How to Paint in Oil

WARNING! Artists' materials are very dangerous and can cause injury or death! Use in a well-ventilated area, read all warning labels, and keep out of reach of children! Use at your own risk! So, I want to teach you how to paint what you see. I've painted this silver cup here on a table. This is the finished painting I'm going to walk you through, from beginning to end. If you haven't seen the tutorials about how to draw in proportion or how to mix colors, you should watch those before you watch this one. One thing I should make clear, this is not a method that you necessarily will use for the rest of your life. This is a method for learning how to paint and learning how to see, and learning how to paint what you see. So, it's very strict and structured, but it's something that is primarily a way for you to learn how to paint. Once you've done this, and painted several paintings using this method, then you can go from there and do anything you want with it. Even modern art, or whatever. It's just a very structured way to paint exactly what you see in front of you. I'm going to paint this little silver cup sitting here on this table. I already have all my colors laid out and I'm ready to go. I'm going to play with these colors most definitely as I paint, but I've already premixed the basic colors of the silver cup, and then this is the table. And this is the cloth, and the background, which is just black and this is only the one step. That's all there is to it. We're going to start with the tea cup, obviously. That's the only object in here. The first thing I always do, before I paint anything, is paint some background around it. So it really is important, and it's something that a lot of people skip, but if you put just a little bit of background around your object, it really helps you to see these colors on the edge. Otherwise, if you don't paint black, or the very dark color that's in here, then when you lay this in, it may look right to you, but it's... It just helps you to see it. So, I always paint some background in. It also helps you to adjust your line, if you need to bump this line that way, or that way. If you don't have any background, you can't bump it that way, you can only bump it this way. So, very first thing — and I'll come back into the background after I paint it — I'm going to paint a little line just to create a border. That's all I care about. It doesn't even have to be exact. The colors don't have to be perfect. I just try to get them close. Then, when I come back and paint this, and if this was a complicated still life, this would be even more true, where if I painted a little background around my teacup — or rather, my silver cup and it dried, that's fine. I can come back in with the background and blend into the little bit of background that's already around the teacup. As opposed to having this teacup sit here and be dry on this canvas, with no border, and then you come in, and you hit a real hard line there. It's just always easier. The very first thing is to figure out what color is around the teacup. I know that this is black. I can check it with my color checker, if I need to. Always check, check, check. I'm not going to check nearly as much as you should. I've been painting for a long time, and I have a sense about it. In fact, I already know. I've checked the back color, but I can see that it's going to be black. I'm just going to pick up a clean brush. Make sure your brush doesn't have any white in it, because it will pollute your black. Especially this. This is just black, black. I'll put a little background, or rather, a little bit of... ...and this is just going to go off the end here... In other words, it just keeps going, but I'm not going to worry about that. It comes down, and here's the way to check this, this is how you always check to see where something goes. Doesn't matter what you're painting. Put some paint on my color checker, and then what I'm going to do is I want to determine... See, I think I painted this down way too far. So, I'm going to have to wipe it up. I'll go ahead and do that. Here's how you check where a color goes. Hold out your color checker, and as I move it down, I ask myself, "When does the color change?" And it's just right off... It stops becoming black paint right at the point where this handle is. So, I'll just go right across. I made a mental note. How far down does the black go? It stops right there. Make a mental note with your color checker. Move it down, and you're asking yourself, "When... Oh, right there," and then you make a mental note where that is on your cup. It's right about to that point in the handle. I always over-paint, just a little bit. In other words, when I checked with my color checker, this color only came down to maybe about there. But I'm going to go just slightly beyond that, knowing that I'm going to take this color and blend it into it a little bit. I always over-paint each step, and this goes for when I'm painting the silver cup. Every little step that I lay in, I over-paint just slightly where it belongs, knowing that when I come in with the next step, I'm going to bump it back a little bit. I came way too far down on that. OK. So, that goes for the table. And then cloth in the background... ...is somewhere between black and my first step. This