If you're painting without thinners, and only using linseed oil as a medium, I would recommend starting a painting with paint straight from the tube only. It'll take longer to cover the canvas, but that's the tradeoff of not using any thinners. Use small amounts of paint on your brush so you sort of have to dry-brush, and not make your first layer too thick. This is how I like to work actually. Just get used to taking your time, and enjoying the act of filling up the canvas as a sort of meditation. Then, once you've got the canvas covered, with subsequent layers start adding some linseed oil, so you maintain the fat over lean rule. An alternative if you don't like how slow dry-brushing without medium is, is do your first layer in acrylic! You only need water to thin acrylic.
Recently I bought a Phive LED 20 watt. It has 4 modes and you can control each of those. It’s very narrow but wide and lights up your whole workspace. I can’t believe I painted for many years without a good light . It’s really fantastic.
Been painting for a year now. Down here in Venice and hope to run into you one day. You (& just couple others) have accelerated my work exponentially and is greatly appreciated!
Thank you for clarifying warm and cool! “Does it need more red, yellow, or blue?” YES! That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Another simplified explanation from THE paint coach. 🙂
Ok, warm color vs cool color... the point of knowing and understanding the value in knowing the "values" for these color is that once you understand them, you can push a grey in or out of range for the use that it NEEDS, and KNOW right away what will defiantly work and what won't. Have you ever been working a painting and suddenly a grey appears which just goes into the wrong direction? The more you try to "fix" it, the more it doesn't work? This is where knowing warm and cool colors is super valuable with oil painting. I only recently learned this lesson well, and it has made a HUGE difference in my work. My background colors work better, and my foreground color pop far better than they used to. When I want to tone something down, I immediately know what color to use, no matter where it is in my painting!
Thanks for these paint talks. They are so helpful. I went college for art, but sadly, the classes for painting in oil or watercolor were sadly lacking in instruction. Mostly it was just come to class and paint, produce x amount of paintings a semester for grading, and very little instruction on the techniques and how to use the mediums. It was mostly just paint to get experience. I have learned much more since college thru videos like yours! Having questions answered about how to use the mediums is so helpful. Oil painting is my main love, although I occasionally do watercolors. I'm retired and live in an rv, traveling the country, so I gave up using solvents altogether and have had no issues with cleaning brushes. I watched a recent video of a woman who uses Murphy's wood oil soap to clean her brushes instead of turps. I've tried it, but find even that isn't really necessary if you wipe the paint out well with paper toweling and use soapy water at the end of the day. Love your channel. Thanks.
It is the active charcoal filter in air purifier that filters out VOC (toxic fumes in cases of oil painting) so if you want the toxic fumes filtered, make sure the air purifier you buy has a large active charcoal filter, the larger it is, the more times the air changes per hour in your room (also depending on how big the room is, the smaller the room, air changes per hour more times). Some paints like cadmium and titanium white are toxic. Eco Solve is a non-toxic plant based solvent that can be pour down the drain. I try to use as many non-toxic products as possible, air purifier and a charcoal filter mask when painting to make sure I feel free and less intimidated with oil painting.
Old San Juan Puerto Rico has many excellent opportunities for painting scenes...highly recommend!! Then the rainforest and Rincon, Puerto Rico also have great scenery for painting...Puerto Rico in general is a great place to visit!! The port in Fajardo...the caves in the middle of the island...and it is still part of the U.S. if that matters.
Thank you for all the help. I don't see the links for the sites you mentioned concerning landscape referenced material (with no royalty out copyright restrictions.
Maybe you covered this before but how do you handle your disposal of your paper towels/rags that have oil paint on them. Specifically do you have a specialized trash/bin you put them in before putting it in regular trash or hazardous facility? I am a solvent free painter so I only use walnut oil for medium.
I go into this some in my next paint talk. Honestly I throw my paint thinner rags and linseed oil rags away in the regular garbage. Thats what we did in art school so... I know thats probably not the "best" way but that's what I do. I never throw out paint thinner bc i reuse it. Walnut and Linseed oils are not toxic. I know some people say they can combust but I've never heard of that.
