This is something I've always wanted to do
but found so daunting. Oils just seem- to me at least- like such a
'grown-up' medium, almost inaccessible if you don't have proper training or fine-art
experience. There are solvents and mediums and spontaneously-combusting
oil-soaked rags.... But I've been doing my research and I'm hoping
to demystify that notion of inaccessibility, share my baby steps with you guys into this
medium, and hopefully, if it's something you've been considering trying for yourselves, we
can share in this together so it seems a little bit less out of reach. It goes without saying, I'm not an expert,
I don't think this video will answer all your questions, it might give you more questions. And I would like to open the floor to my commenters,
my oil-painting friends, anyone with more experience, any tips, any knowledge. If you can share that in the comments, I think
we would all very much appreciate it. To start with, as I said, I've been doing
my research bot on youtube and on Skillshare. There was a class in particular that I liked
called Guide to Non-Toxic Oil Painting Methods by Adele McFarlane Wile but really any 'Introduction
to Oil Painting'- type classes I found really helpful, it's nice to get a broad perspective
on peoples different approaches and kind of pick and choose the bits that made the most
sense to me. This isn't sponsored but you guys know that
Skillshare has been really valuable for me in the last few years since I've been using
it. I've been very grateful, it still is that
place where, if I'm trying to figure something out right from the beginning and I want an
in-depth look at something, Skillshare is the place that I still go-to for that. I will still have 2-months off I think, 2
months of free membership, I'll have a link for that below if you are interested. But otherwise, YouTube is still a fantastic
resource and I think you can find a lot of what you would need to find on there- for
free. In particular for me on YouTube, I was watching
a lot of videos by Lena Danya who I've been watching pretty much since the beginning of
my time watching videos on YouTube. I love her artwork, her personality. And she has a series of 'Oil painting for
beginners' type videos that really should cover everything that....everything that I
had questions about anyway. Also looked at a guy called Florent Farges. He has these more in-depth, technical videos. Things like blending... he also offers a course
on his website- a 5-hour video tutorial type thing that really goes in-depth with oil painting
and I think that potentially could be a good next step for me if I really do decide to
dig my heels in but for now I think I've gathered enough information to get me started at least. It's important to not fall into that trap
of trying to answer every single question before you even get started. It's easy to wanna have everything figured
out before doing it so you don't get anything wrong but really, you have to try, to make
mistakes, to find out what you need to be doing more research on. Also watched oil painting channels that I
love to see their process in action; Happy D, John Larriva, Alpay Efe, Maria Solias who
is a more recent find for me but I absolutely love her work. And with that, it was time to buy my materials. Not gonna lie, it was expensive. I decided to stick with Gamblin products,
after a bit of research, I like their ethics, I like that they've a real focus on quality
and safety for the artist and the environment. There is a lot of concern about the toxicity
of oils and I will leave a link to the Gamblin article below. They have an article talking about the pigments
they use, but essentially, the pigments they use and how they use them are relatively harmless,
if you use them properly. My only other concern with all this was waste
and disposal, but we'll get to that all later on in the video. So Gamblin paints, Gamsol, Galkyd, - and that
could be all you need. Also got Gamvar, varnish brush, already had
pallet knives, mixing surface, and rather than get one of those cleaning jars with the
coil- which is there to work the paint out of your brush and keep sediment at the bottom,
I DIYed my own version with this £2 mesh from Amazon. Really don't know about what it'll do to the
life expectancy of my brushes, it does look quite abrasive. But at this point, I'd spent so much money,
I was just trying to cut costs wherever I could. I got all of this stuff from Jackson's and
Amazon and I will leave links below to everything. One thing is that Jackson's only ship most
of this stuff by road so it might help to go for the Amazon links if you're outside
of the UK. Total outlay was £217.50. And £130.37 of that was on the paints alone. You could find cheaper, you could find cheaper. I think you would still wanna look for something
that's high quality, but you could do some research into finding that high quality and
high-quality pigments being used. So without the paint, I think I spent about
£87.13 on the extra stuff like mediums and solvents which brought us to £217.50 altogether. It is an investment. It's a lot of money. But I've been thinking about doing this for
a long time and I do think that a little bit goes a long way with oils and I think it will
pay for itself in the long run. I’ve got my dungarees on. I got gesso on my nice jumpsuit yesterday
so I'm not taking any chances today. I’ve primed this MDF board with gesso and
sanded it. That'll stop the oil seeping into the surface. And I've set up my workspace next to me. We have a jar here with my solvent in. I'm keeping the jar closed while I'm not using
it, because fumes, and it'll last longer that way- not evaporating out into the atmosphere. I have a few scraps of fabric to wipe my paint
off on. These brushes that were sent to me by Mozart,
I think they're meant for watercolours, I might need something stiffer but we'll see. I've put a blob of Alkyd resin here *shrugs*
I might use it when I've mixed my colours? So....From what I can tell- and clearly, I've
got no idea- but it looks like solvents are used almost like you use water with watercolours. You can clean your brush, you can also thin
out the paint and reduce opacity. Then mediums have a whole host of uses depending
on which one you go for- from speeding up the paint drying time, adding texture to your
painting, thickening up the pain, thinning down the paint, giving it a glossy finish... I don't know! The medium I got is Galkyd, I think this is
