary for artists to capture the form realistically. First, the Photoshop filters and presets get rid of warm/cool balance in skin tones, objects and even backgrounds that we normally see in nature. Second, copyright is a big deal, and we can’t use such images for our art to create the originals. Thirdly, a lot of times the “connection” between the subject and artist is missing. We have no emotional attachment to the photo that’s not ours that results in unfinished or poorly executed art.

Photo equipment:

My greatest investment into my studio equipment is my camera Nikon D500 with the interchangeable lenses. The quality of lenses is even more important than the the body itself. The higher the quality, the better the outcome. Over the years I bought several lenses for different tasks.

  • Nikon 105 mm- micro lens for extreme close up photography
  • Nikon Nikkor 85 mm – for portrait photography (that gives no distortion)
  • Sigma 12-24 mm – for interior photography (that has a wide angle with no distortion)
  • Nikon Nikkor 18-200 mm zoom lens – for general photography ( while it’s my heavy duty use lens, it gives the most distortion and requires extra work in Photoshop to even out the perspective, etc. Zoom lens have the most distortion especially noticeable in cityscape photography).

I also have an inexpensive Westcott reflector kit with multiple colored surfaces (silver, gold, white) that I use for portrait photography at times. I use the reflector to bounce the natural light back onto my model or object that removes harsh shadows or adds more light into the shadows.

You can also consider buying a backdrop equipment that I don’t need personally because I shoot models in natural environment, and when I do still life photography I make my own light box set up that you’ll see in the article below.

Besides having excellent equipment you also need to have a good eye to take great pictures, which you develop by studying the art of others and practicing your photography skills.

Pixabay image

Advantages of Mastering Photography:

  • It develops your originality and vision.
  • It forces you to extrapolate and focus on what’s important in busy environments.
  • It teaches you to see how light shapes the form
  • The artist is the sole designer and creator of artwork beginning from the very first step of photography.
  • It’s a forgiving medium, giving you many chances to practice at all times. You become attuned to cropping and balancing techniques that artists traditionally use in their paintings.

Disadvantages of Using Photography:

  • It often flattens out the form to such a degree that you have a hard time re-creating the volume. That’s why it is best to start taking pictures with one directional light source that gives you definite lights and shadows.
  • Camera makes its choice. Even the best cameras don’t capture what you see as an artist, which involves emotion. By working from a picture, artists analyze the subject rather than respond to it freely.
  • There is a lot of distortion in the images depending on the lens and camera you use that is obvious in cityscape photography or in pictures of geometric objects. The same distortion is present in pictures of people or fruit, or whatever subject you have, but our eye doesn’t catch those distortions as quickly as we notice those in linear and geometric forms. Those “unseen” distortions will travel to a student’s drawing when the artist transfers the outlines rather than learns to sketch freehand from his reference.
  • You may have problems with exposure. Use the HDR (high dynamic range) function on your phone to level out the exposure. HDR combines two or three pictures into one automatically, giving you a single balanced shot. HDR function is very handy when the sky looks too bright or the background is so light that it makes your subject appear too dark. ‱ You can take good pictures with your phone, although the quality won’t be the same as shooting with a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera. If you shoot with your phone, zoom in on your object as closely as you can. That will blur the background, giving your subject a boost in color and texture.
colored pencil manual veronica winters
You’ll find sample photos and more information on mastering the photography in The Colored Pencil Manual as well my Colored Pencil Video Course

Subjects

leopard, how to improve art skills
This image is taken from Pixabay, a free resource for artists to use!

First of all, decide what you favorite subjects are, and isolate them from busy environments. Here are some ideas for your photography. Close-ups of textured subjects—these can be the most fun, unpredictable subjects for your photography and art.

They can be reflective surfaces and reflections, fabric patterns and lace, rusted door locks, wood grain, colorful feathers, candy, sliced fruit, marbles, flowers, kitchen utensils or tools, and even mechanical parts of clocks. Other popular subjects are glass; portraiture; animals, birds, and pets; food; florals; seashells and sea life; trees and landscapes.

Properties of light

Your goal of shooting in the “right lighting conditions” is to beautify your subject and to bring the best out in it. Ask yourself what attracts you to this object. It could be a specific texture, transparency, color, or an abstract pattern of light and shade that you see. You need to figure out what you love about your subject and how you can highlight its most attractive qualities in a specific light. If your subject looks boring in a picture, chances are that the lighting conditions were boring at the time it was shot.

Light temperature:

starfish, how to take good pictures
In this picture the evening light is warm (yellow) and the shadows are cool (blue).

The light can be either warm or cool. In the beginning it may be difficult to spot the difference, but if you ask yourself if it is yellowish or bluish, it makes more sense. Fluorescent lights tend to be cooler, while the tungsten lights are warmer. In nature, you see a beautiful golden light twenty minutes before the sunset. The light temperature affects how you see the colors and how they unify everything in the image. You also use the light temperature to understand the color on your subject: if the light is cool, it gives cool lights and warm shadows. If the light is warm, it gives you warm lights and cooler shadows.

