First attempt at oil

[Jimmie Arroyo]

Hi, before you look at the pic, keep in mind, this is my first oil, ever. I found an oil painting class in Ridgewood, NJ on Monday nights. I took it because I really want to learn, and this is the first class to ever fit in my schedule. The teacher's name is Basil Baylin, portrait painter, very nice guy. Too nice. His critiques are always followed by a good compliment. He tells me I should have no problem picking up oils.

I did this piece in two hours, more than a half hour just trying to get a somewhat decent likeness using a brush. I'm so used to pencils that the brushes were driving me nuts. It's on 8x10" linen, oil primed, and I put a wash of burnt umber before starting. My main objective was to get the feel of the brushes and get familiar with brush strokes, so I did'nt even want to get involved with color other than umber and white. I am horrible with color anyway, but have started a color chart on canvas for future reference.

After taking a while getting the likeness, I blocked in shapes and tried studying the values on the model. I did'nt have a good view becuase all the good spots were taken. The whole thing was a struggle, but I enjoyed the experience greatly.

I understand there are many things wrong with this, but I'd appreciate critiques. Don't care how insensitive they may sound, I really need to learn.

[Linda Brandon]

Hi Jimmie,

I would have been jumping for joy if I had been able to manage this head at my first life session. (First, the compliment, then the critique... ) There is so much information to digest when working from life it's hard to know where to start. I congratulate you for having the guts to post your first one!

One of my first teachers had us paint a plaster "planes of the head" bust in black and white paint for the first half hour of every session. It was annoying to keep doing this after the first few weeks but it really helped me see the values of the planes as they move away from the light source and to get a real sense of the head as a solid form in space. It also helped me to know what to look for in a "typical" head and where the bony parts are. I really recommend getting one of these if you can.

I have a feeling that one of the things that is causing you trouble is that you are trying to translate colorful, live flesh into monocrome. If you try looking through a sheet of red acetate (there are lots of other value-finding tools, too) it will help you assess values.

Many of the good books on anatomy discuss what happens to the eyeball on the far side of the three-quarter view as the head turns away from you. I don't have one of my books in front of me at the moment but I can post a diagram tomorrow if you want me to.

Her neck muscles aren't quite right here - neck muscles are often surprisingly hard to paint accurately. When you are working from life be sure also to get the shadow and values right on the neck as well as the head and to develop both simultaneously. I also think that the eye highlights should be coming from the other side, the side from which the light originates.

Jimmy, you draw beautifully and with great style and intensity. I'm betting you'll pick this up this painting thing much more quickly than you think you will.

[Linda Brandon]

I just read your post again... this is your first oil ever, and it's from life! Even more impressive!

[Jimmie Arroyo]

Thank you Linda,

I think my biggest problem right now is getting used to making marks with a brush and trying to control it. I have a pretty good sense of anatomy, but translating it with a brush will take time. I may be thinking too much when I paint, which is also a problem I had with pastels. The first pastels I tried, I was happy with, now that I try to control them, I can't. I need to get comfortable knowing how to apply paint, which brush to use and when.

Learning a new medium and understanding it's properties has always presented a challenge, because I get stuck applying the rules from a different medium. Airbrushing had it's own rules, tattooing, pastels, now I have to forget them as I'm painting in oils.

Thanks again.

[Kimberly Dow]

Jimmie-

I do not know how many artists here sketch on their canvas first, but I almost always do unless it is from life. I have a suggestion for when your at home, not the class. Take a canvas (or cheaper canvas pad) and do one of your pencil drawings on it - just no details - make it a cartoon. (some of the old masters made first sketches on canvas and called them cartoons) Then - color it in like a coloring book with the paint. This is practice time that you can use to learn how each brush moves and lays down paint. This may not be how some of the teachers here would suggest learning color, but in thinking back it is pretty much how I learned. If you are using a photograph then do that - then when you feel you have gotten the color fairly well - have the model back to check for edge softness and color accuracy.

Your going to do fine Jimmie - it won't take you long at all.

[Sharon Knettell]

Jimmie,

I think you are smart to work in monochrome. It is a good way to get used to the brush, which can seem guite awkward after using pencils exclusively for so long. This is an excellent beginning.

The left side of the face seems to be working beautifully, but the right edge is not drawn properly. The neck is confusing. Next time, SQUINT, SQUINT, SQUINT to see the values.

