Figure painting w/oils

Randy,

First, let me say that I am an artist and retired art teacher. I lurk here often because I always have a model to work on when I can get around to it. My major hobby is restoring antique radios and I use oil paints for painting over damaged cabinet areas and restoring grainlines. Excuse me for saying it, but I am very good at this.

You don't need to buy top of the line artists colors. Most of the manufacturers produce a line of student grade colors. They have permanent pigments and some inert filler is added to bring the price down. They are perfectly acceptable. Walmart has a boxed set of about 8 colors by Daler-Rowney for $15. They are smaller tubes and would be a good way to start.

The first rule for any brush is that when it is wet with paint and you bend the bristle over, they should spring back into place when you release the bristles. If they don't spring back, you have a mop, so get rid of it.

Also, for fine lines and details don't buy those itsy-bitsy, tiny, short brushes. They won't hold enough paint. I never use a fine point brush that is less than 1/2" long and prefer one that is longer.

Here is something from a post I sent to the antique radio guys;

"Next is the blending brush. You use it in a light flicking way so that only the very tips of the brush are doing the blending. Wipe the tips on a rag often so you keep them as dry as possible. The blending brush will smooth out your paint nice and even. It is particularly needed when you have to paint variations of color in the base coat.

"dry brush" is a technique used by many artists. Essentially, the brush is prepared so that it makes a fine line and the artist uses it like a sharpened color pencil, usually over a base coat.

The base coat should be dry to the touch before painting grainlines. To prepare the brush, mix your woodgrain color very fluid. Wrap a tissue around the ferrule and slide it up to the heel of the bristles to absorb some of the fluid paint. Then lightly wipe the tip across the tissue and the brush is ready. For fuzzier, multiple grain lines you can splay out the tips. Splay them out some more and you can do multiple little dots. Of course, it pays to do some practice first."

I hope this helps. There are some other oil paint techniques that could be useful and if there is interest in them I'll be glad to discuss them.

Stewart

As the Python guys would say:

"And Now For Something COMPLETELY Different".....

I disagree with some of the above. The cheaper "student line" oils are really NOT acceptable for figure painting. Using oils on a solid casting, is entirely different than painting on canvas. The cheaper "student line" paints can create a terrible mess on a figure, due to the afore-mentioned "inert filler". Canvas will soak up this stuff with no problem, but on a solid casting, one often gets a gooey mess. The top-of-the-line Winsor Newton oils can be a bit pricey...but they will last forever. Take care of them, and your grandchildren can use them, and still have enough left over to pass on to their children. In other words...you only have to buy them once (compare that to bottles of Tamiya model paint...In a years' time; you will spend far more on "model paints" --- than you will, in a lifetime, on oils).

Good colors to start with are:

Titanium White Naples Yellow Yellow Ocre Burnt Sienna Burnt Umber Raw Umber Alizaron Crimson Pthalo Blue or Prussian Blue Winsor Red

You might also want to grab a green and a "bright" yellow, that suits your fancy.

These will give you the basics for flesh tones, and "weathering colors". Note that there is no black. That is because, you should rarely paint anything "black" (except, maybe, the deepest shadows on your darkest areas). Use the "old masters'" formula for mixing black:

Pthalo Blue + Burnt Umber

This gives you a "scale black" (leaving wiggle room for your shading), and allows you to determine your own warmness or coolness factor for your "black", by varying the percentage of the two colors.

For the initial painting, "block in" the colors on your figure, using your preferred MATTE acrylics or enamels. (i.e. paint the uniform parts a matte green/khaki, the leather areas a dark brown, the flesh areas a matte flesh, etc.) You need the "tooth" that the matte paint provides; in order to then apply your oils.

And NEVER thin the oils. Use them "as is". Avoid turpentine like the Plague. Use cheap old mineral spirits if you must. Turpentine creates more of that "gooey mess" (although, again, it works on canvas...). And you will find out that a little oil paint; goes a very long way. Often, a small dab, smaller than a pea....will be more than enough to paint what you are painting...and then some.

..... As far as brushes go; once again, if you make a wise initial investment, it will be far cheaper in the long run. Get some good Winsor Newton "Series 7" brushes (not to be confused with their cheaper "Series 707" line). Pick up several 00 and 000 brushes. Anything finer, is worthless, as they will not hold enough paint. Remember, the size is not important... it is the ability to hold a good sharp point, that is important. And nothing forms, and holds, a good point, like the "Series 7's". For larger brushes, it is okay to buy the cheaper (though good quality) "artists'" brushes you find at Michaels', Hobby Lobby, etc. The "blending brush" can really be any old, small brush. You do not need anything special here. Just use what you become comfortable with.