Quality of light:

This picture has a soft, diffused light throughout. While the picture looks like fun to draw, it would be much harder for a beginning artist to create volume and to turn the form using this kind of lighting. (Pixabay image)

Natural light is the most beautiful light we have as artists. While the soft, diffused light may give the artist beautiful, soft skin tones in portrait photography or a dream-like mist in a landscape, this light is difficult to master for a beginner who is shooting pictures of glass, fruit, or flowers. The glass loses its sparkle and reflections, the fruit doesn’t have the volume or shadows, and flowers appear quite bleak. That’s because the diffused light gives you very soft, almost unnoticeable shadows and highlights, which, in turn, are difficult to reproduce in art for a student. Whatever the light temperature is, the goal is to avoid getting monotonous images that often happen in diffused light situations when you have an overcast sky.

 

Light direction and shadows:

how to improve art skills
This teapot has one directional light set up on the right at night. Such light gives strong highlights and shadows that are easier to re-create in a drawing.

The most effective way to study the light on a form is to have a singular, strong directional light source set up at 45 degrees, which is often called Rembrandt lighting. This light direction creates beautiful highlights and shadows that will add dimension to your objects.

If you go to an atelier school of classical painting, you’ll see students draw from plaster casts and still lifes set under a single directional light that doesn’t change direction for the entire drawing process. Such setups are vital to an artist’s understanding of how to turn the form. So when you take pictures inside, find and focus on one primary light source, like a table lamp, and consider its strength. Look at your subject and find definite highlights and shadows on and under it because it will give you this 3-dimensional quality you want to re-create in your drawing.

Set up a strong directional light drawing people. In this example the David’s Eye sculpture looks very three-dimensional because of the directional light that makes the forms pop.

In my video course I teach how to take your colored pencil drawing to the next level including set up and photography. Watch a video preview here:

Depth of field:

Shallow depth of field allows you to capture your object in a sharp focus, blurring the rest of the image. A soft background supports the focal point rather than competing with it. When you have a high depth of field set at f16 on your camera, everything is in focus, and oftentimes the image will look too busy and indistinguishable from other elements in the background where everything competes with each other. Always think what you’d like to focus on, then make it your priority by zooming in or fixing the depth of field.

Zoom in, keep it simple & use negative space as a design element:

crystal pitcher colored pencil drawing
This is a crystal pitcher colored pencil drawing. The background (negative space) becomes part of the design in the artwork.

Background affects the edges and creates abstract shapes. As a beginner, stick to plain backgrounds to isolate your subject and to show contrast. After a while you can start playing with the color and complexity of your negative space as well.

Use backgrounds and boxes for staged photography:

light box still life set up
Light box still life set up

If you don’t want to buy a light box, you can make a very simple setup next to your window. Use colorful but plain matboards, fabric, or paper as your choices. The result is a single image with a beautiful, natural directional light, a shadow, and a white or color background all around it.

Avoid flash photography:

Flash destroys the natural flow of light and its shadows. It flattens out the object and gives you strange, unnatural colors. Professional photographers know how to rotate their flash unit to get the right position of the flash, but most of us don’t!

Prioritize values over color:

When a student is learning to draw and paint, it is difficult to translate hues to tones. Convert your photos into greyscale to see values. Most students end up with middle-toned drawings because of weak contrast.

Well, I hope this article helps you to shoot beautiful pictures as references for your art!

video courses by veronica winters
Check out free previews of my video courses here: https://veronica-winters-art-school.teachable.com/

Unlocking the secrets of master oil painters: interview with George O’Hanlon & Tatiana Zaytseva at Natural Pigments

Posted on by veronica

Learn why the 20th-century art will be lost faster than the old masters’ paintings housed in various art collections worldwide. Meet George O’Hanlon and Tatiana Zaytseva, co-founders of Natural Pigments.

In this episode, we’ll be exploring the hidden truth about today’s art supplies and how the incorrect use and poor quality can cause cracking, fading and other issues with art. We’ll discuss the oil painting techniques and art materials of the old masters. By the end of this interview, you’ll have much better understanding how to use oil paint, mediums, gesso and other art supplies in your own paintings, and you’ll be able to understand the various techniques used by the artists before the 19th century. Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from the best!

Based in northern California, Natural Pigments manufactures and sells rare and hard-to-find materials for professional fine artists and decorators. The art supply company produces high-quality artists’ materials that were used in historical painting until the nineteenth century.

Contact: George O’Hanlon, Technical Director + Tatiana Zaytseva, Administrative Director of Natural Pigments https://www.naturalpigments.com/

Understand how to create the best oil paintings possible using high-quality art supplies correctly.