actually represents the very lightest part of the fabric. I don't want to pollute my black brush. I'm going to pick up a new brush, because I like to keep this one just for black paint. I will pick up some of this very lightest color in the fabric. Believe it or not, this is the lightest color. Let me just look at it again. Yeah, and that's lighter than... This is the very lightest part of the fabric, and black is darker than the main part, so I'm just going to mix some of this together with black and get the right value. That's why you don't have to mix every little step, because you can just mix steps together to create new steps. This is just the perfect color for right around the cup. I mean just pretty much everywhere. Close enough. We can put the texture that's in the fabric in afterwards. Really, I'm just trying to create a border around my silver cup. Now I just need the next step on the table. I'll go ahead and mix up some of that, or just check my step here. This may be what I want. It almost jumps a step. So, I'll take just a line of this. Since I mixed it, I'll just put a little bit in there. This is the next step in the table. Again, I'm not going to worry about painting the whole table. I'm going to get enough just to create a border around the shadow here. Let me go ahead and jump a step and see where this next color goes. Every time I paint, I hold it out, and I ask myself, "How high up does this go?" "How far down does it go?" "How far left does it go? How far to the right?" You're just investigating. And this color really exists all around. At least, the right side. And then right in the front, it gets even lighter. So, this just goes to about there. And all in here. Then it gets even brighter over here, so I don't want to go too far. OK. So now, the front part gets a little bit lighter. This goes pretty much everywhere... Well, it goes right in here. It gets even lighter right in this part. But, I'm going to put just a little bit of it up against the shadow. And then, the very front part gets even lighter. Now, I'll start on the silver cup. I'm going to start with the very darkest color, which is black, and paint that in first. Again, I've got this brush that I only keep black in. I'll pick up some fresh black paint and put some on my color checker, and I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to ask myself, "Where does this color belong?" and make mental notes. I hold out black, and I'm asking myself, "Where do I see black?" Anything that is darker than black... This is real important because it's very common. If I look in the very darkest shadow on the silver cup, right in here, and I compare it to black, the silver cup's black is even blacker than my black paint. In that case, I just paint it black. That's just the limitation of paint. The darkest we can get is black. But in real life, things get even darker than black. But that's OK. It all works out, and looks good. The rule is: If it is darker than black paint — if what I see there is even darker than black paint — I just paint it black. Simple as that. Investigate all the places that are black, or darker than black. The only places I really see are just in here, a little touch in there, and then the shadow underneath. So, I'll start with that. See, I'm pushing it the other way. That's why I like to have a little background. But don't blend this black too much into this color, or you'll end up with some new color that doesn't belong there. If at any point you need to pull out your proportional divider, and re-check yourself, I would encourage you to do that. Don't just trust your lines. Things get bumped around and moved, so always... It's easy to pull out your proportional divider and re-check your lines. OK, that's the shadow. Now I'm just going to fill in everywhere else that I see it goes. I'm going to over-paint the black just a little bit. I mean I'm going to paint it a little bit bigger than it needs to be, because I know that when I come in with my next step, I'm going to bump it a little bit. OK. I think that is all the black in the silver cup. Now, I'll go on to the next step. I don't want to use my black brush. I'm going to use my other brush. This would be the next step. It's a really good habit to get into whenever you're painting to make sure your brush is not dirty. Because you pick up a color, then you start to paint with it, and then the milk that's in the bottom of your brush starts working itself into the color, and you get a totally new color that's very much brighter and different than the original color. So always clean your brush really good. If you have to work it into the paint and then work it out on a paper towel, then you should do that. OK. This is the next step. I'm going to put some on my color checker and check, and see where that goes. And this is just a good general color for underneath the lip there. This edge here is a little bit darker. But, I want to paint that first, so I'm going to take some black paint and my first step, just a tiny bit, and just use it to paint that edge. Actually, some of this is black. So, I need to bring that down a little further. I'm going to paint some on my color checker. This is step number two. And check again. I'm just asking myself, "Where does this belong?" "How far down does it go?" "How far up does it go?" You