meant to smooth the paint a bit, make it easier to apply. I also think it helps with drying time. And also because this is the one that Lena
uses. I also need to find a reference. I am putting off doing the actual painting
now. I'm quite nervous. I think I'm gonna spend some time mixing up
my colours just to give myself a low-pressure way to familiarise myself with the paint and
its consistency. Now I'm going to add some Galkyd to each of
these, to see what that does to the flow. Well, that definitely helped to smooth the
paint, make it a lot more liquidy, and a bit more buttery I think. Now I'm trying to figure out if I wanna start
with a wash. Some people do, some people don't. The people that do say that- obviously it
takes away that blaring bright white of a blank canvas, will help with establishing
values. Also, I think it might help things glide on
a bit smoother. -But I think I am gonna start without it. I don't think there's any one specific way
to approach an oil painting. I'm going full alla prima today- which means,
I'm not going to be waiting for layers to dry, just gonna do it all in one sitting. I've heard of the fat over lean rule, when
it comes to layering. Which essentially means that you're making
sure that you're putting your thinner underneath and then building up your thickness. I don't think that's going to come into play
today. I'm hoping to just pile on the paint and see
what happens. Could be famous last words. Some people start with the darkest values,
some people start with the most vibrant colours, so they don't get muddied along the way. I'm going to start with the darker values
just because, that's what I tend to do with my gouache paintings and the plan is to just
go for this in the same way. I decided I wanted to really focus, so the
painting and talking at the same time had to stop. Plus the rain sounds were getting heavier,
I was desperate to put some headphones on and just zone in on the painting because I
was finding the process so far to be quite the adjustment from what I'm used to with
paint. One of oils strengths is being able to blend
it so smoothly, and I was really in awe of how that was going, even from the beginning. But a downside to that was that I was struggling
to maintain hard edges, and when I tried to go back and fix certain areas, everything
was getting mushed into one thing. Unlike with gouache, when the marks I've made
usually dry within a minute or so and I can just pile fresh paint on top to cover my sins,
in this case, the sins remained and just merged with the fresh paint, and that's something
I really had to get used to. One thing I really liked was the effect that
Galkyd had on the paints. I found myself, quite naturally just dipping
into it here and there when the paint was feeling too sticky, and it had this wonderful
effect of just making it glide over the canvas, lovely and juicy. I also only washed my brush in the Gamsol
once or twice, opting to just wipe it off on the rag between colours, which is something
I do quite a lot with gouache and watercolour paintings anyway. Speaking of which... Another thing that was putting me off from
using oil paints was the thought of having a more complicated clean-up than my usual,
easy watercolour or gouache or even acrylic methods. You can't pour this stuff down the sink. And there is a risk, when these rags are bunched
up, that they will spontaneously combust. That's scary. And there was a lot of mixed info on what
to do about that. This is where I don't want you to take my
word for gospel, do your own research and please if anyone can help in the comments,
let us know. Regarding my solvents, once I've cleaned off
my brush as much as I can in here, I think I can rinse it out under a tap maybe with
some paintbrush soap, that shouldn't be a high enough amount of toxins into the water
system to be an issue. As for this jar, I'll keep it shut, the sediment
should eventually sink to the bottom, and I'll be able to keep using it over and over. So I'll have a few of these going at once,
new clean fresh ones while the others settle. You can pour out the clean solvent to a new
container once the dirt has settled, and you can wipe out the mush that's left. My palette, if it has enough paint left on
it, I'll cover and keep using it, if not, I'll scrape it off and wipe down with my rag
and some solvent. Then all that's left is the rag itself. It's not as scary or complicated as it seems. Basically, oil products oxidise as they dry
which causes heat, if you've got a lot of oily rags all bunched up together, that can
produce enough heat to start a fire. People put these in metal jars or buckets
of water then wait to take them to special waste disposal places. Some people have those fire-resistant bins
you can chuck them in, again just waiting til you can dispose of them safely and properly. You can also -I believe- lay them out flat
and wait for them to dry completely on a non-combustible surface. Which I think is what I'll do- I'll just make
sure it's nowhere near anywhere Thierry can get to (speaking of which, he's not in here,
I've got the door shut, but I do have the window open so I'm well ventilated and he
won't be affected by any fumes.) And then I looked on my local councils website
and they collect oil and oil soaked items at my local recycling centre so once I have
enough of these to warrant a journey over there, I'll do that. It's a bit more effort than usual just because
it's not just putting something down the drain or in the bin. But it's also- like I'm not going to the recycling
centre every time I do a painting. I can have these in a closed tin of water
or drying somewhere until I'm ready to dispose of them properly. I'd love to know what you guys do if you have
oil experience. All in all, I really enjoyed this first attempt
with oil paints. I finished off just aching to give it another
try. What I would do differently would be to work
more sculpturally, in broader strokes, carving out the painting, rather than blending small
areas at a time. But I can't wait to do it again. The thing that stands out to me with the finished
piece is the boldness and almost glow of the colours, it's unlike anything I've painted
with before. And that's it. Thank you so much for joining me for yet another
adventure into something new. I would love to know if any of you guys have
wanted to try oil paints, if you think you will. And to my experienced oil painters, what advice
could you give to us beginners? Looking forward to hearing from you, thanks
so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!