Interview:

  • 2-23min Why George went to Russia and how he met his future wife Tatiana.
  • 24-30min George’s surprising discovery of the old masters painting techniques
  • 39min The proper use of mediums in oil painting
  • 46min How the “Painting Best Practices Workshop” was born
  • 48min Is it ok to have acrylic underpainting with oil painting?
  • 51:40min Does gesso quality matter?
  • 57min The importance of having high-quality art materials and how to use them correctly to make lasting art
  • 59min Main advantage painting with lead white. The difference between titanium white and lead white. Is lead poisoning real for artists? The safely issues with the lead white oil paint.
  • 1hr Safe use of solvents
  • 1:09 The lightfastness of colors
  • 1:15 Medium to paint thick textures in oil painting
  • 1:17 Gilding process and preparation of surface
  • 1:24 the best surfaces for oil painting and gilding
  • 1:31 The most famous artist who creates art painting with Natural Pigments!

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zxv_WXHvO6c

Subscribe & rate this podcast on Spotify and Apple | Show your support for the podcast: here | Host: Veronica Winters, MFA | veronicasart.com

Watch in a video format on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

the infinity of human soul-24x36-veronica winters-oil paintings for sale

Realistic oil painting techniques & image design

Posted on by veronica

In this video I explain how I design my images using Photoshop Elements. Next, I show how I approach painting my picture in layers. Photoshop Elements doesn’t require a monthly subscription. I bought it for under $100 several years ago and use this program as much as I want to. I usually paint on panels but when I go bigger I switch to painting on canvas because it’s much lighter. I gesso my surface 2-3 times even when the surface has been gessoed before because it gives me a much better grip of the paint to the surface. I let each paint layer dry completely before painting the next and I apply a spray varnish over my painting in 6 months after painting it.

Art supplies on Amazon:

Stop creating ugly paintings: 4 color mixing tips in oil painting that work

Posted on by veronica

I spent many years learning how to draw realistically and then how to use color in oil painting well. I’m not the best realist artist out there but I’m sharing what I’ve learned over the years to help you become a realist artist today. I must say that realist oil painting is a lot more challenging than drawing because color mixing in oil painting is not the same thing as shading in colored pencil or painting in watercolor. In drawing artists shade via subsequent layering to build up a range of values. In oil painting we have to “guess” correct color, value and color temperature in one stroke! What I’m sharing here has taken me years to learn. I spent thousands of dollars on classical painting education that was hard to come by two decades ago. We’re are lucky to have proper art education available today in a form of atelier schools and on-line classes.

How color mixing works

Artists have various approaches to color mixing in oil painting. Some paint in full color from the start, others work on detailed underpainting before moving to color. Some pre-mix colors, others don’t. There is no wrong or right way of doing it. The oil painting technique comes with experience and varies in accordance with the artist’s personality.

Over the years I learned different ways of oil painting and I usually use them in a combination. Color mixing is the hardest part to master in oil painting. Even when your drawing is pretty good, oil painting can still be a huge challenge because of a different approach to color mixing. That’s why even when you get the exact list of colors used in artist’s artwork, you can’t really re-create the same beautiful result you see on YouTube.

Artists have to match color, color temperature and value in one stroke as opposed to achieving the same result via layering in colored pencils or watercolor. Therefore, artists must have a system in place to make color-mixing easy. 
contemporary realism art oil painting with starfish by veronica winters
contemporary realism still life painting with starfish, 16×20" oil on canvas, silver frame, available

#1 Do underpainting in one color first

Underpainting serves three purposes.

  • First, you establish your drawing on canvas. So it stays in place.
  • Second, you put warm color underneath your painting. This process gives you a nice, warm tone that interacts with your colors at a later stage.
  • Third, you establish basic pattern of light and shadow. It becomes a guide for your painting to control values.

Use warm brown underpainting

I use W&N artist’s oil color burnt sienna for underpainting in warm brown. Sometimes I add a touch of ivory black to darken the darkest areas in the painting. I keep everything rather transparent. Caravaggio used this oil painting technique in his art.

color mixing oil painting
Here I’ve done the underpainting in burnt sienna (warm brown) and began using full color palette to develop my painting further.

Use grey underpainting

Sometimes I underpaint my work in grays.

It’s a mix of 3/4 ivory black+1/4 warm brown with the increments of titanium white. (More on that below). This oil painting technique was used by many classically-trained artists including Ingres.

Use green underpainting

Some artists prefer the underpainting in dull green. White skin has a lot of green in it and this kind of underpainting becomes great to reveal cool shadows in the face, etc. There are many classical artists who used this oil painting technique. Beautiful, natural greens are Natural Pigments’ Antica Green Earth and Gamblin Terre Verte.