Harold Speed's book on "Oil Painting Techniques and Materials" a bargain at $12, depicts working from a cast first. Linda's suggestion is really a good one. He also lays out a very limited palette, for initial portrait work. Flake white, black, venetian and indian red. Get the forms under control, then worry about the color.

I live in fear that my the first heads I painted in oil after a long hiatus away from the easel, will be unearthed, even though they have been in a landfill tho' these many years.

Don't angst over every painting, learn, learn, learn from each and go on to the next.

[Chuck Yokota]

Hi Jimmie,

This is really good for a very first attempt at oils. It is a learning process. It is like learning to ride a bike - first you learn to keep your balance and to steer, and then you enjoy the ride and don't worry that you're not ready yet for the Tour de France.

One insight I was told helped me to understand the difference in approach between oil painting and some other media. Pencil, watercolor, pen and ink, and particularly tattooing, are additive processes - you are building up from the blank ground, adding and adding more and more as the work progresses. Oil painting, at least in wet-into-wet painting, is much more a process of successive approximations. You begin by putting in large areas of light and shadow in their average values. Then you divide and subdivide into smaller and smaller areas to show the variations in value or color, blending in the transitions. At the beginning you concentrate on getting the proportions right, and the details will emerge as you work into smaller areas. This way you are much less likely to get a finished eye that you decide needs to be moved a quarter inch.

[Garth Herrick]

Jimmie,

If you have another two hour session, or more, available with this model, and you feel like working further into this portrait, you may have a light bulb moment (like: "ah-ha, so that's how they do it!").

Now that the surface of your painting is dry, painting value and drawing corrections on to this foundation may prove to be easier and more automatic than you realize. The battle of the first day is done, and fixed under a dry skin. This paint will not churn up and bleed into any over-painting. Now you can paint into this, and this modifying over-paint can be transparent or opaque as needed. It does not always have to be as thick and opaque as your beginning (nothing wrong if it is, though).

A transparent or translucent modifying layer of paint can rapidly unify, clean up, refine, and better define all the myriad of surfaces and planes, as well as add more depth in the shadows, and cleaner luminosity in the highlights. Your first day painting provides a foundational support, and still shows through, much like a leg dressed in a modifying stocking. As you hone in on all the forms, reintroducing carefully tuned thicker opacities will clarify and solidify your focus of all the planes.

You can always work farther into the painting, without limit. Don't be afraid of messing up, because these mess-ups can always be reworked and corrected again. The more time you can allot to this process, then automatically the more focused and corrected your painting can become, much like your drawings (and I know you focus long stretches of hours on your drawings, with great success).

To me, painting is just a process of corrective decision making. Starts can be rough! With more time input, you get to make more and better decisions, and soon, before you know it, they rapidly and cumulatively cascade toward an informed and focused completion. Do more, look more. In just a few hours you will surprise yourself, and expand your ability!

Happy painting,

Garth

[Marvin Mattelson]

I think for a first time ever you did a tremendous job. The most difficult aspect of painting is getting the right things in the proper place. That will be obviously not be a problem for you based on your drawing skills.

Getting the hang of oil technique is relatively easy, believe me. It's something you have to get used to and I'm certain it wont take you very long. Don't worry about the results now and have fun. before long you'll have us all drooling. I'm just sorry you're not in one of my classes.

[Debra Norton]

Jimmie, I too am new at using oil paint. I'm a student at The Atelier in Minneapolis and thought I'd pass on a few things I've picked up there. I know by your drawing skills that you'll be a great painter, you just have to get used to using it.

I suggest getting a cast of a head and painting it in black and white. By the time you finish you'll be experienced enough with handling paint that going into color will seem like a breeze. For me beginning black and white was agonizing, I would just stand in front of the canvas and groan. But when I finished and went into color it was a breeze in comparison - no groaning! My cast was a bust of Marie Antoinette (I think) so I had the advantage of killing two birds with one stone - learning technique and doing a portrait at the same time.

I haven't graduated to a real portrait yet, that won't come until spring most likely, but I'm working on my second still life and they've come a lot easier than I expected. Plus a cast doesn't move, doesn't need breaks, won't fall asleep, and can be used over and over in different positions, even in a still life. Also it doesn't charge by the hour, you only have to pay for it once!

Hang in there and keep going at it, I know you can do it!
Debra