DFAO Digital Fine Artists Organization

How to Make Oil Paintings?

How to Make Oil Paintings?
By Travis Jones

This article is a brief overview about the basics of Oil Painting. Lets first understand that an oil painting differs from the any other paint form in the technique and material used to make the paint itself.
As we are all aware of the fact, that to erect an amazing skyscraper and to neglect the integrity of the foundation would be foolhardy.
Most certainly the technique is not a steadfast rule that is applicable to make paintings. Merely a guide to get going towards a method the individual artists could conform to, making a style of their own.

The basic framework follows the following steps:

1. Preparing the canvas.

How To Buy Oil Paintings?

How To Buy Oil Paintings?
By Travis Jones

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.

10 Things You Can Do To Overcome Your Fear To Drawing

10 Things You Can Do To Overcome Your Fear To Drawing
By Jeff Rosales

If you have always had the desire of learning how to draw, the only thing from stopping you is yourself and your fears.

Fear of failure is a powerful barrier to overcome before we can achieve our goals. If you want to learn to draw, but are afraid to do so, you must learn to overcome your fear, and you do that by confronting it.

But don't get me wrong here. You shouldn't just go to the town's art supply shop and buy all your equipment and try to develop a masterpiece from the word "go". That would be like confronting the school bully with no mental or physical preparation....

There are 10 things I can recommend to overcome your fear to draw. You can do one, or as many as you want:

1. As Nike's slogan goes: "Just Do It!" Make a decision to start learning how to draw, and start your research to get familiar with terms, tools, materials and techniques. You could start by visiting my site (www.Learn-to-Draw-and-Paint.com) where I have a growing collection of free articles, tips and techniques on drawing and painting. That's a good start! ;-)

Creating Distance in a Landscape Oil Painting

Creating Distance in a Landscape Oil Painting
By Samuel Jaycox

Keeping interest in a painting is important. One of the best ways to do this in a landscape painting is to create distance. The first thing to remember is the farther away something is the less detail it will have. also it will be lighter in color than something closer.

Step 1: Mix the colors. the first colors you should mix are light or grey in color. Start with pure white with a small amount of black. be sure to use a small amount of black as it tends to overpower the white very easily. Now you have a choice to make. You can use this grey by itself or add some color to it. Remember grey is not only white and black but grey also has color. For a spring scene try adding some blue with a tint of green. Keep it on the bluish side. For summer scenes add more green. For fall scenes a plain grey or tan would be nice. Winter scenes can use a multitude of different colors. Blue, grey, violet to name a few.

Step 2: apply these colors to creat either foothills or distant trees and shrubs. Remember not to add alot of detail. In fact the more out of focus the better. Now as you come closer in the painting the more color you can add.

Framing Oil Painting

Framing Oil Painting
By Travis Jones

To Preserve and maintain Oil painting for years, some basic care and attention is needed, for that oil painting has to be framed. .The first and foremost step in the care of your painting is eliminating the condition which can cause the damage to your collection and the next step is to care while handling and cleaning the painting. I think Artwork should be framed for Aesthetics and Exhibition

How a Frame should be?

The most frequent question asked is How to Frame a Painting? I say it depends on many range of factors starting from the cost of the frame to aftercare of your painting. Now the next question comes in People’s minds -should you frame your own paintings? Or should you let the artist frame them? Or should you get a professional to do it for you? But my advice to have a professional framer frames your portrait-no doubt it will be worth extra money. Framing is an art in itself and to learn any art it takes time. A professional framer will have the knowledge, ability, skill and experience on how to frame the painting properly and with care.

Technique of Watercolor Painting WC04 TOOLS

Technique of Watercolor Painting WC04 TOOLS
By John Blenkin

A painter's main tool box plus a number of smaller boxes are needed for all your tools so they can be found quickly. In addition it is important to know if any one of them is missing so it can be found before it is required for a specific painting job later.