#2 Use your palette knife for color mixing in oil painting

#1 Use your palette knife, not the brush to mix the color strings. It’s the only way to mix large, clean batches of color.

#2 Use the palette knife to compare and to match the color you want to mix.

color mixing in oil painting veronica winters
To match the color perfectly you need to use your palette knife. Mix the color on your medium-toned palette, rotate the knife and place it next to your color source to see if you’ve matched the color. In this picture you can see me try to match the blue of this card.

#3 Pre-mix your main colors

I premix batches of color for large areas to have consistency and color unity throughout my oil painting. It could be separate batches of color for my background, for a dress and the skin tones.

oil painting techniques color mixing

I premix color strings for skin tones as well. Colors vary depending on my project.

#4 Use grays to neutralize chroma in color mixing

It’s rare to see vibrant (high-chroma) objects around you. In fact, realist artists show restraint in using bright color because only one or two hues should be dominant with the other hues supporting them. So most colors must be toned down to give the realistic effect. Beginner artists and art collectors tend to paint and to collect very bright art. True understanding and appreciation of color mixing mastery grows overtime. By looking at Sargent’s & Bouguereau’s work you can see how muted yet realistic their colors are.

Psyche abduct_By William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Psyche abduct, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

I use the grays to neutralize my tube colors.

how to make oil underpainting
The strip of grays represents the value scale. It’s mixed from 3/4 ivory black+1/4 warm brown with the increments of titanium white.

Chroma is the brightness of a color.

The easiest way to tone down bright colors is to use a slightly warm gray. It’s mixed from 3/4 ivory black+1/4 warm brown with the increments of titanium white. The strip of grays represents the value scale.

To keep color mixtures fresh for more than one day, I wrap them up in wax paper. Airtight oil paint stays fresh for 2+ days on average.

video courses by veronica winters
Check out free previews of my video courses here:: https://veronica-winters-art-school.teachable.com/

Color harmony in oil painting from art history

There are different approaches to color mixing in painting. The Impressionists painted without the use of black. Their paintings taught me to see colors in the shadows. The old masters painted with black to create strong contrast.

Color unity or color harmony are present in all classical paintings. You’ll find explanations of color harmonies in classical oil paintings in this article 5 Tips that’ll make you better at oil painting: https://veronicasart.com/5-tips-thatll-make-you-better-at-oil-painting/

Video explaining color mixing in oil painting:

Basic Art supplies:

Panels & canvas:

Don’t buy the cheapest canvases at craft stores and online! Their gesso (white ground) is very low quality that affects everything from paint application to oil paint adherences to archival properties.

Other helpful articles about oil painting techniques:

5 tips in realist oil painting:

5 Tips in Realist Oil Painting Techniques for beginners & beyond

ow to use graphite transfer paper for drawing and painting

How to use graphite transfer paper to trace your outlines in drawing and painting

Posted on by veronica

Most realist artists use this drawing technique to have a perfect and clean outline drawing. There are several old-fashioned ways of image transfer like the oil transfer, charcoal powder transfer, etc. I find that using graphite transfer paper is the most efficient way of transferring your designs on paper and canvas. The image looks clean and clear.

You must have perfect outlines to begin drawing realistically.  When your drawing is complex, it requires sketching, erasing, and sketching again. It ruins the paper’s surface that must stay nice and clean for even shading in graphite or colored pencil. That’s why I often sketch my idea on a separate piece of paper that matches my canvas (or drawing) size to transfer these outlines onto my drawing paper. This image transfer technique was called “cartoon drawings” by the old masters. Classical painters spent weeks doing studies and drawings before transferring them onto panels and canvases.

How to use transfer paper to trace your outline drawing

You need the graphite transfer paper for precise tracing of your lineart or cartoon drawing. If your art is very complex and you wish to keep the working surface clean, use this technique for your advantage.

Graphite Transfer paper brands and features

Saral Graphite Transfer Paper

how to use transfer paper
  • Comes in 5 colors! Blue, yellow, graphite, white red
  • Saral transfer rolls are wax-less, non-toxic, and do not contain acid. The paper allows you to transfer your design from a sketch, pattern, template or by hand to almost any surface. May be used with acetate overlays, plastics and enamel, metal, cloth, wood, fabric, ceramic, canvas, stained glass, tole paintings, architectural work, scrapbooking, watercolor, fine art, and more.
  • Shows up equally well on light or dark surfaces.
  • 12 inch x 12 foot roll; comes in a roll (similar to a wax paper roll).

