Home Forums Explore Media Watercolor Palette Talk Thinking of moving to oil.

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  • #456544
    edmund ronald
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        I’m thinking of moving to oil. Because of the way one can build up a painting slowly, go back and forth. I’ve watched the guys at Montmartre and a lot of them use a palette knife rather than brush strokes, and I guess I could see myself being able to do that.

        Your thoughts on the move from watercolor to oil?

        Edmund

        My virtual sketchbook, one a day https://www.instagram.com/edmundronald/

        #628354

        It has never occurred to me to paint in oils, too messy and smelly, and they take ages to dry. A friend is a Marine artist and paints in oils, many going in Cunard cruise liners. He often has to go back after a couple of months to varnish them.

        I would first try gouache or acylics.

        Doug


        We must leave our mark on this world

        #628364
        edmund ronald
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            It has never occurred to me to paint in oils, too messy and smelly, and they take ages to dry. A friend is a Marine artist and paints in oils, many going in Cunard cruise liners. He often has to go back after a couple of months to varnish them.

            I would first try gouache or acylics.

            Doug

            I went to draw in Montmartre today, and a lot of the guys who sell stuff there paint in situ, oil and watercolor and acrylics. And I found the luminosity extraordinary, the ability to paint the gleam of a backlit edge or a beam of sunlight, also the way one can reverse mistakes, build up a picture by touches. It seems almost possible to confine the mess.

            A lot of the famous watercolorists did both oil and watercolour …

            Edmund

            My virtual sketchbook, one a day https://www.instagram.com/edmundronald/

            #628357

            I have started to use oil as well. I go back and forth between them. Oil doesn’t have to be any more messy than watercolour. And I’ve learned how to use it without smell or hazardous materials. I don’t use turpentine or mineral spirits. I clean my brushes with baby oil. :) I use Galkyd and a bit of linseed oil and thin layers can dry in a day. As for varnishing, I use Gamvar which can be applied as soon as the paint is very dry to touch (my last painting I varnished after a week). So it’s not the same medium as it used to be. I love the fact that colours stay the same when dry (doesn’t get lighter as with watercolour or darker like acrylics) and you can still use very thin layers and glaze. The only thing that I had to find a solution for was the lighting when working on an oil painting. If it’s not set up right you get a bad glare off the painting while trying to work with it.

            It takes a little longer than watercolour but I’ve worked months on a watercolour as well.

            www.ellenspalette.com

            #628361

            Oils are a great medium and you can do fantastic things with them, but as Doug said they have the disadvantage of being messy. You need a place to paint, but you need also a place to leave them dry away from dust ( and cat hair ) and you need a place to varnish them and if you do so with spray, it will better to be outside.

            If you work with regular oil paints you are going to need a well ventilated studio but you can always work with water soluble oils but these are more expensive.

            Generally speaking oil paints are more expensive than other mediums. You can buy with 20-30 euros a set of watercolours to start, but with the same amount of money you will not be able to buy not even the basics to start with oils ( paints, brushes, canvasses).

            But you don’t have to switch from watercolours to oils. There is no such thing as switching mediums. You can work with both.

            You can work in fact with every medium you like simultaneously.

            If you want my advice, (disclaimer: you don’t write that you don’t want one in your signature after all), I would suggest to get out for some urban sketching with watercolours, try your sketches in oils on studio and if it is possible to attend a three months workshop on drawing from life.

            This is the ultimate combination for developing your skills really fast.:)

            #628362

            Now regarding watercolours and paintings in layers.
            You can paint with the same technique on both oils and watercolours.
            The difference between these two mediums is that when you paint in watercolour you start from the lighter areas and you proceed in layers to the darkest ones and in oils you can start from the darks and proceed to the lighter areas.

            See here. One with oils ( unfinished)

            Watercolours

            Different results about the same technique.

            #628365
            edmund ronald
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                MariaLena about 5 minutes in Montmartre are enough to convince me that one can easily do stuff with oils that is really hard in watercolor. In particular: Change one’s mind in mid picture, add colored details etc. And add very dark backgrounds and light glints really easily.

