This semester we explored oil painting methods and materials through a series of exercises. This included tonal values, chroma, colour relationships, and technical approaches to form and composition. I thoroughly enjoyed getting my hands dirty with oils as it is my favourite medium, and I absolutely got my hands, elbows and face dirty.

Module 1

Colour Theory

In this module I produced a colour wheel that combined both warm and cool primary colours to demonstrate how these colours combine and produce secondary and tertiary colours.

Creating an Oil Paint Medium

A medium serves as a form of solvent that thins the paint. This has a variety of benefits, such as colour blocking and underpainting, as a paint medium tendsw to dry faster than raw pigment. It can also be applied as a glaze over preexisting layers of paint to manipulate and transform the colour or tone of the piece. It is reccomended that each subsequent layer of glaze be thinner than the last. There are a variety of different premixed mediums, however I now have a receipe for a DIY oil medium, which I have found I prefer. It is a 7 part solution composed of:

• 1 part Damar Varnish
• 1 part Refined Linseed Oil (or Stand Oil)
• 5 parts Artist grade Gum Turps

Underpainting

The following exercise explores the process of underpainting known as Grisaille. It is a monochromatic “dead colouring”, when a single colour is thinned with medium, with depth of tone being acheived by a higher proportion of pigment in the glaze. Raw pigment can also be scumbled onto the canvas, which is when little or no medium is used. I have painted a multi-layer portait, with a burned sienna dead colour base, which I then applied diagonal strips of tape. Most of the visible sections were painted with a thin glaze of black and white, to demonstrate how a glaze can impact the layer below it. Finally there was a single strip that was painted with a full pigment to show a sliver of a resolved painting.