Here is a wonderful 5 part oil painting video tutorial by Artist William Gelvin that teaches how to paint what you see.  This is a long video series, but well worth it.  You will need about an hour of free time to watch this series.

There are times when a beginner will  paint what he thinks he knows about a particular subject and not what is right before his eyes.

Now, this is not to say that you should always paint what you see exactly. Sometimes it is more important to paint what you know, especially if your eyes are not trained to see color and value correctly, as in a portrait for instance.

In this oil painting lesson for beginners, William uses a subject that he has never painted before: a shiny gold watch.

Shiny metal objects are probably one of the most difficult things for beginners to paint.  That is because a beginner is not observing the watch correctly. William teaches you how to observe the watch differently, to break it down into a bunch of small shapes, which makes painting it much easier.  Learn more by watching the videos below. Enjoy!

A really big thanks to William Gelvin for sharing these videos.  To learn more about William and to view more of his excellent video demonstrations and tutorials, follow this link to visit his YouTube Page.

Paint what you see! part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyTuZ7Jg-Hc

Paint what you see! part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18DjDAPZHfQ

Paint what you see! part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W12s0LavbSA

Paint what you see! part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkIPNpVesI0

Paint what you see! part 5

By Michael Orlando

Deciding to practice the art of oil painting was a great one, but now you’re faced with what you need to buy in order to get started. Oil painting materials can be very expensive and a vast majority of materials to choose from. This materials list will carry you long into your early years of painting and is budget conscious.

Choosing a good easel can be difficult. But the most important characteristic is that it is STURDY! When I got started oil painting, I did not have the money to buy the kind of easel I needed. So I went to the local home fix it store and bought an 8 by 4 sheet of ¾ inch plywood for about $15.00. I put it up against a wall in my basement and put some support screws at the top of the board and into the ceiling joist and instant easel! The reason why it works so perfectly is that it’s big, so you can put up any size canvas, and it does not get much sturdier than that!

You also never had to adjust anything, because you put the canvas where you want it. This brings me to the next important note though. I staple gun my canvas to the easel flat and stretch them after the painting is done. That’s another reason why the sheet of plywood worked so well. I have used it for years and years and painted many paintings on it, so I have gotten my $15.00 out of it.

But I do also have a portable easel that I spent about $180.00 on. I use that for when I paint upstairs or outside etc. The next things are white bristle brushes (get a variety of them) some sable brushes (get a variety). I would suggest getting REAL animal hair brushes, no synthetics. The real animal hair brushes are the best, they handle the pigments better, and it’s more natural. I had a bunch of synthetic brushes early on and I got rid of all of them, garbage in my opinion. One of the most valuable things I have near my brushes is REAL cotton Qtips. They are way better than some of my good brushes. You can create very subtle strokes with those and soften edges. Get a box of 500. Once you start using them, you will go through them fast! But get some wire cutters and cut them in half. It’s tedious, but trust me, if you don’t do it, you will waste more of them and start getting paint all over the place. You will be glad you did this, and don’t forget some kind of jar or tin to put them in.

This may be preference, but I would suggest getting disposable palettes. They are pads of wax coated paper. When you use one up, tear it off and your ready to go. I also suggest getting two of them. One is for putting your colors down, and the other one is used for mixing only. Trust me, your going save a lot of paint and disposable palettes this way.

There are a variety of oils you can mix with your pigments and you should experiment, but start with COLD PRESSED Linseed oil. In brief, it’s extracted from trees differently and is a great general purpose oil. I use it all the time and that’s all I use. You will need a palette knife to mix the oils and resins into your pigments. An alkyd resin will be needed in order to speed up the drying times of some pigments. There are a variety of brands but just ask for one that is for general purpose until you know which ones you want.

Paint thinner or mineral spirits are essential, but be sure to get a type that is not too smelly or strong; it’s not good to breathe it. You will also need a brush washer to put the paint thinner in and wash your brushes. Get some rags for messes and cleanups.

There is a large selection of pigments to choose from, but the first consideration is making sure you buy pure pigments/colors. Brick red is not a real pigment. Here’s a list of the pigments you need to get started and will carry you well into your early years of painting. Titanium white, raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, ivory black, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, cadmium green cadmium orange, chromium oxide green, cobalt blue, viridian, dioxazine violet, French ultramarine blue, paynes grey, charcoal grey, yellow ochre, sap green, pliers to untwist stuck paint caps, and toilet paper to wipe your palette knife, and those little artist cups with caps so you can put your linseed oil and alkyd resin in.

If you’re using your own prepared canvas, you will also need blue masking tape and a square so you can draw out the size of the painting you’re making and mark it with the tape. Get a color wheel. They are a huge help until you start to know what certain mixes will do etc. It’s important to have a good artist soap to wash your hands because you never want to get any artist materials near your mouth and eyes etc.

You will also need some plain ivory bar soap for washing your brushes. An important item is a metal trash can that can be made air tight. This is where you will put all your oil painting trash! Curing resins, oils, pigments and thinners are all very flammable and given the right conditions, they can spontaneously combust! But in a metal garbage can that’s air tight, you have nothing to worry about.

