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Oil Painting For Dummies

 (Google eBook)
Front Cover
2 Reviews
John Wiley & Sons, Feb 9, 2011 - Art - 303 pages
Nobody ever said that oil painting was easy. But it gets much easier and a lot more fun when you follow a step-by-step approach that starts you off on the right foot, helps you build your skills one at a time, and gives you plenty of exercises to develop your craft. That’s what you’ll find in Oil Painting For Dummies.

Completely free of arty jargon, this full-color guide has all the hands-on instruction you need to master the basics. You’ll see how to plan a painting, build an image in layers, mix colors, and create stunning compositions. You’ll also find everything you need to know about oil paints, solvents, and pigments; brushes, palettes, and painting surfaces; and how to keep costs down at the art supply store. Discover how to:

  • Choose the right supplies
  • Set up your studio and care for your equipment
  • Handle your materials safely
  • Develop your design and composition skills
  • Make practice sketches and studies
  • Use broken stroke, dry brush, glazing, scraffito and other brush strokes
  • Try out different compositions
  • Mix any color you want
  • Simplify tricky still-life subjects
  • Paint landscapes and common objects out doors
  • Paint portraits and the human form

Complete with handy color chart, basic materials list, and a very useful viewing square, Oil Painting For Dummies is the fun and easy way to discover your inner artist!

  

What people are saying - Write a review

Review: Oil Painting For Dummies

User Review  - Simon Yoong - Goodreads

Pretty good book. As with all other dummies books, lacks colour pictures. Read full review

Review: Oil Painting For Dummies

User Review  - Salle Sulieman - Goodreads

It's a practical handbook for beginners. A bit helpful. Read full review

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Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
Conventions Used in This Book
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
People Places and Things
Where to Go From Here
Part I
Chapter 1
Experiment with Expressionism
Chapter 10
How working outdoors is different from working in the studio
Deciding what to take
Working comfortably and safely
Protecting the environment
Developing a Strategy for Painting Outdoor Scenes
Finishing in the studio