Loew-Cornell Black and White Graphite Transfer Papers

how to use transfer paper
  • Waxless, greaseless, smudge proof, erasable
  • Doesn’t bleed through paint, and it doesn’t smear.
  • Works for drawing and painting but not recommended for fabric and porous surfaces
  • Ideal for large projects due to its size. You can also cut it for smaller projects.
  • Reusable! I’ve been using my two sheets of graphite paper for years, and it still works fine!
  • Comes in as a single, large folded sheet of paper in one package. You need to buy two packages to have different colors. Package of 4 Sheets— Each sheet measures 9″ Ă— 13″ | Single Sheet Package â€” One 18″ Ă— 36″ sheet

Royal & LangnickelÂź White Graphite Transfer Paper

  • It doesn’t smear, having no wax or grease
  • Comes in one 18 x 36 inch sheet of white graphite paper per package.
  • Erases similar to a pencil and is very similar to the Loew-Cornell transfer papers.

How to use transfer paper in your art projects

 

oil painting techniques step by step
oil painting techniques still life with starfish and peacock feather

I sketch out my drawing on a sketch paper and then transfer these outlines onto drawing paper using an HB graphite pencil or a ballpoint pen. You can replace the pen or pencil with a stylus if you want to preserve your original reference sketch/photo for future projects. Check out the Soft-Grip Embossing & Stylus Set Complete by Royal & Langnickel (3 Pack) for that.

Is it cheating?

A lot of artists, especially beginners skip the sketching step, transferring the image direct from a photo onto the drawing paper. While it’s totally possible, beware that many pictures have lens distortion that’s especially noticeable in anatomy and photos with linear perspective like cityscapes. So you end up transferring the distortion into your art.

Also, you don’t learn basic drawing skills by simply transferring the image and not learning how to sketch it freehand. However, if your drawing skills are good, this drawing technique is very helpful speeding up the entire process.

Pick the right color of the transfer paper for your project

Basic steps in scratchboard art. In the first image you can see the use of white transfer paper on 5×7″ scratchboard. You can read about the scratchboard art here: https://veronicasart.com/how-to-start-scratchboard-art-tools-techniques-tips-to-make-fur-texture/

For transferring designs to both white and dark paper white transfer paper is ideal. Also, use the white or yellow transfer paper for your watercolor painting. Black transfer paper’s line doesn’t erase completely and is not suitable for watercolor painting!

Use black transfer paper with caution in your colored pencil drawing as well. I mostly use this black transfer paper for tracing my designs onto canvas/panels, and I often use white transfer paper for my colored pencil drawing, especially when I draw on colored paper because these white outlines show up well and blend with my subsequent shading. White graphite line will show up even on white paper, but you’ll have to observe your lines at a specific angle. I also love to use white graphite transfer paper to transfer my designs working on scratchboard art because the surface must be very clean!

To buy the graphite paper

  • Amazon
  • JerrysArtarama
  • DickBlick
  • Michael’s & other craft stores
colored pencil manual veronica wintershow to color like an artist_coloring book_veronica winters
These art instruction books are on sale on Amazon!
Video courses

If you draw in colored pencil, I invite you to watch FREE previews of some of my lessons in my course titled “Veronica Winters complete colored pencil techniques in 90 days.”

https://veronica-winters-art-school.teachable.com/ Watch video lessons previews FREE!

5 Tips that’ll make you better at oil painting

Posted on by veronica

#1 Think of your idea & design

Idea, color, and design are three main variables of every painting I create. I sketch a lot and play with images in Photoshop to come up with my imagery. Nowadays I find that I’m more efficient when I use Photoshop to cut, paste and combine images to create a visual story that has visual balance, color and clarity.

As for images, I mostly use my references. As I travel, I collect my visual inspiration and organize them on folders on my computer. However sometimes I find a specific model/ picture on a copyright free sites- Pixabay, Unsplash. Freepick has beautiful images too. These are great free resources for artists! For example, I don’t do underwater photography and I can find the right reference there. So if you need pictures for reference or drawing, you may find lots of inspiration there.

sphynx cats art-veronica winters

#2 Study the anatomy daily

When I began my artistic journey two decades ago I thought I would never paint people. I sucked at it!!! I used to draw stick figures. Over the years I took more figure drawing classes than many of my peers in college. When I was in class, I saw how talented some students were and the only way for me to catch up was to double down on drawing the figure from life. I miss my studio time in New York. It was liberating and fun. A lot of learning happened there. I must say no art class can replace practice. Being alone in your studio painting for weeks, months, years is necessary to develop a unique voice.

Aphrodite, basic proportions of the female (and male) head

When you draw people, line up all the facial features, preserving proportions. This image shows you how to divide the face. It also shows how the eyes, nose, lips and eyebrows move because of the head’s tilt and rotation. You must keep checking the line up as you paint at all times. As the face turns, we see foreshortening of some features but the line up remains the same. One eye can’t end up on the forehead (move higher or lower) because of the rotation. I use my brush’s handle to check the line up when I paint.

oil painting techniques painting face
Here I check the line up of the eyes as I begin painting the face.