Chris, I was painting a large portrait over the course of the week and I came into a problem I hadn’t had before. I was using straight paint with just a few drops of slow drying oil in each color to alter the flow and ensure my paint wasn’t drying on me as I continued to work. But, as the week progressed I started getting noticeable brush marks in my previously worked areas- probably because the previous days work was drying up. I’m just starting, and I don’t work very fast which is why I was hoping the slow dry medium would keep the paint workable. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t start with a lean enough medium at the beginning before moving on to the oil medium or I didn’t use enough slow dry medium in general. Now for the question! If you are working a painting for a few days, do you have this issue and how do you usually deal with it if you do? I thought if I kept the whole paint layer workable I could just keep working wet in wet, now I’m second guessing my whole process. Maybe I need to layer my work, but instead of slowing the dry time, I’ll need to speed it up so I can do multiple undisturbed layers. To me, this reminds me of working like I would with acrylics, and the whole reason I got into oils was because I hate the way acrylics set up while you are trying to work them. I guess I just don’t understand what painters do if they can’t finish a painting in a single relatively short work session.
@Ryan Shirtz I'm aware Alkyd mediums exist like Galkyd and Liquin, the problem I am having is that I wanted the paint layer to be workable LONGER but my efforts were unsuccessful.
I had a similar problem because I have Cataract in one eye. I downloaded a pallet app. I can isolate a specific spot to get a larger view of that color value.
Color temperature for lighting is important only in that it is an indication of what the pigments will look like when you see it on your easel. for the most part, anything above 3000k will work out just fine for overall lighting, and for direct work lighting, something in the range of 4500 to 5000 is awesome. Light is measured in Kelvin, a scale of "candle light" but this can also be explained in temperature of the light. The higher the number the more spectrum is involved. With all lights this will also mean more heat, but LEDs are much more manageable for heat. LEDs also emit a wider range of color for their temperature reading. This does not always mean they are brighter, but it does mean they create light across a broader spectrum, compared to the light of fluorescent or incandescent. I recently bought new lighting for my studio and actually went with a tube set designed for a garage environment. For the price I receive much more light than what my space needed, because they were designed for a space much higher than mine, and the cost was very reasonable. I didn't even need to use the entire pack, and I installed it myself. Here is the link to Amazon. Barrina LED Shop Light, 4FT 40W 5000LM 5000K, Daylight White, V Shape, Clear Cover, Hight Output, Linkable Shop Lights, T8 LED Tube Lights, LED Shop Lights for Garage 4 Foot with Plug (Pack of 10)
I do pay attention to cool and warm colors It is my philosophy of color palette. Basically, a part frop black and white, I have 2 sets of each primary color: cool red, yellow and blue and warm yellow, red and blue Nb: cold yellow is cadmium lemon and warm blue is ultramarine :)
I chose those colors because I feel it is easier to paint shapes. Like i put warm colors in lights and cool colors in shadows. But it is not always the case. Inprefer extremely limited palette, lile 10-11 colors. I prefer buy less but better quality
I want to be able to paint portraits. Do you recommend I learn human anatomy first? And should I learn how to draw portraits before I try to paint portraits? If yes, do you have any recommendation on good resources (books, articles, videos etc.)
Yo Chris ✌🏼 Nice input about colour temperatur. Im just curious why you dont use cyan, magenta and lemon Yellow for your primary colours? As I understand, they are a lot more vibrant and saturated colour instead of ultramarine blue, cad red etc, which creates more opertunities to creating colours... how you a video about that? Cant Seem to find it
Hi Chris, love your tutorials, they’re helping me immensely. Your explanations a clear and informative, that’s really refreshing. Have you got any tips on how to deal with the slickness when painting on a wood board? I’ve got an underpainting down but, do I skip the next oily stages and just go in with straight paint and build up that way? Was practising on oil sketch paper but, wood boards are very different and don’t suck up the oil or paint - it’s very frustrating
Great video! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your expertise. I do have a question- what’s your process for accepting commissions? Do you require several reference photos? Do you quote time frames? If you aren’t comfortable answering, I understand ☺️
Great info. When you sell a commisioned painting, how long do you keep it after finishing before you varnish? I heard it takes months for oils to dry completely.
Lighting- isn’t outdoor light ( windows, photos taken outside) landscapes etc cool light in shadows? Vs inside warm light or colors in shadows ? Doesn’t this influence colors used? I follow that rule.
If you're painting without thinners, and only using linseed oil as a medium, I would recommend starting a painting with paint straight from the tube only. It'll take longer to cover the canvas, but that's the tradeoff of not using any thinners. Use small amounts of paint on your brush so you sort of have to dry-brush, and not make your first layer too thick. This is how I like to work actually. Just get used to taking your time, and enjoying the act of filling up the canvas as a sort of meditation. Then, once you've got the canvas covered, with subsequent layers start adding some linseed oil, so you maintain the fat over lean rule.
An alternative if you don't like how slow dry-brushing without medium is, is do your first layer in acrylic! You only need water to thin acrylic.
Recently I bought a Phive LED 20 watt. It has 4 modes and you can control each of those. It’s very narrow but wide and lights up your whole workspace. I can’t believe I painted for many years without a good light . It’s really fantastic.