just keep checking in different spots. Make sure there is no glare on your color checker. It'll really throw your color off. For some reason, I'm picking up more brown. I'm going to add just a touch of red — I mean brown — to that color. You can always alter your color when you paint if you see something new. When I paint portraits, I end up playing with every color. Every time I pick up a brush, I play with the color. See, there's some little light areas in there, but they're so small, that I'm just going to come in and blend them into what I've already got. So, I'm just going to paint this solid color all the way across here. You've got to be careful when you do that. But, in this case, I can do it. I can just... with a single stroke, I can smear in some of that reflection that's inside the shadow area there. I'm over-painting these dark areas, just a little bit, knowing I'm going to blend back into them. Is there anywhere else that step exists? I want to finish with that step. I can always come back to it, but I want to try to finish it if I can. I think that's about it. I can put some color on my color checker and just go around and see if there is anywhere else where this color exists. Let me explain something about looking at this color checker. Notice, if I hold it right here it looks like it doesn't match. But if you'll notice the left half is too dark. The left half of the color checker paint is too dark, and the right half is too light. So therefore we know, we're positive that somewhere in there, the color — the value at least, for sure — matches. Whenever you're trying to determine where something is, if you can position your color checker so that half of it is light, and half of it is dark, then you know right down the middle there is where that color belongs. So make note of that, because it's real common. Hardly ever do you hold out your color checker and get just a perfect spot where you can see it real easy. Well, that's pretty much it. I did bump my black a little bit, so I'm going to go back and fix that. You always want to make sure your blacks are nice and black, black, black. It's real easy to pollute them. OK. Let's move on to the next step. I'll take a new brush. Again, this brush has a little color in it, so I want to make sure I'm not going to alter my color like it's doing right now, by mixing. I'll just clean out the brush. Come back, get some more. Let's put some of this on the color checker and see where this goes. It looks like I need a little bit more of something between these two. So, I'm going to take some of this, and some of this, and mix them together. Make a new step. And this is the perfect color for the next little area that I need to fill in. Really take your time and investigate. You want to just work on one area at a time. Just checking the right side, and then paint that side in. And then work on any other areas where the color might exist. That's fine. I'm just making mental notes. And now, I'm just going to go fill in. When you fill in your color, it's OK to be sloppy. Don't worry about it. If you're hesitant, and you feel like you don't know what you're doing, just check, and just fill in the blank. The more you have filled in, the easier it gets. While you're painting... I have a pretty good eye, because I've been doing this for so long... but always, if you feel like you're not sure where something goes, pull your color checker out, and check again. Now I'll just move to the full step. That was our half step. Check and see where this goes. If you feel like you've put... For instance, this color really exists right here, and I painted the other one there. Just paint right on top of it. OK. Let me go on to the next step which is this one. Let's go on to the next step. These are getting really close to the shine. There's not a lot of these last colors left. They're just little spots near the shiny areas. I'm going to come back and put the shine into this color that I'm putting in right here. If you just put in the shine, like white, then you're going to get white mixed with this color, which is really different than this color. So I'm putting this in, then I'm going to come back in and put the shine inside of this color. That's really hard to see. If you pull out your color checker and try to check this, it's not going to look right. because all you can see is the shine. I always like to put my shine into other colors, instead of just right into the dark. I haven't done any blending at this point, and that's very important. We don't do any blending until we have all the color laid in. We're getting really close. So, the only thing really left is the shiny areas, which I'll go ahead and put in. I haven't done any blending at this point. I'm not going to worry about blending because if you blend before all the colors are put in, you'll make all kinds of mistakes. But if you get all your colors laid in before you start to blend, it makes it much easier to see what you're doing. Don't be tempted to start blending and fixing as you paint. Go ahead and get all your colors in as much as you can. You can fix a little bit, here and there, to fix your line, like I did, but don't start blending these colors together until every part of the canvas is filled in on the object that you are painting. This color is right next to my