#3 Understand how color mixing works

Color is like a thread that holds all elements together to reveal beauty in art. I used to be a very chaotic painter with somewhat intuitive understanding of color and its importance in art…

Alone, 9×12″ oil painting close up

I think of my color scheme before I begin painting. It helps me create visual unity in the end. However, I also allow myself to deviate from the plan if I see it’s working in a new way. Sometimes I repaint the entire painting like that, and other times I just follow the reference photo 100 percent. My understanding of color and color harmony keeps evolving year after year. I discover fresh color combinations by extrapolating and simplifying the information I see in front of me.

oil painting techniques color mixing
I pre-mix batches of color and make color strings by adding the titanium white to every original color string. This painting technique is necessary to control values in art.

Study art history to create beautiful contemporary art

I often study paintings created before and during the 19th-century to understand the use of color harmony by great artists. There are different approaches to color mixing in oil painting.

The_Inspiration_of_Saint_Matthew_by_Caravaggio
The_Inspiration_of_Saint_Matthew_by_Caravaggio By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio – http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/caravaggio/matthew.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136502

The old masters painted with black and browns for the most part, placing one strong color front and center to make a statement. Notice how red fabric revolves around the figure moving us around the painting in a spiral. In this painting by Caravaggio you can see that he creates strong contrast. White and red appear much stronger due to value and color contrast made with brown-black.

Diego_Rodriguez_de_Silva_y_VelĂĄzquez_-_Infanta_Margarita_Teresa_in_a_Blue_Dress s d
VelĂĄzquez, Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress | Here the leading color us blue…

I don’t know how Velasquez  or Caravaggio would have worked without the use of black. Their high-contrast paintings taught me to focus on placement of shadows, not the details. I also learned to have have 1-2 “leading” colors muting the rest of them with the use of greys and browns.

woman holding a balance Johannes Vermeer, 1664
Woman holding a balance Johannes Vermeer, 1664


Both Vermeer and Ingres had subtle, controlled palettes that revealed beauty through color unity and softness. Vermeer painted cool light coming from a single window illuminating the figure. His figures are not illuminated by the candle light, rather they bath in natural light.

Kramskoy_forest ranger close up , russian painting
Kramskoy, forest ranger close up | 19th century Russian art | This is one of the greatest Russian artists who painted life-like portraits of common folk. Here we focus on intense gaze of the man because his face has a lot of detail, light and color while the rest of the painting has soft edges and muted background.
ClaudeMonet-The-Houses-of-Parliament-at-Sunset-1903
ClaudeMonet-The-Houses-of-Parliament-at-Sunset-1903

The Impressionists painted without the use of black. Their paintings taught me to see color in shadows. Blues and purples in the afternoon shadows… Greens in the face…

mary cassatt
Sleepy baby, pastels, 1910 by Mary Cassatt. I like the energetic strokes in this painting and layering of colors.
Godward, lady in purple
Godward, Lady in purple

Painted by John William Godward, this painting is a great example of artistic excellence that shows us how the artist controls his color palette skillfully. Beautiful purples of the dress harmonize with the model’s scarf and flowers, blooming behind her. Her blue sash harmonizes perfectly with the color of the sea and the sky. White marble creates contrast and separates the figure from the background. Placed at a diagonal, a dark fan harmonizes with the woman’s large pillow set behind her.
The diagonals of her legs, torso and arms create a subtle movement inside the picture that lets us travel across the painting. Every element is in such balance and relationship to one another that we perceive it as an absolutely beautiful painting, admiring the realistic details we can all see. Such beautiful realistic paintings set a very high bar for any contemporary realist artist to live up to.

Color mixing in contemporary art painting

Color mixing is the hardest part to master in oil painting, in my opinion. Even when your drawing is pretty good, oil painting can still be a huge challenge because of a different approach to color mixing. That’s why even when you get the exact list of colors used in artist’s artwork, you can’t really re-create the same beautiful result you see on YouTube on in art museum.

Artists have various approaches to color mixing. Some paint in full color from the start, others work on detailed underpainting before moving to color. Some pre-mix colors, others prefer using tube colors. There is no wrong or right approach. The oil painting technique comes with experience and varies in accordance with artist’s personality.

Over the years I learned different ways of painting and I use them in a combination. I suggest learning from several artists that you admire by taking their workshops, classes or online courses. And then practice, practice, practice!

Harmony, 12x16in, mixed media on panel

Oil painting in full color is much harder than drawing. Why? Because artists have to match color, color temperature and value in one stroke as opposed to achieving the same result via layering in colored pencils or watercolor. Therefore, we must have a system in place to make these decisions consistently as we paint. 

Drawing in colored pencil leads to color vibrancy naturally because colored pencils don’t mix to gray. However, oil painting is a lot more complicated because the artist needs to give “light” to the paint. A few pure colors become beautiful by juxtaposing them with grays and neutrals, not by painting everything screaming bright with out-of-the-tube colors. This took me years to grasp!