Since Michael's and Hobby Lobby often have "1/2 Price Sales" on their artists' oils and brushes....your investment can be a wise one, if you are a smart shopper.

.....

Since your work schedule seriously cuts into your ability to keep up a daily pattern of painting; take advantage of the slow drying time of oils. I keep my "working pallete" in the freezer. The paints will stay workable for months this way. And the best source for "palletes" is the lids off of canned vegetables, frozen orange juice, etc....lol. You can also keep your figure in the refrigerator, between painting sessions, to make its color coats stay "workable" longer.

Now, if you want to SPEED UP the drying time of your figure, an ideal way (popularized by the great Grand Master Phil Kessling) is to place your figure in a crock pot overnight.

Greg,

I don't know about you, but I have been involved with painting in oils since 1941 when I was 10 years old. I sold papers on the street to earn the money and I was in art classes with adults at the WPA Art Center.

Let's look at some of the points you raised;

Winsor-Newton's Winton colors and Grumbacher's Academy colors are the cheaper oils you are most likely to find in an art supply stores. These two old, reputable companies do not put out any product that would jeopardize their good name.

I've used a great deal of these paints over the years. I use a glass pallette to mix my paint on and the cheaper paints dry just as hard on the glass and are just as hard to scrape off with a razor blade as the more expensive paints. After all, they both have the same amount of linseed oil in them which is what provides the adhesion. The inert filler has no bearing on this, it is just another powder like the pigments and they are glued by the linseed oil the same.

I've used the cheaper oils to paint on copper and on lacquer and polyurethane when touching up old radio cabinets. The "terrible mess" you talk about will happen with either paint if you thin either too much with turpentine, paint thinner or linseed oil. The first coat should be applied as full strength as possible and this is where the blending brush is essential to get a smooth coat.

Canvas doesn't soak up anything except the sizing that is applied first to isolate the oil paint from the canvas. In the old days rabbit skin glue was used, but today all the pre-primed canvas I've seen is coated with an acrylic emulsion with white pigment in it. Either way you paint on a hard, non-porous surface and your paint never touches the canvas.

You speak of first using matte acrylics and then using oils over them which brings in added costs when the original poster stated his concerns about cost. Yes, you can use oil paints over acrylic, but don't put acrylic over oil.

I agree with you about buying the best if you can afford it.

There is an alternative to this. Winsor-Newton puts out a line called Griffen which is just like oil paints, comes in tubes, has the same pigments, paints the same way as oil, is non-yellowing and guaranteed permanent, thins with paint thinner, but instead of linseed oil it uses an alkyd emulsion as the binder. Best of all, the prices are in line with the student grade colors and it dries fast. A normal coat can be painted over the next day.

If everyone can wait awile, I'll go down in the basement and put some coats, thick and thin, on just about every differnt kind of surface I can find and post a report in a week or so.

See you then,

Stewart

normal fleshtones

1) titanium white, yellow ochre, lake, burnt sienna 1b) same, but less white 1c) burnt sienna, lake, umber

light

2) titanium white, vermilion, yellow ochre 2b) same, but more ochre and vermilion 2c) more vermilion

darker fleshtones

3) titanium white, umber, burnt sienna, green earth 3a) lake, umber, burnt sienna for the shadows

Umm, no. Definitely no. Properly prepared canvas will not soak up anything.

Before I talk about flesh tones I'd like to establish some basic art terms,

Hue - The name of a color

Value - The lightness or darkness of a color

Intensity, Saturation, Chroma - You will find different art books use one or another of these words. Consider them as referring to the brightness or dullness of a color.

Complementary Colors - These are colors opposite each other on the color wheel. Red-Green, Orange-Blue, Yellow-Purple. You use complementary colors when you want to dull the intensity of, but not deaden a color.

Humans seldom have peachy peachy complexions. You need a touch of your flesh tones complementary added to your color. Most often it will be a blue/purple, but as Greg pointed out you get a lot of bang for your oil paint dollars so do some tests. For pinkish flesh tones add some blue/ green, for orangy tones, use blue and for yellowish flesh tones use purple.

IMPORTANT- Lighten the value of the complementary color so that it matches the value of your flesh tone before mixing a small amount in.

All this holds true regardless of what you are painting.

Stewart