shine, and I've skipped that one. Maybe a little bit of it. This is pretty much everywhere the shine goes. And this one down here, this might be as light as it gets. But it's just a little dot inside of what I've already got. I'm going to come back with a super shine and put it on top of this. So, now I'm going to go ahead. Before I put the shine in, I'm going to do my blending. I'm going to go ahead and blend everything, then lay in the final shine right on top of it. So, the blending, you don't have to do much. Don't over do it. Just up, down. Just a little bit. The question to be asking yourself is, "Which one has more blend?" Is that a softer transition from here to there, over there, or is it softer here. Obviously this is a big, dark area, and a light area, and it needs to be sort of blended together all through here. I'm not going to let this color get into this deep shadow that's so pretty. I'm just going to work along this little transition part, and leave the rest alone. Don't let this get into that. Fix this little bit of background that needs to come over. I'm going to start by putting in not the lightest color, but something next to it. And then, I'll come back in, and inside that, I'll put a super shine. OK. So, I like this. There's some shines on the front and I think it's my face or arms reflecting. It's a little bit more orange than the rest of it. Let me go ahead and find the color first. This is for those little reflections in the front. Find the value. And then I'm probably... That's a little too bright. Maybe something like this. I'm just going to make it a little bit more "orangey." Let's see how this looks. That's pretty close. Maybe a little bit too bright. And those go right in the front. Nice and sharp. Let me fix my lines a little bit before I put the shines in. Pick up my black brush here and fix this. Pick up some pure black. Put that line back in that runs across, right there. I'll put in these last little shines, then I'll see what I've got. This is too big right here. I'm going to take this small little brush here and put in the reflections. I'm not quite ready for my brightest reflections. I'm going to start with one that's not quite as bright as it should be. There's a little bit of splotchiness on the silver, so I'm going to go ahead and put that in. I don't want these to be stronger than they should be. The biggest amateur mistake that I see, and I see it over and over again, is people increase the contrast. If you see a spot over there, it may be a real subtle spot, but when you paint it, you make it even stronger, and more distinct. You've always got to ask yourself, "Is mine more distinct, or is that one more distinct?" Because a lot of times, real subtle things that your eye can just barely pick up, you'll paint them way stronger than they really are because your eye is so sensitive to those dark areas. Let me go ahead and put the very lightest shine in. I think this brush is a little fat for that purpose. Let's see here... I still think that "orangey" shine in front needs more orange in it. Let me take some really strong... Now I'm just going to play with the shape a little bit, and bump things around. Try to fix where I see the problems. Once you get it all filled in and blended, basically it's not finished, but I've done everything I can think to do at the first stage. I've blended it. I've put in the reflections. It's all done. Now I'm just going to bump it around. When I get to this point, all "bumping around and fixing" means is asking myself, "What's the difference?" What's the difference between my cup and that. There's all kinds of questions you can ask yourself. You can ask yourself, "Where is there more contrast?" "Do my reflections stand out more?" "Are they more visible? Do they 'pop' more than it does there?" If they do, then I need to make them more subtle, and blend them in. You don't want more contrast here, and you don't want things to "pop" more here. When you paint, that's what amateurs do, because you love to see an effect. If you want to put a shine in, you make it stronger. You see a shadow, you make it stronger. Don't do that. The biggest question typically is, "Which one is more subtle?" "Which one is more soft?" "Which one has less contrast in it?" It's almost always the subject because we tend to paint things with more contrast. So if you see stronger contrast, then take it out. For instance, this is a slightly softer line right there in the actual cup. So, I need to soften this line a little bit. I see that this has too much of a corner on it. I need to round it just the teeniest bit. I'll pick up some pure black, go back in there and round it out just a little bit. Again, it's nothing but "What is the difference?" If you look at that, and you say, "I don't know what the difference is. Mine doesn't look right." Well, that's not good enough. What you do is break it down into individual parts. If you don't know what the difference is, just fix one problem at a time. This reflection comes down too low. It shouldn't come down that much. So, I just bump it up. I see a reflection on the bottom of the handle, right there. So, I've got to put that in. It's just fixing one thing after another. But, if you wait until all your paint is painted in, the whole object is filled in — — you've done all your blending, you've