Two days ago I bought the basics, and yesterday I built an easel. Today I will watch, listen, and learn. And tomorrow, the brush hits the canvas for the very first time. Don't you just love being outta your depth when you take the first step of exploration on a new journey? Thanks to everyone here and your priceless words of advice.
I've been a colored pencil artist for a few years and have recently wanted to branch out into oil painting as well. You are so good at taking complex concepts and making them easy to understand. I went out and bought the basic oil painting supplies, but then was like "Uhhhh...what do I do now?" I'm so glad I found your channel - I've been binge watching your content for days now. Once I finish my current project, I'm going to start your foundations of oil painting course, and I can't wait!
Greetings and love from Saudi Arabia, I'm an artist myself but I have learned so much from you, I started applying your advice on squinting the eyes but in my case I just remove my eye glasses and there it is, the picture is blurry and I'm able to see blocks of shapes and tones to start with before I put my glasses back on. Thank you so much for all the wonderful advices you share with the world.
I cannot emphasize enough how valuable your tutorials have become over the year or so I have been subbed to your channel. I have learned, and continued to learn, not how to paint, but, exponentially more significantly, how to think about and approach painting, from composition to color, to confidence. Dude, you are, imo, truly the best.
Blue is the Colour, Football is the game. We're all together, Winning is our aim So,cheer us up through the Sun and rain.Coz ; Chelsea Chelsea Is Our Name" ! 😇
I feel like the biggest thing holding me back is that in my head I need a “style”. For many years I have been too focused on it and I feel like it have gotten me nowhere. I’m really trying hard to let that mindset go and just paint/sketch everything I enjoy, and focus on getting better on those thing. But it’s hard af😅
When you focus on the process you'll find shortcuts, gain experience, and find multiple solutions to problems while painting. Those become a style. Your own personal style. That's your first foundation base style. You've created a process that can repeat that quality of work. Then you'll probably slowly incorporate other artists style over time to your own style to refine it. Learning what you liked and disliked about them. Then you will create another new base style. Then the cycle just keeps going over time. It's not something one wakes up one day and says, " this is my style". All humans take from previous humans to build their own style. This is the process of learning. Every human does this. No human is truly unique. When building a style give yourself an initial goal on who you want your paintings to look like first. Mine is vaguely Sargent as I don't have to deal with details if I don't want to. I find it easier to just keep the large shapes in there and manipulate it just enough for the brain do the work of making sense of it. You know like optical illusions.
Style will come when you do the same thing with little changes to it 20 times. Like do a bunch of dishes on a table. Change the position of the light, move the dishes closer or farther, stack them, change the color of the table, add a table cloth...just some ideas to get you started
Maybe for beginners it's important to stick with primaries, but I feel that can also hold you back quite a bit. I'd definitely recommend sticking with single pigment colours, but each pigment has its own drying time and transparency. It's good to limit your pallette to only what you need, but I feel like you're bottlenecking yourself by only familiarizing yourself with 4 pigments especially "primaries" of ultra marine blue (transparent) and cadmium Red and yellow (opaque.) You can't get a good purple and the cadmium red and yellow won't glaze as well as the ultramarine.
Hey Coach, I found a way to use a roku tv to upload photos to a tv to paint from without having to have a tablet. It's called Play on Roku. I tried it out on my 19" flat screen in my studio. I just use the Roku app on my phone, connect to a device, click on media, select photos, cast to tv and viola, I now have large image of a photo to paint from.
I picked a single, popular instructor when I started painting in 2018. It's quite specialized "color by numbers" type of alla prima style best suited to realism in portraits and still lifes. It ends up with a really long "ugly" stage, you need a special studio setup, and paint additives to slow drying time. You premix a ton of colors first (thankfully, from the primaries). It turned out to be a terrible method for landscapes and plein air, which was what I wanted to do. I have been struggling to "unlearn" it ever since I found your videos and the Kevin Macpherson books. Your instruction and approach allows me to paint anything well. Thanks Chris!
Wow, thank you so much for this, and all your videos. Re: tip #8, I’m sticking with you! I have been spinning my wheels for way too long. This has been super-inspiring and I am getting back to my oil paints pronto!
Very good advice. I bought Carlson. Great info but not an easy read and be ready for his utter disdain for beginners and students. It's on nearly every page!
That’s prolly why I love painting so much. Bc everything comes so easy for me I can do any art mode and it’s all easy for me (including performing arts choreography and dance) painting is SO DIFFICULT for me so I’m obsessed w it and I won’t stop til I’m one of the best painters on the planet 😂
my biggest challenge in Arizona is the heat. I cannot leave paint in the garage where I have. My current "studio" set up (for lack of a better word. ) Other than heat it's ventilation. You have to have constant airflow. If you're using any type of solvents . I'm contemplating building a painting shed in the backyard somewhere but again I'm coming up against the heat issues. This is a problem for me because I hate caring Paint back-and-forth from the house every time I start a session . blah blah first world problems.