Been painting for a year now. Down here in Venice and hope to run into you one day. You (& just couple others) have accelerated my work exponentially and is greatly appreciated!
Thank you for clarifying warm and cool! “Does it need more red, yellow, or blue?” YES! That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Another simplified explanation from THE paint coach. 🙂
I use a box light that I position right about my workspace. It creates a nice diffused, natural looking light.
I recently got one of those too! works great
@@paintcoach awesome!
Thanks! Very helpful!
Ok, warm color vs cool color... the point of knowing and understanding the value in knowing the "values" for these color is that once you understand them, you can push a grey in or out of range for the use that it NEEDS, and KNOW right away what will defiantly work and what won't. Have you ever been working a painting and suddenly a grey appears which just goes into the wrong direction? The more you try to "fix" it, the more it doesn't work? This is where knowing warm and cool colors is super valuable with oil painting. I only recently learned this lesson well, and it has made a HUGE difference in my work. My background colors work better, and my foreground color pop far better than they used to. When I want to tone something down, I immediately know what color to use, no matter where it is in my painting!
I live on Turkey and two months each year in Poland... Cant imagine 30 years in one neighbourhood. Its changing your paintings,as well
Hello Chris, thank you for the great video, very helpful as always! :)
My pleasure!
Thanks for these paint talks. They are so helpful. I went college for art, but sadly, the classes for painting in oil or watercolor were sadly lacking in instruction. Mostly it was just come to class and paint, produce x amount of paintings a semester for grading, and very little instruction on the techniques and how to use the mediums. It was mostly just paint to get experience. I have learned much more since college thru videos like yours! Having questions answered about how to use the mediums is so helpful. Oil painting is my main love, although I occasionally do watercolors. I'm retired and live in an rv, traveling the country, so I gave up using solvents altogether and have had no issues with cleaning brushes. I watched a recent video of a woman who uses Murphy's wood oil soap to clean her brushes instead of turps. I've tried it, but find even that isn't really necessary if you wipe the paint out well with paper toweling and use soapy water at the end of the day. Love your channel. Thanks.
Omg! I invite you in France! It is nice place to visit and to live.
Well that's fucking random
I liked Lost except for the ending😊
It is the active charcoal filter in air purifier that filters out VOC (toxic fumes in cases of oil painting) so if you want the toxic fumes filtered, make sure the air purifier you buy has a large active charcoal filter, the larger it is, the more times the air changes per hour in your room (also depending on how big the room is, the smaller the room, air changes per hour more times).
Some paints like cadmium and titanium white are toxic.
Eco Solve is a non-toxic plant based solvent that can be pour down the drain.
I try to use as many non-toxic products as possible, air purifier and a charcoal filter mask when painting to make sure I feel free and less intimidated with oil painting.
Your videos are so helpful.. thank you!
Glad you like them!
Old San Juan Puerto Rico has many excellent opportunities for painting scenes...highly recommend!! Then the rainforest and Rincon, Puerto Rico also have great scenery for painting...Puerto Rico in general is a great place to visit!! The port in Fajardo...the caves in the middle of the island...and it is still part of the U.S. if that matters.
Thank you for all the help.
I don't see the links for the sites you mentioned concerning landscape referenced material (with no royalty out copyright restrictions.
Maybe you covered this before but how do you handle your disposal of your paper towels/rags that have oil paint on them. Specifically do you have a specialized trash/bin you put them in before putting it in regular trash or hazardous facility?
I am a solvent free painter so I only use walnut oil for medium.
I go into this some in my next paint talk. Honestly I throw my paint thinner rags and linseed oil rags away in the regular garbage. Thats what we did in art school so... I know thats probably not the "best" way but that's what I do. I never throw out paint thinner bc i reuse it. Walnut and Linseed oils are not toxic. I know some people say they can combust but I've never heard of that.
Chris, I was painting a large portrait over the course of the week and I came into a problem I hadn’t had before. I was using straight paint with just a few drops of slow drying oil in each color to alter the flow and ensure my paint wasn’t drying on me as I continued to work. But, as the week progressed I started getting noticeable brush marks in my previously worked areas- probably because the previous days work was drying up. I’m just starting, and I don’t work very fast which is why I was hoping the slow dry medium would keep the paint workable. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t start with a lean enough medium at the beginning before moving on to the oil medium or I didn’t use enough slow dry medium in general. Now for the question! If you are working a painting for a few days, do you have this issue and how do you usually deal with it if you do? I thought if I kept the whole paint layer workable I could just keep working wet in wet, now I’m second guessing my whole process. Maybe I need to layer my work, but instead of slowing the dry time, I’ll need to speed it up so I can do multiple undisturbed layers. To me, this reminds me of working like I would with acrylics, and the whole reason I got into oils was because I hate the way acrylics set up while you are trying to work them. I guess I just don’t understand what painters do if they can’t finish a painting in a single relatively short work session.
