Oil Painting

Oil painting is one of the oldest forms of painting, frequently favored by students and professionals, although today many students and working artists choose acrylics over oil painting. Most of the older masterworks seen in museums and galleries today were created with oil painting. The earlier artists in centuries past mixed their own paints for oil painting, and many artists do this still. Most students and beginning artists, and indeed many professionsals, use pre-mixed paints for their oil painting, as they are available in good quality and a full range of colors to use in oil painting.

Oil painting is a slower process than painting with acrylics or watercolor, as the oils dry slowly and one must wait before applying new paints to an existing oil painting. Oil painting also requires the use of solvents, such as turpentine or derivative thereof, both to thin the oil paint and to clean brushes. An artist should only work in a well aired environment when creating oil paints to avoid inhaling harmful vapors from paint and thinner.

Most oil painting is done on canvas or canvas board, though some artists may choose to use oil paints on wood. Professional artists traditionally stretch their own canvases when doing oil painting: students and beginning artists often work on pre-stretched canvas available in multiple sizes in art supply stores.

Famous oil paintings hang in galleries worldwide for multitudes to view the fine creations created through oil painting. The work of great artists such as Rembrandt, Da Vinci, El Geco, Monet, Picasso, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, Pollock, and others too numerous to mention has been created with oil painting. From the formal and repesentational art of 17th century Europe to the Impressionist era to the modern era of brilliant and even violent colors and image distortion, oil painting has been the source of great works of art.

Students of oil painting can find many resources to assist them with developing technique and learning appropriate use of paints and brushes. When doing oil painting, it is possible to combine other media with the paints to create texture and design. Oil painting can be successfully used as a base for multi-media painting. Resources, including the public library, can afford many images of great works created with oil painting, which the student or amateur artist can reference when beginning to do oil painting. Painting can be a great source of pleasure, and oil painting is an exciting field to explore.

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