Showing posts with label Oil Paintings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oil Paintings. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Painting Like The Masters

Oil paintings began in the Mediterranean during the era of the Greek and Roman civilizations. The Egyptians also used paint techniques that were rich in bees wax, pigments of such minerals as copper, iron and manganese oxides and tempera.

While historians have noted that the Mediterranean civilizations of this time were aware of flax, walnut, poppy seed and other vegetable oils there is not definite proof that they were used in oil paintings of the time.

The tempera these early oil painters used were organic mediums mixed as fluid with water and volatile oil additives. Italian artists of the next century used organic binding ingredients such as materials containing protein from whole eggs, animal glue or milk.

From the Roman Empire's demise to the 15th century Renaissance era oil paintings and tempera painting became prevalent. In Greece and Italy olive oil was the preferred based for pigment mixture preparation although this made for a long drying period and great difficulty for human models. Theophilus, a German-born monk and oil painter in the 1100's dispensed with olive oil in his oil paintings. In Japan a substitute for oil paintings was perilla oil, applied after a lead application as early as the 8th century. During the 1300's the Italian Cennino Cennini created oil paintings that were a combination of tempera and several layers of light oil.

Much later Leonardo DaVinci, who lived until 1519, created his own oil paintings concoction made by adding up to 10 percent bees wax to his oils and then boiling the combination.

If you'd like to follow in the footsteps of these great painters there are some simple preparations and techniques before and during your creation of oil paintings.

The first important technique is to dress for it, including gloves. Your tools include two containers, one with paint thinner, and the other with a combination of two parts thinner to one part walnut oil. Make sure you've made room in easy reach for your paint brushes, your palette and its knife, your containers, paint tubes and paint rags.

Your palette should start out with only 2-3 paint colors. Generally you'll need cadmium red, cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue to start.

Your palette knife is the oil paintings tool you use for the technique of mixing colors. Keep in mind that oil paints have a short blend life, so if you try to make a color change and it doesn't work right the first time quickly take a paint rag and wipe it off the canvas and start over.

One of the advantages of oil paintings that make the correction technique so much easier is that they take nearly a full day to dry. So, you have lots of correction time. On the other hand, because oil paintings take so long to dry and excessively heavy coat can slow your painting process considerably.

The brushes you use in your oil paintings must be cleaned well between each change of color. This technique is crucial. The first thing you do is remove as much of the paint as you can with the paint rag and then place the brush in the paint thinner. Swish the paint brush around in the thinner, and then dry it with the rag.

You must wait 24 hours after your first complete oil paintings application before you start your second or the first application will smear.

Painting In Oils

If you've thought about doing oil paintings, here are some basics to get you started.

The first step in your production of oil paintings is to make sure that the area in which you are going to paint is well ventilated. You need a window or door that can be opened as you work, a good fan and a space that is fairly open so air is able to circulate.

If you are going to work on your oil paintings outside you'll have to be able to secure everything so the wind doesn't end up blowing things all over. Keep in mind that bees, and various other insects will flock to your citrus thinner.
The first thing to do is put down your drop cloth, your tarp, your plastic bag and so forth. Secure the edges of each by using masking tape. This will keep it from getting bunched up. You're going to set up your oil paintings work area on the drop cloth so make sure the area is roomy enough for your comfort. If you are going to work on your oil paintings with a table easel set up on a table, you'll want to cover the floor below the table top and the place where you will stand or sit.

Before you start painting your oils, don your paint attire - gloves included. You'll need one container that has paint thinner and one container that holds a combination of two parts paint thinner and one part walnut oil. These containers should be about three inches high and two inches around. Each should be filled to the half way mark. You'll need a comfortable set up with an easy reach for your paint palette and knife, your brushes, the two containers, as well as paint rags and tubes.

Now set up the paints you'll use for your oil paintings. If you have a variety of colors, you don't need all of them squeezed out onto your paint palette. Start with just two or three colors. If your choices are only primary colors, then squeeze out onto your palette a dime size spot of cadmium red, yellow and blue. Space them as far from each other on the palette as possible, as if you are putting dots on the three points of a triangle. In the center of this paint triangle squeeze a nickel-size spot of Titanium white oil paint. Next use your knife to mix these colors.

Now you're ready to really start creating your oil paintings.

Oil paintings

Paintings tend to be the most beautiful creation of man, which has the power to exert a pull on the spectator. Oil paintings are beautiful art forms, and these antique elements continue to mark their stand through generations.