@Ryan Shirtz I'm aware Alkyd mediums exist like Galkyd and Liquin, the problem I am having is that I wanted the paint layer to be workable LONGER but my efforts were unsuccessful.
Good question...I’m with you on this one...
Hello! How do you paint portraits when the picture is not quite clear to define the values and colors? I am finding this to be so challenging.
I had a similar problem because I have Cataract in one eye. I downloaded a pallet app. I can isolate a specific spot to get a larger view of that color value.
john Foster I’ll check that out. Thanks for the information. I appreciate it!
Ok I just downloaded an app and it’s amazing. Everyone needs to know this I just hope it doesn’t make my eyes lazy. Thanks bunches.
Color temperature for lighting is important only in that it is an indication of what the pigments will look like when you see it on your easel. for the most part, anything above 3000k will work out just fine for overall lighting, and for direct work lighting, something in the range of 4500 to 5000 is awesome. Light is measured in Kelvin, a scale of "candle light" but this can also be explained in temperature of the light. The higher the number the more spectrum is involved. With all lights this will also mean more heat, but LEDs are much more manageable for heat. LEDs also emit a wider range of color for their temperature reading. This does not always mean they are brighter, but it does mean they create light across a broader spectrum, compared to the light of fluorescent or incandescent. I recently bought new lighting for my studio and actually went with a tube set designed for a garage environment. For the price I receive much more light than what my space needed, because they were designed for a space much higher than mine, and the cost was very reasonable. I didn't even need to use the entire pack, and I installed it myself. Here is the link to Amazon.
Barrina LED Shop Light, 4FT 40W 5000LM 5000K, Daylight White, V Shape, Clear Cover, Hight Output, Linkable Shop Lights, T8 LED Tube Lights, LED Shop Lights for Garage 4 Foot with Plug (Pack of 10)
Hey Chris have a question what is the difference between a paint thinner and medium.What stages of the painting should I use both. Thanks
I do pay attention to cool and warm colors
It is my philosophy of color palette.
Basically, a part frop black and white, I have 2 sets of each primary color:
cool red, yellow and blue
and warm yellow, red and blue
Nb: cold yellow is cadmium lemon and warm blue is ultramarine :)
I chose those colors because I feel it is easier to paint shapes.
Like i put warm colors in lights and cool colors in shadows.
But it is not always the case.
Inprefer extremely limited palette, lile 10-11 colors. I prefer buy less but better quality
I want to be able to paint portraits. Do you recommend I learn human anatomy first? And should I learn how to draw portraits before I try to paint portraits? If yes, do you have any recommendation on good resources (books, articles, videos etc.)
Any techniques or tips for painting a blurred or out of focus background? You do an awesome job producing your videos.
Yo Chris ✌🏼 Nice input about colour temperatur. Im just curious why you dont use cyan, magenta and lemon Yellow for your primary colours?
As I understand, they are a lot more vibrant and saturated colour instead of ultramarine blue, cad red etc, which creates more opertunities to creating colours... how you a video about that? Cant Seem to find it
Hi Chris, love your tutorials, they’re helping me immensely. Your explanations a clear and informative, that’s really refreshing. Have you got any tips on how to deal with the slickness when painting on a wood board? I’ve got an underpainting down but, do I skip the next oily stages and just go in with straight paint and build up that way? Was practising on oil sketch paper but, wood boards are very different and don’t suck up the oil or paint - it’s very frustrating
Which is better in regards to color mixing: RGB or CMYK?
Great video! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your expertise. I do have a question- what’s your process for accepting commissions? Do you require several reference photos? Do you quote time frames? If you aren’t comfortable answering, I understand ☺️
Great info. When you sell a commisioned painting, how long do you keep it after finishing before you varnish? I heard it takes months for oils to dry completely.
Great info! Thanks! Is spray on varnish as good as the brush on type?
I am not a fan of it because it's hard to get it on without streaks
Good stuff bro 👍
Appreciate it
i got a lamp that is chargeable so I can paint when the power is out.
Let's see
Lighting- isn’t outdoor light ( windows, photos taken outside) landscapes etc cool light in shadows? Vs inside warm light or colors in shadows ? Doesn’t this influence colors used? I follow that rule.
I love you
unsplash, pixels. =landscapes.