How to start painting. How to paint with oil paints: a guide for beginners

Coloring pictures by numbers is very interesting. This The best way be alone with your thoughts. What else is good about color by number paintings? With what you get quick results. You can decorate your home with a painted picture and proudly tell and show it to guests. Every time you look at your masterpiece, you will experience joy and delight. You don’t need to give half a kingdom for such a hobby; color by number paintings are affordable. Check out our selection of paintings that we have planned to draw.

1. Cherry blossoms.

You can look at this picture endlessly. Will decorate a bedroom or living room.

2. Lush bouquet.

Flowers and fruits look like real ones; it is best to decorate the dining area.

3. Lioness with baby.

Animal lovers will be happy to take on this work.

4. Marine theme.

You can draw it and give it to a friend who is an avid traveler.

5. Golden autumn.

While working on this picture, it seems to us that we can forget about all the problems. Works better than medicine.

6. Pensive fish.

This fish only looks simple and artless. I'll have to work on it some more.

7. Yellow sunflowers.

Taking this set in your hands, you can compete with Van Gogh himself. In any case, do no worse.

8. Somewhere by the sea.

This picture will give you the opportunity to mentally be a thousand kilometers away.

there are answers to all these questions. Here are the basics of where to start painting. Follow these tips, do the exercises and you will no longer be afraid clean slate. You'll get necessary knowledge and basic skills. Painting will become closer, clearer and will bring a lot of pleasure.

Part 1. Preparatory

1. Find an inspiring subject to draw

It happens that you have already prepared everything, but you cannot find an object that would inspire you. This should be taken care of in advance. Something interesting is probably lying around in cabinets and desk drawers. Look for items at estate sales, consignment stores and grocery stores. Study paintings by your favorite artists.

The selection should include items that are pleasant to look at: this is important for creating successful work.

An interest in color and shape will motivate you as you work on your painting. There is a connection between feelings for an object and the ability to reveal your abilities. You can do more than you think.

For the first picture, a simple one-color symmetrical vessel, such as a regular coffee cup, will do. Illustration from the book

2. Get to know brushes and paints

Take a soft round brush and a bristle brush in your hands and compare their bristles. Squeeze a little onto the palette acrylic paint from a tube. Try applying undiluted paint with different brushes to canvas or watercolor paper. The strokes should be bright and bold. Feel the differences in strokes with different brushes. Add a little water and apply the strokes again. Medium consistency paint has the same color intensity as undiluted paint, but its texture is smoothed out. And do this exercise again with a weak paint solution. Notice how quickly the paints dry the first, second, and third times.

Illustration from the book

Try applying paint with different brushes - soft oval, synthetic thin, bristly flat. Try each brush until you are confident that you know which brush to use to achieve the design you have in mind.

Illustration from the book

3. Useful techniques for working with the palette

The colors in the paintings we see are usually obtained through mixing: the pure color from the tube is usually too intense. These techniques will make it easier for you to get the color you want.

1. 1 Squeeze the paint from the tube onto the edge of the palette, leaving space between the colors. Use the center of the palette for mixing. Make batches farther apart to prevent unwanted mixing.
2. Apply pure color to the brush from the edge of the palette, and not from above or from the middle of the squeezed out “sausage”.
3. Intensive dark colors, such as black (although it is not scientifically considered a color), add with caution: even a small amount can significantly change the color being mixed.
4. You need to mix the colors together until the mixture becomes completely homogeneous.
5. Don't skimp on the paint. Squeeze out as much as needed - usually a circle the size of ruble coin(for whitewash - about five rubles). Paint consumption is an integral part of the painting process. If you save too much, you will never learn how to use paint.

4. Learn to get neutral colors

In any picture there are neutral colors - “visually gray”. Due to their low intensity, they are invisible at first glance, but they are the most useful tool for creating a harmonious color composition. Let's see how to achieve this.

Mix blue and orange in any proportion. Now let's try to change the color temperature by proportionally warm and cool colors in the mixture. If the result is more purple, try making a rusty color by adding more orange paint and then whitewash for a lighter peach color. If the first step produces a rusty color, add blue to create a cool color, close to purple, and then white to create a light violet-gray.

Repeat previous steps for another pair additional colors- yellow and purple, red and green.

Pairs of complementary colors are connected by short vertical strokes. The colors of each pair are mixed with each other to create two neutral colors, each of which was dominated by one of the parent colors - these are located to the right of the corresponding parent. Illustration from the book

5. Primary, secondary and tertiary colors

Draw a circle, then divide it into three equal sectors. Paint the upper sector with cadmium yellow medium, the lower right one with ultramarine blue, and then mix the main red from naphthol crimson and cadmium red light and paint the lower left sector with it.