Gathering Your Materials
Finding a Space to Paint
Painting in shared spaces
Starting Your Painting Adventure
Understanding the painting process
Developing Painting Skills
Chapter 2
Pigments and binder
The difference between the cheap and the expensive stuff
Taking care of your paint
Is it opaque or transparent?
Painting in layers
Tinting strengths
Studying your paint
The drying speeds of pigments
Adding Other Materials to Your Oil Paint
Solvents
Standard glazing drying impasto and alkyd
Varnishes and resins
Chapter 3
Making a supply list
Choosing your colors wisely
Choosing brushes
Choosing palettes
Choosing Surfaces to Paint On
An easel
Health and safety
Miscellaneous supplies
Chapter 4
Deciding how much space you need
Deciding where to set up
Getting the basic furniture
Taking care of your safety needs
Other considerations for your workspace
Developing Strategies for Growing as a Painter
Start easy
Chapter 5
Setting goals for your work
Making preparatory drawings
Deciding what surface to paint on
Assembling your materials
Underpainting
Laying on the Paint
Bringing it all up in layers
Deciding when its finished
Ask for someone elses opinion
Cleaning and Storing Your Tools
Wrapping It All Up
Frame the painting
Take care of your paintings
Part II
Chapter 6
Setting up your still life
Seeing things like a pro
The initial sketch
Sighting and measuring
Blocking in major shadows
Developing the image
Assessing Your Work and Making Corrections
Chapter 7
Using the Color Chart to Mix the Color You Want
Paint a hue
Paint a tint
Paint a tone
Take a break
Sit back and assess
Frame and sketch
Find the local color
Choose analogous colors
Paint objects with analogous colors
Assess your work
Using Complementary Colors
Finetune your colors
Assess your work
Chapter 8
Paintbrush basics
Examples of brushstrokes
Exploring Different Types of Glazing
Painting with transparent paint also called glazing
Scumbling and sgraffito
Trying the dry brush technique
A Study Trying Different Strokes
Part III
Chapter 9
A Tin Can
Drawing
Finding the patches of color
Ending the first session
The second session
Transparent Reflective Difficult
Painting Glass
The Life That Surrounds You
Procedure
Examining our example
Getting back to your painting
Working Expressively
Painting from photographs
Finding a Subject
Painting Your Landscape
Depicting distance
Painting buildings and people
Depicting trees and bushes
Capturing water and clouds
Regarding seascapes
Evaluating your outdoor paintings
A OneDay Landscape Project
Chapter 11
Practicing the proportions of the face
Choosing the best point of view for a portrait
A SelfPortrait in Black and White
Drawing the big contour of the edge of the face
Filling in the back of the head
Working on the contour of the nose
Evaluating your image
Adding the finishing touches
Preparing for a Color Portrait
A basic formula for skin
A Portrait in Color
Chapter 12
Setting up your model for a painting
A few words about nude models
How to Block In and Paint the Figure
Special Concerns in Figure Painting
Troublesome body parts
How to paint clothing
Part IV
Chapter 13
Designing off the canvas
Making Preparatory Drawings
Deciding to draw directly on the canvas
Making thumbnail sketches
Working Past Your First Idea Step by Step
Chapter 14
Framing Your Painting
Neutral shapes
Irregularly shaped images
Considering Both the Background and Subject
Activating the entire composition
Shaping your background
Shape Space and Surface at Work
A highcontrast sketch
Chapter 15
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
The devil in the details
How You See the Parts
Harmony or chaos?
Composing similar objects and different objects
Spacing objects together and apart
How the parts interact with each other
Avoiding common errors in placement
Creating Effective Focal Points
The role of contrast
Directing the eye around the composition
Keeping your viewers attention Contrast at work
Chapter 16
Developing Awareness of Your Composition Decisions
Structured compositions
Dynamic compositions
Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Compositions
Symmetric compositions
Asymmetric compositions
Flat and Illusionary Compositions
Working on flat compositions
Creating depth in your composition
A multiple perspective painting
Working in your sketchbook
Thinking about point of view
Chapter 17
Hue Value Intensity
Pure Hues Shades Tones and Tints
How Complementary Colors Work
How Color Interactions Can Mess with Your Mind
Hue
Intensity Relative Intensity Sets
Contrast of value
Pulling It Together in a Dramatic Still Life Painting
Part V
Chapter 18
Take a Drawing or Painting Class
Know your materials
Dont ignore the surface
Be Willing to Sacrifice Any Part for the Good of the Whole
Look at Art Real Art
Attend Art Events
Chapter 19
Wayne Thiebaud b 1920
Jan Vermeer 1632 1675
Richard Diebenkorn 1922 1993
Paul Cezanne 1839 1906
Frida Kahlo 1907 1954
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Oil Painting For Dummies
Oil Painting For Dummies
Anita Marie Giddings,Sherry Stone Clifton
Limited preview - 2008
Oil Painting For Dummies
Oil Painting For Dummies
Anita Marie Giddings,Sherry Stone Clifton
Limited preview - 2011

Common terms and phrases

alizarin crimson analogous colors apply areas art supply store artists artwork background basic black and white bottle brush brushstrokes cadmium red light cadmium yellow Chapter color chart color wheel complement complementary colors composition contrast create darker drawing easel edge ellipses example Figure flat focal points follow these steps glass glazing goals gray green Here’s idea impasto Imprimatura isometric projection keep landscape layer of paint learn to paint light and dark lighter linseed oil look negative space nose objects oil paint orange painter painting medium palette knife permanent green light photographs picture frame pigments pure hue setup shade shadows shapes side solvent square subject matter sure surface texture they’re things tint tones transparent tube ultramarine ultramarine blue underpainting value pattern viewer viewfinder violet wash you’ll

About the author (2011)

Anita Giddings and Sherry Stone Clifton are award-winning artist-educators who have made careers out of teaching beginning artists of all aspirations.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Oil Painting For Dummies
TitleOil Painting For Dummies
AuthorsAnita Marie Giddings, Sherry Stone Clifton
PublisherJohn Wiley & Sons, 2011
ISBN1118051998, 9781118051993
Length303 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Art / Techniques / Oil Painting
  
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