When I first began painting some 10 years ago, I recall how intimidating it all seemed. With all of the various colors, mediums, brushes and other tools available, it was enough to make my head spin.

How do I make a color lighter or darker? What about making realistic shadows or highlights? This article will shed some colorful light on the situation, and with practice, working with color in your oil paintings will become easier and more enjoyable.

Thank God for the beautiful Sun, for without it, we would not see color. Everything would appear dark and colorless.

Thankfully, the light from the Sun also travels in a straight line. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have the wonderful variety of light and shadow that makes everything so enjoyable to paint.

If you take an apple for instance, and put it outside in the grass in the sunlight, you will notice several different values that the light creates when shining on the apple.

You have the main overall tone of the apple, the shadow on the apple, the cast shadow, reflection from nearby objects like the green grass and the sky, and highlights. Our job as painters is to accurately depict these values on canvas using color.

There are so many different oil colors on the market today. All of these different colors come from the six colors that make up the spectrum – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.

Colors have four main properties – value, intensity, temperature and hue. The value of a color refers to how light or dark a color is. The intensity of a color refers to how bright or dull it is – also known as a colors saturation or purity. If you used yellow straight from the tube, it would have a higher intensity then if you mixed it with white. The temperature refers to how warm or cool a color is. Colors range in temperature from warm yellows and oranges to cool blues and violets. Finally, the hue is just another word for color. An apple and a cherry are both hues of red.

Color mixing is not an exact science. Artists have different formulas and methods for mixing and applying paint, so the following tips are general guidelines and not necessarily rules that must be followed.

When mixing colors don’t over mix. Over mixing a color will take the life out of it.

To create highlights in your paintings, use white with a touch of the objects complimentary color. There are some exceptions however. When painting highlights on certain objects like brass for instance, which can be depicted on canvas using yellow, making a lighter yellow tinted with white can create a convincing highlight.

Cast shadows of objects are complimentary to the color that the shadow is cast upon. For instance, the cast shadow of a red apple on a blue tablecloth would be orange.

To get any desired color, try to mix as few colors as possible.

Try to keep the theme of your painting either all warm or all cool in temperature.

Again, color mixing is not an exact science. If you survey 10 artists and ask them various questions about mixing oil paint, you will likely get many different answers. My advice is to keep painting and practicing until you develop your own formulas and techniques that you are comfortable with. Happy Painting and God Bless!

One color can be painted over another, drawing and proportions can be corrected, and all the nuances of light and shadow can be studied experimentally. The painting can be put aside at any time, to be picked up and continued at a later date.

Some beginners choose oil without considering other media because of a reverence for the “genuine oil painting.” When they take up painting as a hobby they want to produce “pictures that show the actual brush strokes.”

Many other amateurs, who would like to work in several media but feel that their time is too limited, select oil after checking with teachers or schools or experimenting on their own. Even a person who is more interested in another medium may find, as I have, that by using oils he can more easily study color subtleties and can acquire basic knowledge that will later be applied to the medium he prefers. The old adage, “One medium helps another,” is especially true if the first one is oil.

As you progress you will soon discover that there is more to oil painting than the surface quality of the brushwork. The type of surface you work on, the preliminary staining of the surface, and the under painting all affect the finished result.

However, in your initial efforts you will want to work in a direct manner, particularly when painting outdoors. Later you can experiment in the studio with various types of under painting.

If you are just beginning to paint, you will do well to start with a reputable brand of student color. Most color manufacturers make a line of student colors along with their professional grades. These colors are appreciably less expensive and the selection is nearly as wide as in the professional line.

As you progress, you can replace the student brand with colors of professional quality, which have far greater covering quality, particularly in the Cadmiums and Blues. There are several good brands of colors available. My own choice is the Grumbacher line.

I recommend the following colors for basic use: Alizarin Crimson; Cadmium Yellow, Light; Cadmium Red, Light; French Ultramarine; Ivory Black; Light Red; Thalo Green; Yellow Ochre; Zinc or Titanium White.

These nine colors will enable you to mix the various shades of other colors that you will need for most purposes.

However, you may want to supplement these colors with: Cadmium Yellow, Deep; Cadmium Orange; Cerulean Blue; Burnt Sienna; Viridian; Cobalt Blue; Thalo Blue; Raw Umber.

Once you get your paints in order, you’re going to need something to paint on. The best and most receptive surface on which to work is stretched linen canvas. Linen, however, is relatively expensive, and cotton canvas is a good substitute.

The cotton canvas panels that fit in your paint box are the most convenient for painting outdoors and are inexpensive. They are light in weight, too, and have the added advantage of not taking up much space when stored in your studio. These first few tools are essential components of oil painting. Once you get these, you’ll be on your way to creating your masterpiece.

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