On the color wheel of primary colors, draw semicircles with centers at the intersection of the sector boundaries with the outer contour color wheel. Fill these semicircles with secondary colors, placing them above the “parents”: cadmium red light above the border between red and yellow, dioxazine violet above the border between red and blue. Add yellow to the green FC and fill in the green semicircle above the border between yellow and blue.

The primary color, when mixed with the adjacent secondary color, produces a tertiary color. Add one triangle on each side of the semicircle, making a total of six. Color in each triangle based on the labels.

Primary, secondary and tertiary colors. Illustration from the book

Part 2. Drawing

6. Start with abstractions

Abstraction is an interesting and simple way to prepare for working on a realistic piece. It is important to choose 3-4 colors that you like in order to feel an emotional connection with the painting. Draw over the entire surface of the sheet with a simple pencil a continuous angular or rounded line. It may intersect several times.

Paint the shapes in the drawing with the colors and shades, paint consistency and brush that you like. Listen to your inner voice. The main task is to do it the way you like, forgetting about everything else.

Illustration from the book

7. Smear pattern

Beginners are often unsure how to apply strokes. The arrows in the figure show the direction that will help to achieve good depth in the depicted space using the example of a mug.

Smear diagram and result. Illustration from the book

8. How to apply eye shadow

Shadows play a key role in creating a three-dimensional image: first of all, you need to learn to see and write them. There are four types of shadows:

• Own shadows located on objects. These are areas of dark tone that contrast with the illuminated parts of the depicted form. They usually have a sharp edge at the outer edge and a smooth transition at the edge of the light-colored areas of the subject. They own the main role in creating volume.
• Halftone areas- narrow, with a soft contour, located on the border between its own shadow and the illuminated area of ​​the object. These shadows are a mid-tone between contrasting dark and light colors object.
• Falling shadows- silhouettes of an object, “fallen” or thrown by it onto any surface other than itself. They give the impression that the object is on some surface.
• T Eni at the point of contact- the darkest area of ​​the falling shadow, lying next to the object. They are responsible for the “stability” and mass of the object. These shadows are also called the accent - the darkest area among the dark tones. An accent is the dark counterpart of a highlight, the lightest area among the highlights.

To paint a shadow, apply black paint or paint of a darker color than the base color. And in the second step, cover this darkened area with the main color. The halftone black should show through under the new coat of paint, creating a colored shadow. If you want to make the shadow darker, apply more black from the clear edge of the shadow and mix with the color in the midtone.

Shadow using a cylinder as an example. Illustration from the book

9. How to apply highlights

To create a realistic highlight, use a dry brush with white paint to paint the lightest area on the subject as many times as necessary to achieve sufficient brightness. In the middle of the highlight, place a small dab of thick paint for extra brightness.

Two examples of highlight overlay. Illustration from the book

10. Paint pictures in your imagination

While going about your daily activities, paint pictures in your imagination. Mentally look for correspondence between the surfaces and textures you see around you and the way you work with a brush and apply paint.

Abstract:

1. For the first landscape, it is better to take a simple plot with three large objects: a field, a forest (a mass of trees) and the sky

2. First, we look at the landscape and think: what is the darkest and what is the lightest, what, how what is related in color (what is greener, redder, and so on).

3. The first step is to outline the composition, it’s convenient to do this with a pencil

4. When outlining a composition, do not divide the canvas into a straight line horizontal line, especially into equal parts. It will look boring. Try making the line of the forest and grass less than perfectly straight to make it look more natural. But you shouldn’t try to do this with fanatical zeal, conveying every detail and forgetting about the overall image. Over time, you need to learn to imagine in advance in your head what the main spots in the composition will look like (“the forest will take this much and it will be dark, the grass will be medium and this much, and the sky will be this much”), and then you can try to arrange everything like this, so that balance is achieved: no spot is cramped, it does not seem that some piece is unsuccessfully cut off by the borders of the sheet. I will try to tell you more about this in the following lessons.

5. For the first time, a large format is not needed. You need to make the first mistakes in this exercise so that you can do more complex work with ease.

Abstract:

1. We make underpainting on umber, diluted to a watercolor state with damar varnish, diluted with pinene or turpentine (details).

2. We try to convey the relationship of tones using underpainting

3. We try to lightly disperse the paint on the canvas with a brush

4. We make sure that the line of the forest is uneven and not symmetrical (unless we want to show some kind of artificially planted forest).