put the shines in — if you wait until that point before you fix, it's a lot easier to fix. If you start fixing as you are painting, and blending as you are painting, then you tend to create all kinds of mistakes, which then you can't fix. But, if you start off by just using your color checker, and making sure everything is right, then it always is easier once you get to the point of fixing. A little bit of splotchiness inside the cup in there, so I'll put some of that in. Now, I'm just going to bump my shine. It's so thin, I'm just going to drag this brush across, fix my line, and make the shine even sharper. My shine comes across too much. I need to fix that. I'm just going to take this brush that's got a lot of dark paint in it, and just drag it over, just to darken it down. OK. Now I'm going to bump the shape around. See how mine comes out, and it's too high? And that one is more of a point? This one has a nicer shape on this side. Oops. Wrong color. These shines are too distinct. They're more subtle there. So, I'm going to take a big brush and just soften it a little bit. There's one really sharp line that runs through it. So, I'm going to get some of that "orangey" color. Don't just guess. Check your color. Make sure that you're not going to get it way too bright. Put it on your color checker and see what you've got. Too bright. My lines are too much like two lines, and I don't see that as much over there. OK. I don't want to overwork it. Without thinking too hard that's basically put in, and I'm going to take a little break, and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes, because I can't really see anything right now, then we'll go from there. After a little break I step back and look at this, and I see a few problems with my drawing. So, I'm going to fix the ellipse, for one thing. It's a little fat on this side. It's a little fat overall. I think this is about my viewpoint. Let me bump that down a little bit. You can see why it's so important to have some background to bump things around with. That helps that a little bit. I'm just looking for differences. That shine doesn't get up quite that high. There's a little bit more of this lighter color in the handle there. Pull out your color checker. Check yourself whenever you need to. Don't trust your eye, especially at this point. You start getting optical illusions. It's very subtle. There's some nice reflections under the lip here that I missed. Make sure my foundation is good, though, before I start putting that in. This needs to be a little bit wider. Straighten these lines. Easier to do that now than after I put the reflection in there. This has got a little bit more of a blend to it. Just the slightest bit. Now I'm ready to put those reflections on the bottom. There's a little bit of black down lower. It's going to be way easier to fix this now, before I put the reflection in. So, I'm going ahead and taking my time. Add black back into it. Now I'm going to bump it the other way with some of the background color. This should be a nice sharp line right here. Do I see any... oh. Let me... I almost forgot to put in the glow on the bottom there. I'm going to pick up some of this blood orange. This is one you really want to check, if you can. It's a small spot. But if we can figure out what color that is... The tendency on something like this — whenever you have a dark area, and there's a shine in the dark — the tendency is to think that it's way brighter than it is. So, I want to make sure that I don't get the value wrong. Or the color wrong. But especially the value. See? Look how dark this color is. If I put that color on white... Look at that. So, that is the shine, maybe. We'll see. Let me check. It might be too light. I'll bet you it's too light. Look how much darker it is than white paint. It's pretty close, so we're going to go with that. And the color... mine might be a little bit too red. Let me get a little bit more yellow. Now I've lightened it up, so I need to darken it back. But if I want to keep the yellow, I"m going to darken it with brown, not blue, because that will make it turn to green. I'm going to re-check this color. It's such an important color. It'll ruin your whole silver cup if you get it wrong, maybe. That's too bright down there. This is right on the bottom of the lip. The very brightest part. It's a hard one to do. I'm trying to keep that little thin black line that runs through there. OK, and then one more, which is even thinner. Don't like that at all. Let me fix that. One more time. I'm just dabbing it, and then I'll blend it a little bit, if I need to. OK, that's too fat. Now, I'm going to come back with some black And it really doesn't have to be black black. A little bit of that. And let's just fix that line. This is too fat and bold, that black in there. I need to blend it a little bit. I'm just going to take the brush that I painted the orange with, and get rid of most of the paint. And then just come over and blend this just slightly. Now, some black. This one on the bottom should be super thin, and it kind of trails off more. So, I'm just going to come back with some black and bump it around a little bit. Make it a super thin line. Right in the middle of that I could make it the slightest bit brighter. The glow almost bleeds off the top there. I'm just