Using Texture in an Oil Painting
Posted by Wisdom Lion on October 17th, 2009 at 03:23pm
I have recently completed another painting of the old fire alarm that is at the top of my stairs. As you can see from a previous post, my first attempt left much to be desired. It was a good learning experience though. We can’t all be Salvador Dali on day one. I’m sure even he put out his fair share of lackluster fire alarm paintings early in his career.
Before starting this painting, I took a long hard look at the last one. What was it specifically that made it look so amateur? This was one question that I needed to answer before starting up the new painting. Aside from some obvious reasons such as the chain having a strange wobble and some sizing issues, the big one hit me one day while walking down the street over to the coffee shop. I happened to walk by a small art gallery that had a few paintings on display by various local artists. Aside from my opinion on the subject matter of each painting, I saw a strong distinction between some paintings and others. Certain ones looked well done and others looked like high school art class assignments. There didn’t seem to be much in-between. Then I saw what the well done paintings had that the high school art projects (my first painting certainly fits this category) lacked.
The well done paintings incorporated much more texture. Don’t get me wrong, a painting can have a smooth glossy finish and still look awesome. I just think it takes much more skill to pull off and I’m certainly not there yet. So there it was. Texture. How could I use a little texture to my advantage? To find out, I redirected my course for the book store which is conveniently located across the street from my original destination. After flipping through a few duds, I came across a winner: The Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Techniques by Jeremy Galton. Spicing up a painting with some texture is one of many helpful techniques illustrated by this book. It certainly gets my stamp of approval.
To fix the problems of proportions and arrangement, etc. I took some extra time up front to layout where I would be painting everything. I made sure to use a pen this time for my initial drawing. I used pencil last time and when I started painting, lead smeared all over the place. This time I took much more careful measurements and got the picture centered better on the canvas. Then when on got to the painting, I laid it on thick. The great thing about oil paint is that each brush stroke stays pretty much frozen in time once it dries, and you have a good long time to mess with them before that happens.
There is one other thing that needs to be mentioned. Unless you are a master calligrapher, I recommend laying down any text that you will be painting first. I waited until the end on my last painting, thinking the whole time that the text would make or break it. Well, the text broke it, bad. So his time, I laid down all of my text up front knowing that I could tweak it as much as necessary without risking the hours of hard work that lay beneath it.
And now that the suspense has officially been built, here is a picture of my latest endeavor.
Next on my list will likely be a painting of this little fella, and you can bet your bottom dollar that he will be loaded up to the beak with some nice rich texture.
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Tags: Build Your Own Easel, Oil Painting, oil painting techniques, Painting, Photography
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