5. You can immediately work with a stain, that is, do not first draw an outline, and then paint over the area inside it with strokes, but try to immediately draw a spot with a brush of the shape you need, without any preliminary outlines.

6. Use a brush to remove large lumps of paint and large layers of paint.

Abstract:

1. The lower border of the forest patch should not exactly repeat the tops of the trees (the upper border of the forest), so as not to create a “ribbon”

2. Using varnish, you can erase and correct those places that didn’t come out well

Abstract:

1. The underpainting is done - you can pour out the varnish and work with paints without any thinners

2. We squeeze out those paints that we definitely need, and the rest can be squeezed out as we go.

3. It’s easier to start with the darkest object, with the lightest spot, with the brightest, you need to choose the option that is more convenient for you. You can use other sequences, but for beginners it is easier to choose one of these three. This first object will be the reference point in relation to which the color of other objects will be selected

4. The sky has a gradient (smooth color change) in warmth and lightness vertically and horizontally, it must be conveyed. In our case, the sky becomes lighter and warmer towards the horizon (in cloudy weather it can become darker towards the horizon). Towards the sun it also becomes warmer and lighter (the sun is on the right).

Abstract:

1. The colors that will lie side by side in the picture and on the palette must be mixed side by side. On simple landscape You can mix everything in advance, or you can gradually mix each next color side by side.

2. The forest is dark compared to other objects, but not black at all.

3. First, let's collect the bulk of the grass. The color of the grass changes depending on its distance from us (warmer and brighter near, and colder and less saturated in the distance), and it also changes tone (darker lighter) as it moves away, and the same in the horizontal direction (from left to right). Look at nature to catch these differences.

Abstract:

1. Don’t be lazy to immediately correct misunderstood relationships; correcting them later is more expensive for yourself

2. Make sure that objects are not confused in tone with each other (that is, so that it is clear what is darker and what is lighter)

Abstract:

1. Not all materials make it easy to work in any sequence; for example, in watercolor it is often better to do the lightest color first and gradually move towards the opposite tone, one large object at a time. For example, here we started from the lightest spot (the sky), then we made grass (a spot of medium tone), and at the end - a forest (the most dark spot), but the light and shadow on each of these objects in general outline We wrote it right away, so it’s more convenient to compare their general tones.

3. It is useful to keep the mixed colors on the palette, rather than immediately cleaning them off or covering them up. Then you can use them to correct something a little later.

4. Once the relationship is established, the details can be worked out. Although, of course, some people manage to immediately write down the details and not lose sight of general image. It may be more common for a beginner to do just this, but it will be very difficult to achieve a good result.

Beginners love to get carried away with details and try to make them as cool as possible, forgetting about everything else. Often they try to make this fragment exactly as in nature. As a result, very often such a result does not work out as expected, and the author begins to endlessly edit the detailed fragment.

The fact is that we see those details that we see in nature not separately, but in relation to other details (for example, a fragment of grass with surrounding grass, forest, sky). This greatly affects perception. And if we are working in detail on one fragment of the work, and at the same time we have not created the environment, then we compare this piece not with the environment that should be, but, for example, with a white canvas.

Nowadays, many people choose handicrafts or crafts as a hobby. various options artistic creativity. As the market is filled with mass-produced goods, the demand for souvenirs increases self made. Photographs or computer illustrations are printed multiple times. You can create an exclusive thing by learning how to write for beginners. It is quite possible for even a beginner to master this painting technique. So you will make wonderful gift or interior decoration. Even if you try to repeat exactly the same plot twice, you still won’t get a perfect copy. This determines the uniqueness of original works of art.

Preparation of materials

To create oil paintings for beginners, you will need the following:

• base (canvas or fiberboard);
• paints;
• brushes;
• solvent (white spirit) and a small container for it;
• palette for mixing colors.

Professionals also use palette knives - special flexible metal spatulas with a wooden handle, which they use to apply paint to canvas. For a beginner, it’s enough to master brushes. In addition, professionals paint pictures on an easel or a special sketchbook, if they go out into nature to paint pictures from life for novice artists - the plot is quite complex. It is better to make them from your imagination or using a photograph. It will be easier.

From the point of view of professionals, it is more convenient to work on an easel, since it is easier to step away and evaluate the result from afar. In your first experience, you can also practice on a table surface, although it is better to take some kind of plywood and place it on your lap or place it on a chair at an angle. Such a review of your work allows you to better assess its quality and notice errors in time. Although for the first experience you should do what is convenient and comfortable for you, so as not to be distracted from the main thing.