going to touch it right in the middle with something that's not quite as "orangey." It's not quite as orange as you move away. Well, here's a good color right here. I'm just going to touch it. Maybe a little more. It's such a small color that it's going to be very hard to see. But I'm going to put some on my color checker and just see if it feels right. I mean, if it just looks like it's in the same family. And this is the very brightest part of that shine on the bottom there. This is probably a little too strong, a little too light. We'll just compromise. I'm going to make sure I have enough of that on my bristles. Never push a brush like I just did. I always pull a brush. The reason I just did that is I'm just very gently picking up enough color on the tip. Right in the middle of what I've already got. There's a really nice shine. I don't like the way my shine bleeds over that way so far. So, I'm just going to take some of this orange color, because I just feel like I see it in there. Maybe I don't. I don't know. It's not a color you could really check. I just don't like my shine. I need a dark color. Not black, though. Just something to play with this line. Now I'm going to put a super crystal dot right there in the middle. And it's going to have just the slightest bit of orange in it. I've already got the color. I'm going to make mine even more orange. First of all, let me clean this brush and make sure it's white, white, white. Which it looks like it is. White, white, white, and just a touch of a kind of yellow-orange. No blue whatsoever in this. It's a pure color. It's not a dirty color. This has just got a hint of this yellow in it. It's got to be super bright. As bright as I can get it, pretty much, with just a tint. I guess it's pretty close to what we had before. This one is maybe a little more "orangey." So, now the challenge is to put this in there. I really need a detail brush instead of fighting this big one, but here we go. I like working with big brushes because they just hold paint better. This is where you wish you could get even brighter, but this is as light as we can get. Let me fix that. I'm just going to barely touch the background. Just where I got a bump there. And same thing... I almost don't mind a little bit of a bump. This line should be really thin. Let me find the right color. Well, that's pretty good, I guess. I'm asking myself, "What's the difference?" I see a little bit of a corner down here that's a little more round. Not too much. Just a little bit more blend going on here. And my shadow is maybe a little softer. I don't think it's 100% black. So, if I milk it up just slightly, that'll be OK. And this shadow line, maybe, is the slightest bit softer. And this kind of goes up in here. Although, it's pretty sharp. OK, let me bump it the other way. Is there anything else? OK. Is there anything else that jumps out at me? This ellipse is maybe the slightest bit too pointed. And it's got some spottiness in there. I think what I'm going to do at this point is... I'm sure that'll see something later, and I'll come back. But I'm going to go ahead and paint all the background in, just so I can make a final judgement on this cup. I don't want to do that until I get everything filled in. I can really make a better judgement once the whole background is filled in. And that's true, especially about your color, because you might think this looks too green, or too yellow, or whatever. But once the background is put in, that's the only time you can really judge your color. That's really important. Because this will throw you. Especially shadow colors. Shadow colors will look all wrong until you get the rest of the background filled in completely. Let me go ahead and move forward here, and paint the background, and then I'll probably come back to this one last time and play with it. I'm just sure I'll see something. Let me take one last look at this silver cup, and see if there is anything I don't like about it. You know, this is something... I never am happy with my paintings when I finish with them. I start to see problems, and they just look like paint, and the magic just never happens for me. Some people call that the artist's curse. But I've learned over the years to sort of accept a painting, or decide when I think it's finished, and that point is when nothing really jumps at me that I need to fix, you know? I'm not going to just go in there, and start worrying about a bunch of tiny little details, because then I can ruin the whole thing. So, I'm just going to probably leave it. I don't see anything that really... One thing that I don't like is this edge is a little bit thick. It's more of just a hairline when I look at it there. So, I'm going to thin that down just a little bit to start with. I think I'm going to stop right there. Call it finished. I could nitpick the heck out of it, and just find all kinds of stuff. It's good enough. If you overwork it too much, you end up killing the whole thing. It gets so tight, but then you lose the big picture. And you lose some of your color, because the more you work it, the more you mix the colors all together, and sometimes it can turn to mush while it's getting more detailed. But the overall effect is better if you just don't overwork it. At least that's what I think. So there it is. It's finished.