Lastly is the canvas. You can get canvas boards, stretched canvas etc. The canvas boards are good to practice on, but I also suggest preparing your own canvas and buying it unprimed. I have another article out about this and I will have a “how to” video about it on ustream. But you can also buy the pre-stretched canvas. You can just start painting on them, but they are way overpriced.

This list should get you oil painting immediately and carry you well into your early years of painting.

Michael Orlando is a veteran motion picture visual effects artist, and most recently has been concentrating on his oil painting career and building his art business. His original fine art oil painting can be seen at http://www.etsy.com/shop/orlandoart.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Orlando
http://EzineArticles.com/?Basic-Oil-Painting-Materials-For-Beginners-and-Purchasing-Tips&id=4018448

Here is a great little video from artist Andrew Whyte for all you beginner oil painters out there.  In this video Andrew talks about the various tools and supplies that he uses and recommends for beginners.  A big thanks to Andrew for making this video available.  To learn more about Andrew and to see his artwork, click here to visit his website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mTYkX6GWp8

Learning how to become a good oil painter is a difficult undertaking. In fact, it is more than likely one of the most difficult painting mediums to master. Things like color mixing & theory, perspective, techniques and materials can really intimidate a beginner artist.

So how do you get the most out of your oil painting and become a more accomplished artist?

You must make it a point to learn the fundamentals of oil painting, practice often and have an enormous amount of patience.

You must start with the fundamentals of oil painting first. You cannot expect to produce Rembrandt quality paintings in the beginning. In fact, the first paintings you produce will probably be a lot worse than you may have anticipated. Frustration will more than likely come into the picture (pun intended). They key is to learn from your mistakes and do not let them defeat you.

So what are some of the fundamentals of oil painting? What information should you study and learn first?

Below are some topics of interest that you should definitely study further when you have time:

LEARN HOW TO DRAW

You will be amazed at how much learning how to draw will help improve your oil paintings. In fact, years ago art students were not even permitted to pick up an oil painting brush until they learned the fundamentals of drawing. My advice would be to find a few good books on drawing fundamentals and start there. Drawing is an art form all by itself and you should not be expected to master drawing as an art form, unless you want to of course.

Here is an excellent book to help you learn drawing fundamentals:

“The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence” by Betty Edwards

COLOR THEORY

You MUST learn about color theory if you plan on producing quality works of art. If you don’t understand how colors work, then you might as well hang up your brushes now. There is much to learn about colors like temperature, hue and intensity and how colors interact with one another. This is a very important aspect of oil painting and must not be overlooked.

Here is an excellent book on color theory:

“Exploring Color: How to Use and Control Color in Your Painting” by Nita Leland

PERSPECTIVE

Learning about perspective will teach you how to translate a 3-dimensional world onto a 2-dimensional canvas or other support. Learning perspective is a necessary ingredient toward producing convincing oil paintings.

Here is an excellent book on perspective:

“The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium” by Phil Metzger

MATERIALS

Materials to an oil painter are like what a guitar is to a guitarist. A guitarist cannot play without his instrument nor can he play without understanding how his instrument works. Your painting materials are your instruments. They are what enable you to express yourself, so learning more about them is pretty good idea. Get to know the different kinds of brushes and what they do. Know your paints. Not all colors behave the same. Some are more transparent or opaque than others. Know your supports and the difference between them. The list goes on.

Here is an excellent book for learning more about oil painting materials:

“The Oil Painting Book: Materials and Techniques for Today’s Artist” by Bill Creevy

TECHNIQUES

There are a myriad of oil painting techniques that you can utilize to create your paintings. So much so, that it is beyond the scope of this article. Techniques like wet on wet, glazing, alla prima, knife painting, etc. should all be explored. Working with various techniques will help you develop your own unique style.

Here is a great book on oil painting techniques:

“The Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Techniques: A Unique Step-by-Step Visual Directory of All the Key Oil-Painting Techniques, Plus an Inspirational Gallery Showing How They Can Be Put into Practice” by Jeremy Galton

LEARN FROM THE MASTERS

Masters like Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt van Rijn , Johannes Vermeer and many more, were all able to successfully translate our 3-dimensional world onto a 2-dimensional surface in such a way that it grabs the viewers attention and keeps it there. Their paintings engage the viewer and bring them back time and time again to look some more. Why? What is it that these paintings have that make them so popular? Well, one way to find out is to study them. If at all possible, make it a point to visit a museum as often as possible and study the works of the masters. Find paintings that grab your attention and draw you in. Then, when you have time, try to find books and other resources on those artists so that you can learn more about them and their techniques. When you are ready, pick a painting that you are quite fond of and try to reproduce it.

Here is a great book on learning from the masters:

“How to Paint Like the Old Masters ” by Joseph Sheppard

About Mike

Nationally recognized, award winning artist Mike Callahan is a fourth generation Nevada native who counts himself privileged to grow up in what he believes to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains near Reno, Nevada where he still lives today. While he has been painting since childhood, he has only been painting in earnest for about the last 5 or 6 years.

