If you are a beginner artist you might be curious as to how to use different colors so that your painting is represented accurately and realistically. Here are a few oil painting tips that can help you achieve the desired effect.

First of all you need to realize that color mixing is not an exact science. There are many different formulas and methods for applying paint. A lot of it is about what type of oil paint you use. The real keys to not over mix the colors. That is one of the first things you are taught when learning to paint as you can end up with a muddy looking result.

Yet another tip is to near ever take the painting direct from the tube. Mix it first and give it the proper tone, shade or tint by adding white, black or another color. Using as few colors as possible also helps create the appropriate effect.

The Flemish technique of painting is easy to follow. You can look it up on the internet or get a book on it. It is the classic way of oil painting. Seven layers of paint in total are applied to the canvas. However you may want to skip a few steps. Painting realism in this old fashioned way requires a time frame of seven weeks per painting. Once each layer of paint was dry the old masters used to wipe it with a layer of onion. Today we have lacquers and oils that are specially formulated to accomplish the same thing without the smell.

However many of us do not have the time to paint like the old masters. Many painters prime the canvas firs by mixing red ochre, yellow ochre light and ivory to give the canvas an olive hue. Shadows are usually created with burnt umber and lighter tones with colors like white lead, white ocher, red ocher and burnt bone.

Another key is to paint the shadows of objects with a color that is a complementary opposite. For instance, if you have a red apple tries and gives it a blue shadow.

Another trick is to try and keep the color temperature in your painting all warm or all cool. This helps produce a more pleasing effect in general. The old Masters also tended to have

Protecting this type of painting is also very important. The old Masters were experts at doing this. Many primed the canvas with linseed oil and then varnished it with lavender oil. This prevented the dimming of the colors or cracking in the varnish so the paintings would then last hundreds of years.

It is crucial to learnt brushwork techniques if you are to be an effective painter. This is true whether you are creating realistic, expressionistic or abstract works. When it comes to creating a realistic oil painting it is the textural quality of the brush work that separates a painting from a photograph. If you are creating an abstract work then the brush work is of paramount importance as it is the main mode of expressiveness.

One important brushwork tact in oil painting technique is called impasto. This is where anything that is dark in a painting is painted with dark thin colors and much thicker oil paint is used to apply the lighter hues. This prevents light from bouncing of off the dried brush strokes and distorting the darker areas of the painting.

In general, most courses in brushwork start with teaching you how to hold the paintbrush so that you can create any stroke with it that you want. It is a mistake to hold the paint brush in an unorthodox way because it can slow you down and also distort the look of your images. Brushes also come in different sizes and shapes and can be used for all kinds of different artistic intentions. That is a whole “learn to paint” subject area in itself.

There are also two basic types of brushstrokes that you will have to learn. One type is called control brushstrokes and the other is called freehand brushstrokes. Control brushstrokes are based on traditional ways of manipulating the paintbrush that are known to create certain effects in a painting. Freehand brushstrokes are much different and make it easier to achieve effects such as drawing wavy tree branches or puffy clouds.

If you are creating an oil painting you may want to make the surface very textural. Enhancing the surface with thick and thin areas of paint adds a great deal of visual interest to any oil painting. Glazes over thick brush work can help keep it stiff and intact.
Brush strokes can also be used to help you work from large to small and in essence create a kind of ambience in the background of the painting that can add to its all over charm. This is particularly true if there is a lot of sky, sea or fields in the painting.

Experts say that the most effective brushwork is that which is applied to the canvas with the least amount of effort. That means that no brushstroke is applied randomly and there must always be a plan to what you might ultimately create.