Oil Painting: Techniques and Characteristics

What is oil painting?

Oil is a painting technique widely used in art throughout the history. In this technique, the pigments are mixed with a binder made up of oils. This oily base makes oil paint one of the artists’ favorite mediums, because it provides fluidity to the painting.

“It is a very thick and hard paint, but at the same time, it is easy to work with because of how it glides on the support,” says painter Moshe Stahl.

Oil characteristics

Painter Moshe Stahl has been working with oil paint for over two decades. So, here he will share its characteristics.

Color mixtures: Due to its consistency, oil paint allows you to create a wide color palette. Starting from the combination of the base colors you will obtain a high quality result.

Drying time: The oil used as a binder allows the paint to take a long time to dry. Therefore, the time of making the pictures can take a long time. Moshe Stahl indicates that this allows you to rectify as many times as you want and is one of the biggest differences with acrylic paint.

Glossy finish: Another of the great virtues of oil painting is that its finish is glossy. These vivid colors have been preserved for centuries, literally. With minimal maintenance, cleaning and restoration controls, the painting is perfect.

Tips for oil painting

Finally, in this brief introduction to oil paintings, talented NY-based painter, Moshe Stahl, wants to highlight some of the facets that can be adopted when using this technique and that everyone who works on this painting should know.

Tips for oil painting, colors

First sketch with transparent paint: If you dilute the paint with a little essence of turpentine you will define the shape of the objects easily. Also, if you use a scale with more colors, you can create volume easily.

Use layers: Moshe Stahl indicates that oil paint allows you to cover an already painted section with another layer of color.

Heterogeneous mixtures: In addition to creating new colors with homogeneous mixtures of paint, you can improvise. To do this, Moshe Stahl uses paint as an expressive resource, making irregularities in the mix.

Paint white skin: Although no two people have the same skin color, using an orange and white base will help you paint almost all “white” skin types. For areas with less light incision, you can add cool colors such as blue or purple.