Having a limited color pallet is helpful, but it seems a bit expensive to mix every brown and grey out of cadmium red, cadmium yellow, and ultramarine blue...
Another great video. I love these 'paint chats'. And I've watched so many video of your videos now that my partner keeps telling me, "GO GET PAINTING" which is great too ;0) Happy new year to you.
Great tips as always! One thing that I don’t know how to overcome is how to mix enough of a color for a painting session so that I don’t have to remix the same thing and forget how I did it-and I hate to waste my oils! Any tips about getting over my paint wasting phobia?! 🎨👩🎨
How do you choose or know what base color/s to lay down ti start a painting? When can wet on wet oil paint be ok and how to know know when to let paint dry and then add more layers? Thank you
I guess most beginners have trouble painting 'loosely' . But there are some artists who don't paint in the prevailing popular style. Landscape artist Hale Johnson, still lifes by William Bailey, portraits by Robert Bauer are some examples.
Thank you so much for your videos!! You're the best! Question: Not adding more colors besides primaries for 5 years??? Are you being serious? Is that really what you'd recommend?
I started off with a bunch of colours then moved to primaries because it was the only way I could not get a muddy ball of shit on the pallet. Then I found out smart people did it too
Great information as always! I didnt realize you could use oil paints on 80lb kraft paper. Does it not warp the paper? I tried using a lower end paper one time and it was terrible to try and paint on because it absorbed all the oil and the paper got wet and warped and was falling apart. Thanks again for the video. Love them.
I suck at drawing but can paint pretty well. I think practicing painting eyes is the most helpful thing. You learn to paint shapes, values and hues rather than thinking of an eye and trying to "draw" it with paint. Actually turning the painting and image upside down can be helpful
do you know Vermillion VR? its a VR application where you can draw oil paintings. its pretty accurate, maybe a good start into oil painting, since you dont have to worry that much about the materials
In other videos and even in your course you suggest Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Lemon Yellow for the three primaries. In this video you suggested Cad Red and CAD Yellow along with ultramarine blue. I’m confused. I think I prefer the latter. Can you please clarify. Thanks. I’m currently taking the Foundations course.
Try both palettes! Don't limit yourself. Try using only secondaries, or only earth tones...I love limited palettes. I paint winter scenes in the desert with just burnt sienna, cerulean blue and titanium white with excellent results.
It enjoying and learning from your tutorials! I have a problem.. I only do copies of photos that I take, or others take, portraits from photos and I feel that I am not able to create or to interpret a scene 🤔
Using just the primaries and don’t get caught up in too many different painter styles. One thing I need to really change is to stand while painting and stepping back. Thanks so much for all these tips !
Hi Chris! Could u talk about the oil techniques of Norbert Bisky? His paintings are so bright and the color transitions almost look airbrushed - I would love to know why and love to see u explaining what happens there. Love and greeting from Germany! 👍🏼💪🏼
Hello, can you do a video comparison or review at Chinnese paint brands such Maries, Talens or Phoenix and how is it different from European brands? I have a hard time on choosing oil paint brands since there's no many options in my country. I watch several review of oil paint brands and no one really did this before. I want to know if they actually have the same quality or not, thankyou.
K no but I have never been very good at painting so eventually I just flat out stopped, and put all of my energy into improving my drawing skills. And not only has my drawing skills gotten so much better in the last year, but I started painting again and there is very visible improvement
As he says, "the bar keeps getting raised". This guidance is ok for beginners. But as one becomes improved and more experienced, I believe an artist should seek better and better teachers. Ultimately, this means learning from past artists to be found in the best museums or permanent locations, and probably not from current teachers. Despite my lifelong experience and many years of so-called formal art education and degrees, I cannot actually recall ever having met a painting teacher whose paintings I admire enough to want to learn from. Probably the most effective solution is continued study of all periods of art history, and building a personal library of a large number of the best books on the top artists and top museums.
Talking about colors 4 is not enough. You can't mix black, ochre or sienna out of 4 primaries you've mentioned. In almost all cases we do require multiple primaries, e.g. cobalt for sky, ultramarine for water, medium and light yellow, etc.
Please please please, young artist at 2:28, keep your brushes outta your mouth! I have a friend who kept getting cancer of the tongue and finally figured out it was because she kept putting the ends of her brushes in her mouth while she adjusted, filled, poured, etc. Cadmiums, cobalts, and other metals, right? My friend's tongue looks like sewn-up Swiss cheese from all the surgeries (needles, stitches, pain) she went through.
