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alifann β Oil Painting Process Tutorial
Published: 2011-01-10 16:25:20 +0000 UTC; Views: 76469; Favourites: 2310; Downloads: 1368
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Description
I learned to paint simply by looking. If your wondering what happens in my head on each of the panels. Nothing ! I'm listening to my music. I hear this a lot from one of my favorite artists who say "When you paint, let go everything you know about painting". It took me a while to fully understand what they meant."Blind energy" is a good thing. When one begins to paint, everything you know should disappear and the emotional side should take over." Jeanean Songco Martin
I really didn't feel like covering my process with useless information to make this a proper tutorial. It's not what goes on inside my head. I simply paint what I see, not what I know.
Guidelines, ideal proportions and premade compositions that they teach us in our art school they become more a distraction for an artist. If you can let that go maybe this tutorial might not be so useless after all
Oil on canvas, 30" by 24"
Took me 3 days.
If you have any questions let me know I'll be happy to explain.
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Comments: 228
@_@ I wish I could bring you to my silly art teacher and tell her wussup. She seems to think that Art can be turned into a science with a Step-by-step model for Masterpieces....obviously it doesn't work that way, and I truly wish that I were being taught by someone other than a former Biology teacher. >_>'
But anyway, all of your work is simply gorgeous. It's encouraging to see that the art of Oil painting hasn't been lost in the modern woodwork of Digital Painting and Photo-manipulation. :3
Keep it up!
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Beautifully said and well done on one of the most original tutorials I've seen on DA.
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This is not, for me a tuturial painting. I can understand the words as if it was sow but i dont see the conection whith the painting it self because it lookΒ΄s like your shouing me the magic but not the trick. But is beautifull, naive but beautifull.
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Why is this not a DD yet? Brilliant work. You truly are gifted.
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i have to say that i love the little textures you add to your work at the corners they give your paintings thier identity of somthing of your own wich is very important in an artist great work and i think your totorial is good for people to understand when doing art not just pretty pictures
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How long have you been painting for? you're so brilliant at it.
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I am amazed by your painting style. I've never seen someone create an oil painting by fully finishing each section as they go. It's stunning that you can work this way and still keep all of your colors so well balanced.
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I always like to see the process of how someone paints... Also enjoyed reading your comments about it. I think sometimes people forget that there's no "right" process to paint or to create artwork.
Look forward to seeing more and more of your work
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Do you know something i can't do?
Everything you can.
You're work is stunning. You must have so much patience.
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My patience is starting to go away and im kinda becoming more lazy. Pretty bad.
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I love how each step in the process looks like a painting in itself. Thank you for sharing! It is a beautiful product. Do you usually work with the oils being thinned down with linseed oil or paint thinner to get the softer effect?
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You certainly have an eye for colour! This is beautiful. Again, it is the brushstrokes which make it for me. I think there are some beautiful moments in this creative process. I like very much that you never 'finish' the picture - by which I mean that you leave the edges and the white space. Have you worked in watercolours very much? Just that the way you left the white spaces here as part of the picture in themselves reminds me very much of the kind of techniques which lend themselves to watercoloursts dealing with the white of their paper.
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you have no idea how many pple compare me to a watercolorists. When infact I hate watercolour i cant work with it.
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ONE QUESTION!?!?!??! How do you make the strokes so soft around her face?? Did you have to use a specific paint or brush?? And tips for someone who has just started oil??
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I just blend with a soft brush or use fan brush.
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I agree! Look, listen and go for it! Some talent would be great
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Thank you for showing us your process. It's always interesting to see.
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This painting gives me the same warm fuzzy feelings that paintings by Norman Rockwell gives me 
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I love Norman Rockwell ! Thank you !
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"simply paint what you see, not what you know" ΡΡΠΎ ΠΏΠΎΠ»Π΅Π·Π½ΠΎ!
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Your oil work looks a lot like watercolor.
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I really like your explanation of your painting process and the fact you purely draw what you see instead of using mathematics to get it right. It's very refreshing to hear that from someone talented.