Says Mike, “The topography of this area is simply phenomenal; one can go from the high desert to mountainous alpine settings in less than an hour. It is this beautiful and varied landscape that ends up being the subject for a vast majority of my paintings.”

However, if you look through the paintings on Mike’s website, you will quickly see that the Sierra landscape isn’t the only subject Mike typically paints. He also enjoys painting Western themes as well as figurative and portraits.

As you look at Mike’s work, you will notice a great color harmony throughout. While the colors in his paintings run the full spectrum of color seen in nature, harmony is maintained by Mike limiting himself to only three colors plus white on his palette. Instead of referring to this as a limited palette, Mike thinks of it as an unlimited palette as he has not found any color he desires to use that he can’t create from those primary colors.

Mike’s work has been featured in numerous solo, group, and juried shows including the 54th Juried Exhibition at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, the second 100 in PaintAmerica’s 2008 Paint the Parks competition, and in May of 2008, Mike received national honors at the Oil Painters of America’s National Juried Show of Traditional Oils winning a coveted Award of Excellence for his painting “Wild Mustangs.”

Please click here to visit Mike’s website to view more of his work.

“Secret Cove” – Step By Step Oil Painting Lesson By Mike Callahan

Above is a shot of the Secret Cove, Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I shot this photo early on Saturday, Mar. 10, 2007.

Below is my almost that I painted this scene on. The canvas measures 24″ x 38″. To begin with, I mixed up a burnt-orang-ish color and applied it in strokes to my canvas with my palette knife just to get going. Follow along and see the progress of the rest of this painting…

1.) After applying the paint with knife as shown in the initial shot, I wetted a paper towel with Turpenoid and spread it evenly over the whole canvas. At this point, I will wipe the paint down till it’s as thin as I want it.

2.) From there, I dip a small bristle brush (about a size 2 flat) in Turpenoid as well and use it to draw with. I initially divide my canvas into thirds both horizontally and verically which aids both my composition and drawing.

3.) I dove right in and painted my sky right on top of my wet underpaint. I was sure to practice my “fat over lean” principle by mixing plenty of medium ( I use M. Graham’s Alkyd/Walnut oil mix and thin it about 50% with Turpenoid) and mix it liberally into my sky colors (making them “fat” with oil). It slides right off my brush and sticks to the “lean” under-paint.

4.) I got a late start on this painting because I had to stretch the canvas and by then it was late in the day, so I painted in the far mountains keeping them light and very blu-ish to pull off the atmospheric perspective I’m after. I mix a fair amount of sky color with the greens and browns for the small bit of the middle mountain slope and then called it a day.

5.) The next morning, I got up at 4:30 AM and painted for a little over an hour before going to my day job. I paint in the foreground trees and since my sky is now pretty dry, I mix in some of the left-over sky color around the edges of the trees where bough meets sky.

6.) Tuesday morning’s progress continues with the painting of the bank and snow. The snow which is mostly in shadow is very blue, but somewhat purple-ish in color because it is the reflection of all the ambient light but not the direct early morning sunlight (except in a couple of spots). Since the ambient light is mostly from sky and water to put it in simple terms, then the snow in the shade will be very blu-ish.

7.) Wednesday’s hour plus is spent concentrating on te reflected water in the distance. This painting posed a particular challenge for me because I had to paint reflected water as it comes forward and turns into the clear see-through water that will make this scene unmistakeably Tahoe.

8.) Thursday brings more challenges. The reflective water becomes clear, but on the left, the clarity is also a bit in shadow and reflects the trees a bit as well. I concentrate a lot on value and color to get it right and as a result, as you can see, my progress is slowed considerably.

9.) Friday’s hour is slow going too. This water, with rocks above and below it is tricky to paint so I move slowly deliberating with myself over nearly every stroke.

10.) It’s now Saturday morning and I begin to paint the clear water as it is in direct sunlight. What you see here is about an hour’s progress too. Go to the next page to see how I continued for most of the rest of the day.

11.) More rocks and sand – as the water nears the viewer, the less it reflects the sky and since Tahoe is so clear, the more sand color one sees.

12.) As I continue, I have to bear in mind that most of the rocks I’m painting are under water and therefore have a darker value, however, as they break the water’s surface, but are still wet, they take on a different value than either the part under water or the totally dry rock surface.

13.) For this hour I paint in the wet and dry rocks in the shadows of the trees. Another factor to consider is that contrast increases the nearer an object, in general. This is a little tricky to be sure.

14.) I finally near completion by painting in the ripples that are in the shallow sand area as well as the rippled surface reflections…below is the final piece.

“Secret Cove”
24″ x 38″ Oil on Canvas
SOLD!

Want more of Mike Callahan’s oil painting insights? Check out his 26 page downloadable e-book

In this 26 page step-by-step oil painting tutorial, nationally recognized, award winning artist Mike Callahan shows just how he paints the realistic, clear water and granite rocks of Lake Tahoe. Discover Mike’s technique for painting believable transitions from reflected surface to water that’s seen through near the shore. Includes tips on elements of the landscape as well. Follow this link to download this Ebook