Chris, I was wondering if you would consider doing a video on getting past perfectionism or fear of making bad work. It doesn't seem like you struggled much with painting paralysis in the past, but do you relate to this issue at all? Did you ever feel uninterested in practicing because you didn't want to disappoint yourself? I struggle with this all the time in painting. Bad painting = bad artist.. that's the paralyzing thought process. I really envy the mindset you and other prolific artists have where all paintings are progress and learning. It's so easy to get caught up in the end result, and I'm curious to hear your take on that. Thank you as always for the awesome and inspiring content!
I know I’ve seen him address this in another video! 🥰 I believe he said to try & push the paint around but don’t get too wrapped up in the details right away. Focus on the big shapes first then add the values & different shades as you go. And that if you view it as a process rather than get overly stressed in the beginning that it’s not looking right it can help. And of course take breaks whenever you need it. It’s certainly easy getting in your own head & overwork a painting so sometimes it’s as simple as looking at it with fresh eyes can be beneficial
Your comment on drawing is so inspiring bc I didn’t know people were tracing and using all these tools to create these beautiful portraits whereas I’ve been drawing/ sketching freehand all along! I was being so hard on myself but this makes me feel like I’m on a good track, I’m a really good drawer :)
Your comment made me smile. Good on you EM. I went to art school in the eighties. In the UK we do a one year Foundation in Art & Design to try out different disciplines (textiles, graphics, photography etc) to discover what our next direction will be. It was acknowledged I was 'good at drawing', but 'there is no degree course for drawing so best you do graphics.' I was discounted for a career in Fine Art because THE ONE AFTERNOON of color mixing practice we got, my colors were considered too muddy and so I CLEARLY didn't have enough talent to paint. I asked my tutor to give me direction so I could improve. His comment? ''Huh, so you thought you'd come to art school and you'd be taught how to paint?' He said it without a hint of irony. 🙄 So I too feel vindicated now. All these years later. And like you, I'm a really good drawer. 😁
I usually recommend to my students a split primary palette (2 versions of each primary like a cool and warm red) plus white and brown. You can basically mix any color needed that way and you still gain a vast understanding of mixing and primary usage.
My college teacher had 10 colors. She loved yellow ochre so we had to have it too. Then we had white and black plus warm and cool of each primary. And our first lesson was mixing black. That tube was off limits
16:35 oh crap! I’m terrible at portraits, I know that’s what I should be practicing, but it’s just so depressing painting one crappy portrait after another!!!
Thanks for your hints and tips about drawing and painting, my husband keeps telling me to draw, first and practice more, I feel guilty now that I know he is right, but I always want to paint first, its probably like wanting to run before I could walk.
Hi Chris, I tend to paint small canvases, 6 x 8, 6 x 6, 8 x 10, as a beginning painter trying to get my "reps" in. Is the Meeden H frame easel on your list suitable for standing and painting small canvases? I need the part that holds the canvas to be at 50" from the floor. Thank you and thank you for your inspirational videos. Go Steelers!
I just started oil painting after years of pencil, your videos have been so helpful and I learned so much, not just what to do but what NOT to do, thank you so much for your videos
More colors doesn't have to be more complicated if you really understand them. I recommend Michael Wilcox's Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green 2nd Edition. Read it, understand it, and create for yourself the color charts you find in there. You still won't won't need a ton of colors, but you'll know by the time you've worked through the book what beyond the three traditional primaries will give you the options you're looking for. FOR EXMPLE: check out the mud created when he attempts to mix violet at 0:34. That's great if you're painting a picture of mud. But if you're painting a floral, it would really help to know that you should have both an orangey red (as shown here) AND a violet red (like quinacridone magenta) in your paint box. In fact, I see a violet red on his palette at 7:02 (looks to me like Alizarin Crimson or something similar). As someone who's been teaching art since 1996, trust me when I say you won't understand color any better by restricting yourself to the three primaries shown at the beginning than if you go buy every color under the sun.
The limited palette is so true. I have a 6 color palette that i started with and still use. I have since added 3 short cut colors bc having Burnt Sienna is REALLLLLLLLY useful for toned greys. (I am also a watercolor artist so somethings are a little different) Edit: i have been painting for almost 7 years at this point and only just added the new colors
I just wanted to say that I love your videos. I don't use oil paints. I'm more of a watercolor kinda guy (though I want to try gouache soon) but a lot of the info in your videos applies to most mediums. It's definitely helped me even though I've never touched oil paint lol