Please note that the paints are used unevenly, so for a beginner it is better to purchase them separately. The release form is offered in various volumes. White paint disappears the fastest, but black paint is used in very small quantities. It makes sense to first decide on the plot, and then purchase paints in the appropriate shades. For you you will need one set, and for summer landscape- another. In order not to waste money on unnecessary colors, it is better to buy only the necessary ones in approximately the required quantities. Although in fact all shades can be obtained with only three primary colors (yellow, red, blue), as well as white and black.

Which foundation should you choose?

Traditionally, oil painting is done on canvas, but for a beginner this can be difficult as the fabric needs to be stretched over a stretcher and primed. However modern technologies have made progress in this direction. Specialized stores sell ready-made bases onto which paints are immediately applied. They are not cheap, but they are just right for a beginner, as they make the work much easier.

Another option is to use fiberboard. Every man's household has scraps of this material stored after repair work. It’s easy to find it by asking friends, relatives or acquaintances. Someone has definitely used it and keeps some leftovers in the pantry just in case.

The texture of the fiberboard sides is different; one looks absolutely smooth, while the other looks rough, vaguely reminiscent of a woven structure. You can use both, but it is better to apply to a rough surface. larger number layers of primer, otherwise the color may appear dull in the future, since the paint will seem to sink into the structure of such a “canvas”.

If you decide to try the oil painting technique for beginners for the first time, you can use a ready-made fiberboard base with a primer already applied. They are also sold in specialty craft stores. It is better to take a small sheet size, no larger than landscape. Once you have gained some experience, purchase or prime a format of any size yourself.

You can immediately order a frame for your future painting. Once decorated, any canvas looks elegant and complete. However, most often the baguette is selected according to color, width and narrower finished work. This is also an interesting and creative process. Seeing the same image in different frames will help you understand how different the canvas makes an impression. Even oil paintings by novice artists look exquisite in a good frame, but poor framing can ruin a professional’s painting. So this stage must also be treated very carefully.

If you still decide to prepare the DPV base yourself, a simple and cheap way is to use regular gelatin; you can add PVA glue to it to make the color white. This primer should be applied in several layers, allowing the previous one to dry first. Three times will be enough. You should feel that the surface has become different. When the base is prepared, you can move on to

Types of brushes

To work with oil, use bristles or synthetics. Their fibers are hard, elastic, and interact well with the paint composition. To begin with, you can buy two or three pieces. A thin one, for example No. 1, will be needed to work out the details, wide ones are needed to create large background surfaces in the case of a landscape - the sky, grass, water, draperies in a still life. Do not use squirrel brushes for oil painting. They will spoil. After each use, especially if you are going to take a long break from creative process, thoroughly wash the tools with solvent so that the paint does not dry on them.

Oil paintings for beginners step by step

Considering that you have prepared the materials and base, creating a canvas, regardless of the plot, consists of the following steps:

1. Apply to canvas line drawing with a simple pencil or directly with paint.

2. Distribute shadows and highlights - the darkest and brightest areas of the image, respectively.

3. Complete the background and all large objects.

4. Draw small details.

Remember to constantly step away from the picture, assessing the result from afar. As you work, try to mix different shades of colors on your palette. The finishing touch The painting will be framed.

Subjects

To do simple paintings oil for beginners, choose the appropriate topic. The easiest way is to make a still life, that is, a composition of household items, a vase with flowers. If you are working from life, and you will need a lot of time the first time, use objects that will not change in a week. You may have to complete the painting in several steps, so when composing a still life for the subject of an oil painting for beginners, it is better not to use flowers. They may change color, wither, or new buds will bloom. The perception of the composition will change. It will be difficult for you. The easiest way is to work with a photograph or copy an easy image you like. Don't take stories with a lot of detail. It is very difficult to paint a portrait.

How to make a landscape?

If you want to decorate your wall with a nature painting done by yourself, it is better to use a tutorial on how to paint oil paintings for beginners step by step. It is quite possible to do this using ready-made instructions. The main thing is to understand what elements the image consists of, and it is better to start working from the background and general space, moving sequentially to more small details, located closer to the viewer.

Let's go plein air

Painting oil paintings in nature is very pleasant, but you need to work quickly, since the weather can get worse, and the sun is constantly moving, changing the direction of light and shadows. Beginning artists can use a camera to photograph the initial painting. If you get tired of working for a long time the first time, then you can finish the painting at home.

How to draw flowers?