Why oil painting?

The great painters and the artists of the past chose to work on oil paintings because it rendered a very realistic output. The paintings differed from those produced by water colors, because the oil paintings looked very rich and attractive.

Oil paintings originated during the middle ages, when the requirement for waterproof painting was at the peak. Great artists opted for oil paintings because of their durability and long lasting resistance. Thanks to those great men because of the usage of oil paints only, we are able to enjoy the stupendous collection of various artists.

The hard work consumed by the oil paintings!

Behind the beauty of oil paintings is the hard labor of the artist. A classical work may take several weeks to months to be completed. Color pigments and binders are the constituents of the oil paints. Linseed oils, poppy seed oils, safflower oils and walnut oils are the oils to be mixed with the pigments. Brushers made up of different fibers are used to paint. Oil painting is said to consume a lot of work because it does not dry up easily, and if the artists wants to paint in layers, he must wait for the paints to dry at each level which may devour a week. The oils employed would dry at their own pace. The artist will be able to make changes during the dry period of the painting, which is impossible in water paintings. Oil paintings do no dry through evaporation, they have to be oxidized. And then these paints are varnished after six months or a year. Some art conservators consider an oil painting to be dry only after its 60-80 years old.

Oil paintings reached the pinnacle during the renaissance, where artists began to select wooden panels as their base medium. They would stretch their canvas over the wooden panel. Artists used a variety of brushes to produce different kinds of unique effects, knives and blades were also used. Some artists painted with their fingers too.

Oil paintings today

Oil painting is an astonishing art form and even today there are many artists who work fabulously on oil paints. But now there are more sophisticated tools to produce oil paintings such as water miscible oil paints. These paints can be thinned and cleaned up with water rather than using the turpentine. Earlier turpentine was used as a cleaner in oil paintings. These water miscible oil paints reduce the deep odor of toxic chemicals. Those days artist coated a blended mixture on the canvas before they started painting, this was done to protect the canvas from the toxic nature of the paints. But now all these safety measures are less required.

Friday, January 22, 2010

How To Buy Oil Paintings?

How To Buy Oil Paintings

I have a custom made oil painting displayed in my living room. I gaze upon it each day. It’s a portrait of a woman during sunset and half turned. Every single day I look at it and I am amazed as to what she might be thinking, sometimes I feel as though the painting has changed somehow. It gives new meaning every time I see it. Every person who has looked at it had a different interpretation of what the Painting suggested. It sparks the imagination. It triggers your emotion and makes you think. Such is the power of those glossy portraits created by the brilliant artists.

Oil Paintings give the visual appeal to your home or work place. Placed strategically this could mean a serene atmosphere at home or an inviting ambience to your office, which definitely makes your client at ease in your office. This could be the edge over the rest of your competitors.

Did you ever wonder how you could buy those high quality-stunning oil paintings? Most galleries present you with only a limited range of painting. Only the exclusive and famous artists have the opportunity to display the art in such places. The only place you could find work of art from both prominent as well as upcoming artist are real high quality websites.

At first even I was of the opinion that online purchase of such work of art may not be the best-suited method to get genuine high quality work. But when I heard about custom designs from well-known artists that could be offered right to your doorstep I was just thrilled. There is also a money back guarantee if there is any dissatisfaction towards the delivered material.

The online shops have a wide range of portraits, themes ranging from landscapes, still life, abstracts, cubism, religion, and much more. The list is endless. The Painting include real popular artist like van Gough, Jack Vettriano from early 19th century to the most recent celebrity artist. The catalog shows snapshots of the real work so you would know what to expect from the real McCoy.

They even have a Portrait Service. With Portrait Service the artist turns an old photograph, which has lost its graphic details into a real looking image of any size. With this we could keep our memories framed forever.

Custom paintings are made with just an idea that you have. It is amazing how artists could turn your vision into reality. They make a drafted version for your approval and in about a week the final Painting is ready and shipped to you.

The purchased painting is shipped home in sturdy tube containers for a small additional cost. Every care is taken to deliver the work of art safely to you. There is also choice for of Framing Service so you could portray the images in apt background. Even the range of frames available is displayed.

Well we always are worried that a transaction is not going to be safe over the Internet. It is just not so. With SSL technology you could make the transaction without having to fret over hackers taking away all your money. Agencies such as 2checkout bring about some of the safest payment methods.
The shopping carts provided are very user friendly. It is very easy to just keep adding your favorite picture and make the final purchase when you checkout.