                Edmund

                My virtual sketchbook, one a day https://www.instagram.com/edmundronald/

                #628359
                janinep7
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                    Hi Edmund, a very long time ago, I tried to learn how to paint with oils. It was still challenging… not the actual medium, but always a challenge to produce a successful painting. If you want to try an opaque medium, that will give you the same ability to go back and forth, from dark to light to dark again, making mid-course corrections, may I suggest starting with gouache? It has all the benefits of working in oils, and all the ease of working with watercolors. :) The next might be acrylics – you can paint them on any surface, clean up with soap and water, and although they do not have the same kind of soft luminous quality as oils, you can add mediums to them to give them a similar type of shine and also keep them workable longer. They can be glazed like watercolors or painted thick with a knife “impasto” style like oils. Learning oils is a bigger commitment both in time and space, b/c of the drying time and the need for adequate ventilation. If it’s opacity you’re after, there are other types of paint that will give it to you with less “overhead.” Goauche can be squeezed into pans like watercolors or used fresh from the tube. Certain brands reactive better – Schmincke will come back to “fresh squeezed moistness” with just a tiny bit of water, M. Graham as well. Holbein and WN tend to be chalkier. Gouache also plays well with transparent watercolor. A word on acrylics if you decide to explore there… Use CHEAP brushes… you do not, I repeat, do not, need “nice” brushes to paint with acrylics. In fact, you want “throwaway” quality. You have to keep your brushes wet, like bristles in the water, if you’re painting with them, b/c as soon as acrylic dries that’s it. You can’t rewet it. Also, you need to keep your paints wet, spritzing them with water often on the palette, as you work. Keep all this in mind for outdoor painting. It would be a lot more involved that a pocket set of wc and a waterbrush or pocket travel brush. And keep us posted on whatever you decide. :)

                    Here is a good link to some acrylic demos from a great teacher, a 4 part series:

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvHdqn6H_Jk

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5U8n1x2mYM

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lNwa3lEOZ0

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33P_eiJEojs

                    Here are a few examples of Shari Blaukopf, a well know watercolorist, using gouache:
                    https://shariblaukopf.com/?s=gouache

                    And the queen of gouache herself is Roz Stendahl:
                    https://rozwoundup.com/

                    #628363
                    MLHarvey
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                        Go for it!
                        Never make your muse wait.
                        She’ll get bored and toddle off to sit on someone else’s shoulder. ;)
                        Of course, one has to be circumspect and decide how serious a whim it is, so whether it’d be a waste of time or not.
                        That said, you won’t know how good a fit it will be until you try it!

                        Having done both myself (most heavily on the oil end) I will say they are exactly opposite each other in technique. (Oils work from dark to light highlights; watercolor from the highlights to the darks.) So expect a steep learning curve.
                        But if you like a challenge, go for it!

                        I’m thinking of moving to oil. Because of the way one can build up a painting slowly, go back and forth. I’ve watched the guys at Montmartre and a lot of them use a palette knife rather than brush strokes, and I guess I could see myself being able to do that.

                        Your thoughts on the move from watercolor to oil?

                        Edmund

                        #628355
                        Lulu
                        Default

                            I say just go for it too! Post this thread in the oil forum and you will get lots of encouragement!
                            I work the same as Ellen, no spirits or turps, easy clean up of brushes.

                            Lulu

                            Proud to be Kiwi!

                            #628366
                            edmund ronald
                            Default

                                I say just go for it too! Post this thread in the oil forum and you will get lots of encouragement!
                                I work the same as Ellen, no spirits or turps, easy clean up of brushes.

                                Thanks Ellen and Lulu. Maybe you could explain a bit more?

                                Edmund

                                My virtual sketchbook, one a day https://www.instagram.com/edmundronald/

                                #628356
                                Lulu
                                Default

                                    Edmund, if i need to thin a little i will add a drop or two of good quality linseed oil to my paints, or wipe over the canvas with a very light layer of the same before you start.
                                    Cleaning up of brushes i use an Atelier brand brush cleaner but you can use baby oil as Ellen does.

                                    Depends on your subject matter too and whether you want to glaze or not.

                                    The man whose classes i used to take does not use any mediums. Paintings i have done in his classes were dry in a week or less. No alkyds either. He paints
                                    landscapes.

                                    Palette knife painting is even better, just wipe the blade when you are done!

                                    Lulu

                                    Proud to be Kiwi!

                                    #628360
                                    maryinasia
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                                        When I took an oil painting class, I was surprised at how the glazes in oils are similar to the washes in watercolor. Besides the whole “ventilated place to paint and more clean up and dark to light” differences, there are a lot of similarities.

                                        #628358
                                        Swaggertoes
                                        Default

                                            Why not both? I routinely work in many mediums. Watercolor is my go to right now because it is easily transportable but I have never limited myself to only 1 (or 5…lol) media.

                                            Play. Explore. You may fall in love!

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