If you want to decorate the interior of a room with an oil painting with a bouquet in a vase, it is better to choose asters as your first experience. Asters are perfect. They are not difficult to make, as they are a simple elliptical shape, and the small petals are easy to do with separate strokes in a circle. Also suitable are daisies, sunflowers, lilacs, lupins, mimosa - in a word, choose those with inflorescences or individual elements of a simple, clear shape that can be created in one stroke, drawing several details later. Your task is not to convey the photographic accuracy of the object, but to create a beautiful impression of what you see.

So, you have learned how to create oil paintings for beginners. Choose the story you like, buy necessary materials and begin the exciting creative process.

The oil painting technique is not only more complex than most other painting techniques, it is also more expensive in terms of materials. Using texture and different techniques application allows you to realize the most diverse fantasies of the artist. This is why oil paintings have their own special charm, and many artists and even those who paint only for themselves want to learn this technique.

Let's take a closer look at basic things, which will be useful to us in order to learn the art of working with oil.

So, how to learn to paint in oils? What do you need for this?

• Oil paints;
• Fixative;
• Palette;
• Glue;
• Flat brushes (preferably made of natural wool);
• Easel (canvas, canvas on a stretcher);
• Palette knife;
• Eraser and simple pencil for outlines;
• Tracing paper, carbon paper and other little things.

1. Buy everything you need for oil painting

After purchasing paints, the second most important thing is canvas, although oil technology It is also quite applicable on hardboard, plywood or metal; sometimes coarse burlap is also used. But let's return to canvases, as the most common medium for oil paintings. They come in two types - cotton and linen. The first ones are much cheaper. Linen canvases, in turn, are divided into large- and fine-grained. Coarse-grained ones are best suited for textured paintings (for example, landscapes or those requiring deep depiction of texture), fine-grained for more detailed techniques. There are canvases stretched on cardboard (up to 0.5 x 0.7 m in size), they are cheaper, canvases on stretchers are more expensive, but they come in much larger sizes.

Don’t forget also about tracing paper and carbon paper, we will need them in order to transfer the image from the sketch to the canvas itself.

2. Preparing the canvas or any other surface for painting

First of all, we make several sketches and a final pencil sketch. Before you paint with oil on canvas, you need to prepare it. To do this, we glue it and carefully prime it, so the paint will adhere well, and the active substances contained in it will not destroy the fibers of the canvas. When everything is dry, you can transfer our sketch to the canvas using tracing paper. For some multi-layer techniques The sketch can also be coated with a thin layer of primer.

3. Choose a drawing technique and decide on a concept

This material was intended primarily to answer the question “how to paint with oil on canvas for beginners,” so it’s best to use basic technology– alla prima. The essence of it is to paint in one step (layer), there can be several approaches, but you need to finish it before the paint dries (about 3 days, depending on the thickness of the strokes). Colors obtained by direct mixing are lighter and more natural.

The multi-layer technique is more complex, but it allows you to unleash the full potential of oil paints - to create deep and voluminous textures. The first, thinnest layer is called “underpainting”; it is done with highly diluted paints. This sample layer is a kind of test that helps the artist determine further tonality, the possibilities of using light and shadow, etc.

Subsequent layers begin to draw details, convey the subtleties of composition, color and texture. In one of the last layers they introduce linseed oil– to add richness to the colors (it also prevents colors from “fading”). When the paint is completely dry, the painting is coated with a fixative varnish. This usually happens after 6-12 months.

4. A little technical details that will have to be taken into account

Concluding this short article, which can be called “How to Draw oil paints? Step by step guide for beginners”, we will touch on several non-obvious aspects of working with images that relate specifically to “oil equipment”.

• In addition to a pencil, a sketch on a primed canvas can also be made with charcoal or diluted paint;
• Objects of toroidal or spherical shapes are drawn with twisted and crescent-shaped movements with a brush, and conical ones with triangular movements;
• In order to get a smooth gradient color transition It is better to use very flat brushes. Paints can be mixed both on the palette and directly at the transition point with the proper skill. Brush movements should be cross and close to reciprocating. It is better to work from a darker area to a lighter one with a clean brush so that the color is distributed more organically. When completing strokes, you should use a parallel technique.

Layers used for shading should be laid over a dry coat of paint. To obtain a light shading layer, the paint is diluted with a special solvent, and it is applied from horizontal position kolinsky brush. To adjust the color of the design when glazing, apply strokes in the same vector as on the layer being processed.

Here is a short and rather general answer to the question: “how to paint with oil paints on canvas.” In order to understand each technique in more detail, you will have to spend more than a day reading and months of practice, but for now, try the simplest methods and draw. May inspiration always be with you!