1. To organize myself, I often paint in full color over the underpainting. Underpainting is like a good set up to establish line drawing and contrast.

2. I premix batches of color for large areas to have consistency and color unity throughout my painting.

The strip of grays represents the value scale. It’s mixed from 3/4 ivory black+1/4 warm brown with the increments of titanium white. I use the grays to neutralize my tube colors! It’s rare to see vibrant (high-chroma) objects. So most colors must be toned down to give realistic effect.

3. I premix color strings for skin tones as well. Colors vary depending on my project.

oil painting techniques color mixing
Color strings. Use palette knife to pre-mix the colors

4. I use few colors to achieve colorful result. Less is more in oil painting. So, I know what color mixes I get by mixing them with each other daily. I used to keep color strings to remember my results. Now it’s intuitive based on my experience.

5. Use your palette knife, not the brush to mix the color strings. It’s the only way to mix large, clean batches of color. 

6. To keep color mixtures fresh for more than one day, I wrap them up in wax paper. Airtight oil paint stays fresh for 3+ days on average.

Glazing is one of the old masters techniques when artists glaze transparent colors over the refined underpainting to build up hues in progression. One area can be glazed several times to increase depth and to enrich colors. Artists wipe off the extra paint to increase transparency and even application. Glazing darkens the surface, so artists must think of the end result in advance of using this technique. I show this oil painting technique in detail in my online class. Click on the link to see a preview.

7. I step back from my painting often to see major shapes and contrast as opposed to focusing on details.

8. I use a wide, soft brush to blend the strokes in the end of every painting session.

#4 Use good brushes

If you’ve tried painting, you know how hard it is to find a good set of brushes. Many of them are flimsy or too soft to spread the paint around. Or they shed hairs like a cat.🐈 Others don’t keep the fine point necessary to paint the details. I went through so many brushes trying to find something that really works for oil painting. You have no idea!

1. Use stiffer, synthetic brushes for your underpainting because the first layer doesn’t go smoothly and can be spread out with a bit of a solvent (Gamsol), not the medium. Both the solvent and textured canvas surface wear out fine brushes super quickly!

2. When you layer oil paint over the underpainting, it layers smoother but still needs just a bit of medium to have the flow. This is the stage when having good brushes is critical to painting subtle transitions and details. Here are a few cheap buys that work. I find that Simply Simmons brushes are cheap but durable and have a good spring to them for painting. For detailed work I really like Ebony Splendor by Creative Mark. This brand has a variety of small brushes. Rosemary brushes are fabulous. Also I find that painting on large canvas is much easier with W&N Galeria brushes.

3. I find that the length of the brush handle makes no difference in painting. In fact, if you do detailed work, you want to minimize your hand’s movement to remain precise. I don’t see how long handles help artists with that.

4. I keep a wide, super soft brush (3/4 or 1″) for blending large areas to soften everything before I quit painting for a day. It doesn’t matter what brand it is as long as it’s soft like watercolor brushes are.

5. It’s important to take care of your brushes to make them last. I’ve noticed that solvents tear them down quite quickly. That’s why I take the paint off with a paper towel and then use a soap bar to clean them after every painting session.

#5 Be kind to yourself

If you’re like me, I’m very hard on myself doing, well, anything. I try to do my best and if it doesn’t come out any good, I often feel devastated. By being aware of this problem, I try to refocus and see what I actually did right. I also enjoy the very act of painting. Every painting makes me one step closer to my goal. I’m lucky I can paint and it makes me feel grateful that I have this opportunity. What about you?

Basic Art supplies:

  1. Transfer paper:

Loew-Cornell C101-1 4-Piece Grey Transfer Paper https://amzn.to/2Zx3Wyv

White transfer paper: https://amzn.to/3gAaPFo or https://amzn.to/2XMdBPg 

Da Vinci pro Panels: https://amzn.to/36qrgQf

Jack Richeson panels: https://amzn.to/3gfk6CI

Linseed oil: https://amzn.to/3ebrixQ or https://amzn.to/2LWkdoP

Varnish for oil and acrylic paintings only: https://amzn.to/3bUJ2fh

Messenger, colored pencil drawing with glitter and resin, 16×20 inches, a close-up

If you find this article helpful, forward it to a friend. thank you! 🙂

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What is lightfastness of oil paint? 4-step guide

Posted on by veronica

While I’m not an expert in art conservation, I am a full-time artist. After years of painting, conversations with other professionals and some research, I can guide you in choosing your oil paints for your art. Feel free to research this topic further via my references at the bottom of this post or by contacting the products’ manufacturers. A lot of information listed here is coming from podcasts with the Natural Pigments’ director George O’Hanlon.