We have said earlier watercolors require constant attention and if instant reaction is needed to achieve success then having to search for a missing tool will jeopardize the quality of the final work.

For your main toolbox use a workingman’s toolbox now usually made from black and garish colored plastic. These toolboxes are cheap but will last a long time for a painter because the weight it will carry will not be very much.

These toolboxes have a large main compartment and many small ones in a tray below the lid and another series of small compartments in the lid. The main part of the toolbox is clear for larger items.

Technique of Water Color Painting WC05 PAPER

Technique of Water Color Painting WC05 PAPER
By John Blenkin

I use two sorts of watercolor paper.

These are Saunders 'Waterford' Rough - hand made weight 638g/sqm - 300lb. I buy it in its standard size sheet of 762mm x 559 mm (30 x 22 inches.) and or:

Bockinford machine made watercolor paper. This has a Not pressed surface - in my opinion this paper is useful too for most other types of work. In short it is a first rate good all round general-purpose paper and cheaper than the Saunders and in the same size and weight.

These two papers have reputation and are technically manufactured to provide the kind of features needed in long life watercolor painting grounds.

If I need smaller sheets I cut them down into ½ full size - ¼ full size from the larger standard size sheet. This means all of my paintings fall into a small range of standard sizes and therefore can be framed using my preferred standard framing dimensions by the framer.

The Saunders paper comes in three types of surface - Hot Pressed - Cold Pressed and Rough.

Technique of Water Color Painting WC06 PAINTS

Technique of Water Color Painting WC06 PAINTS
By John Blenkin

Painters made up their own paints during earlier times. As they became able to they paid someone else to do this for them. Then it became fashionable and even desirable for the master painter to offer student apprenticeships in return for their free services of cleaning modeling and making up paints.

This was a good deal for the student. The would-be painter learned first hand the possibly secret craft and chemistry of making pigment into paint. This gave the student a contact with painting materials unknown today. Some artists now mix their own paint and claim benefit in their painting because of this.

Perhaps this is not so good an idea as it might sound.

There is no doubt the principle in theory is sound but I doubt if the longevity of the painting should be risked against the undoubted advantage the big paint manufactures have not only of expenditure in R&D but in the techniques of testing. Adopting testing standards is a policy and a science in itself. Who else has the time and resources to do this? The painter has more pressing uses to invest in time.

Technique of Watercolor Painting: WC07 PLANNING

Technique of Watercolor Painting: WC07 PLANNING
By John Blenkin

Plan or not to Plan? The outcome of the painting will be vitally affected by the decision to either plan the work or starting head down without any idea how the painting will finish.

It is not a matter of preference but of personality. To a great extent the subject will decide the issue. A painting of a building – a design – a specific place - a record painting – a commissioned painting – will usually lead the painter into an approach where pre-planning naturally results.

In this type of work pre-planning will reduce errors and the target idea will more likely to be realized. Any measured work - enlarging - portraiture – anything technical – animal bird or plant illustrations – are usually best planned beforehand. Professional work to deadline is a pre-planning must.

In general where the subject of the painting has to conform to the requirements or standards of others or to a specified known standard for a fee by a certain date it is best to pre-plan.

Creating Reflections in a Painting

Creating Reflections in a Painting
By Samuel Jaycox

Creating reflections in a painting is thought to be a hard task. This is not so. Creating reflections is easy and helps create interest in a painting. There are basically two ways to do this. One is on a dry canvass and the other on a wet canvass. The secret of each of these is the same: Pay attention to the strokes!

Creating reflections on a dry canvass. Dry canvass only means you are applying paint to a canvass that has no under-coat of paint. First create the land by using horizontal strokes up to the waters edge. Now decide what is to be reflected into the water and “loosely” paint it using vertical strokes. Now with things of different colors that will be reflected, it is okay to overlap them. This will only add the the illusion. Now with a soft brush lightly stroke a horizontal stroke. Remember water must take on the appearance of being flat.