Love this piece
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Hmm interesting to hear what you have to say, and I like reading about your process. I definitely agree to an extent! Thanks for sharing your brilliance! I have so much respect for your work (although I only discovered your page about five minutes ago haha) but you are already such an inspiration to me!
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So, is that dry brush i'm seeing or excess solvent? I can't quite tell. Anways, when you build over your base colors/etc for detailing, are you doing this very softly and blending through the oil (literally) or do you blend everything through brush technique?
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I try to nail the first colour as I can so I don't have to build up layers. I paint by small little dabs of paint next to each other forming a shape. When it comes to background Im more crazy and a lot of underpainting is used. I usually blend only on my pallet I try my best not to blend on the canvas or it will lose its sharpness.
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Ah, that's what i was looking for. Thanks
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I love how you dribble at the edges of your paintings, it gives them such an unrestricted feel
One question, do you often start with a pencil sketch? or wing it?
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Thanks I think my drips are a bit like my signature. Right now I just started painting a new piece and I'm just winging all the way. I use a brown colour that I kinda draw with, if you see the way I painted those trees. It feels better for me because I know that the red of the brown can peak and give a nice undertone colour so I'm not afraid to go crazy. Yet pencil smudges and turns my colours dirty.
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I agree with your drawing with brown technique, it isn't too obtrusive and can work well as medium highlights. I'm trying to get away from too much sketching out with pencil because it can show through and leaves outlines that are hard to get rid of.
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I think in general drawing out takes a lot of effort and time to do when it will get painted over anyway. I usually start with something easy like eyes for example. If I can paint good eyes and pretty realisticly then I can see where the nose will go because mistakes or miss proportions stand out if something around is already well painted. But I try not to paint like a printing. If I have a colour on my brush then I would try and find another spot where I can put that colour in. So always going back and forth.
Btw cute id picture you got there. Worst position to paint (for me that is)
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Haha thankyou, ya i actually don't use an easle much (i need to start) i like to be above my work.
And definately, eyes are really the best place to start, it's so easy to get them uneven or unfitting if you already have the rest of the face done. What would you say you paint most in, oil? Do you do watercolor much?
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yahh you should start using an easel you dont want to end up with a hunch back.
Oil right now is my fav medium. No I dont use watercolours at all. Yet tons and tons of comments I get about how I paint like a watercolorists. But about the medium it all relates to you. There is this artist i truly love his name is Alex Kanevsky. I really like reading what he writes in his interviews and I wanted to copy and paste what he said.
Is there any specific meaning or conceptual reasons you work in the medium you use?
I don't think there are. It doesn't matter. James Castle used soot and spit and produced beautiful drawings. One just has to find something that works with the right speed and intensity for one's own needs. If a medium is too fast for you, then you loose control over it, and everything falls apart. Watercolor is far too fast for most people, so there were only half a dozen artists who ever did it well. If the medium is too slow and deliberate for you, then you loose interest: your thoughts are always ahead of your hands. What could be free pursuit, full of excitement and danger, becomes instead a diligent execution of pre-meditated projects. Ideally one uses a medium that works as close to the speed of one's thoughts as possible. Oil painting does it for me. And that is fortunate, since it also happens to be the most universal and powerful medium.
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Yeah your work does remind me of watercolor,it's not heavy. I've never heard of mediums talked about this way, but it's so true, it really gives me a new perspective. It makes so much sense that it depends on the artist, as each medium works so differently. I personally choose watercolor because i can work with it fast and get easy texture, but i also do alot of acrylic because i get deeper values, but i have a hard time with oils, i'm too imaptient and always want to start adding the next thing. That's a great quote, I might just copy and paste it
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do you start a painting with a vague sketch in pencil? or start with paint itself.
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yes and no. It depends on how complicated the subject im painting. If its simple I go on with paint and if its complicated details I would do a very soft sketch. I really dont like pencil underneath my paints it sometimes smudges and it bothers me. I started to draw with just raw umber, or siena knowing it will get lost in the layers of paint.
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