Picking the right brand of oil paint can be a challenge. Some brands are promoted so heavily by the art supply companies that artists buy their paints without having a second thought. When I was a student, the quality of paint hardly ever mattered to me and my most common determinant was the price. Today as I take care of my art my buying choices are strongly influenced by the overall quality and lightfastness of oil paint.

There are several important properties of oil paint artists should pay attention to. The most necessary information can be seen written right on a tube of paint. Don’t buy the paint that doesn’t have the following data printed on it.

1. Transparency vs. opaqueness of oil paint

While some oil colors are transparent, others are opaque or semi-opaque. If you see an empty square, or a half-empty one, or a filled square on the back cover of oil paint, it gives you information about the transparency of oil paint.  Some brands just say “Transparent” or “Semi-opaque” as opposed to assigning a specific symbol to it. So when I chose my paint for glazing, applying the transparent layers of paint, I look at the square/ or a note on transparency to determine if my paint is naturally good for glazing. Some transparent colors are Gamblin’s ultramarine blue, Michael Harding’s bright yellow lake. The transparent colors look almost glass-like when mixed with linseed oil.

Opaque or semi-opaque colors are often good for scumbling, layering light opaque paint over the dark area.

2. Pigments used in oil paint determine the lightfastness (resistance to light) and longevity of your art.

This is the most important principle in choosing your paint. The pigments used in oil paint are described in letters and numbers. For example, PB15-phtylocianine blue is rated lightfastness I. PW1-lead white is lightfastness I. PR2-Napthol red G- lightfastness II, etc.

While some basic colors have just one pigment, there are many colors that consist of several pigments mixed together along with oil, fillers, and binders. These “new,” not historical colors give artists a lot more color choices, but every pigment present in such paint tube should be checked for lighfastness separately. For example, Winton flesh tint has 4 pigments in it (PW6, PW5, PY42, and PV19).

Here is extensive pigment information database that lists oil paint properties including the lightfastness of paints: http://www.artiscreation.com/


Each company performs its own tests. This information is written on the tube, and it reads either as +, ++ or +++, or lightfastness I, lightfastness II, or lightfastness III and so on. The higher the number (3-4) the less lightfast the paint is.

By nature, browns and ochres are often more lightfast than some funky colors, like alizarin crimson or turquoise. Those colors that have lightfastness 3-4 are fugitive and fade pretty quickly. If you paint professionally, those colors should be avoided.

Artists can perform their own tests by exposing 1/2 of paint to the sun (while the other half is covered by black tape or cardboard). Lift the tape in a month of continuous light exposure to see the change in color. Artist Virgil Elliott has tested numerous colors of various brands. You’ll find a lot of useful information on painting in his book Traditional oil painting and in his facebook group.

3. Type of oil mixed into the paint.

All tubed paints have some oil mixed into the paint. Linseed oil is the most stable oil that is also used widely as paint medium by artists. It’s long-lasting and dries quite quickly.

Safflower oil, poppy oil, and walnut oil are less stable oils often used as vehicles that are mixed into the oil paint. Avoid using safflower oil.

4. The amount of fillers and binders added to oil paint.

Various amounts of fillers and binders are mixed into the oils as well. They dilute the pigment by “stretching” the paint, making it cheaper to the consumer. Such pigments have a much longer shelf life. Fillers and binders greatly affect the consistency and texture of paint. It could affect the drying speed of paint as well.

Rublev colors, manufactured by Natural Pigments, don’t have any fillers in their paint, making the oils more stable and with high tinting strength. Like other professional-grade paints, they give artists a lot more pigment in a small tube as opposed to cheaper oil paint put in a large tube. But because NP have no extra binders, their shelf life is very limited and it’s best to use the paint within a year. I could barely squish the paint out of the tube after that.

Professional brands of oil paints include:

  • Rublev colors by Natural Pigments
  • Old Holland
  • Michael Harding
  • Gamblin
  • Chroma
  • Utrecht
  • dardecor (Spain)

These are great resources for further research:

  • The atelier movement– a closed group on Facebook-exists for artists interested in classical painting. The group’s administrator is classically trained artist-Graydon Parrish.
  • Artist Virgil Elliot: http://virgilelliott.com/
  • Douglas Flynt’ blog
  • “The artist’s handbook of materials & techniques” by Ralph Mayer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Artists-Handbook-Materials-Techniques/dp/0670837016
  • Sadie Valerie blog: http://www.sadievaleri.com/blog/
  • The Natural Pigments website:  https://www.naturalpigments.com/art-supply-education/painting-for-posterity-with-modern-oil-paints/
Check out my oil painting video class that teaches classical oil painting techniques! I recorded it a decade ago but the rules are still the same.
https://veronica-winters-art-school.teachable.com/p/realist-oil-painting-techniques-secrets-for-serious-beginners-beyond
Listen to this video while you paint! The owners explain a lot about the properties of oil paint and the old masters techniques.

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