Basic Still Life Oil Painting

Martha Spak: Hi, I am Martha Spak with MLSGallery. I am here to show you how to paint a still life oil painting. What we are going to be covering in this video includes setting up an interesting still life oil painting composition, brush strokes, including highlights and shadows, and varnishing techniques. You are going to need some brushes to complete your project. Here are the brushes I am using. A large flat nylon brush, a number five filbert brush, a number five angled filbert and a small brush to be used for your signature. We use turpenoid, which is an odorless turpentine for making color washes and I also use liquin, which is a gel form medium to mix with the oils to make it creamier and go on smoothly. I will be using a camera also to take a picture of our image so we have it as we work through our project. Here we also need a wing arm lamp to adjust to your setting and determine where you want your highlights to go. You will need a easel and a canvas. Some safety issues to keep in mind when you are creating an oil painting and that is that you need proper ventilation and it's important also to have a set-up where you can move your materials around and have adequate space. Another issue is using rubber gloves when you use red paint. There are certain implications of red dye on your skin. Before I begin, I tell you a little bit about myself. I have been painting for about 10 years and I have taken some classes in the local DC area, but primarily I am a self taught artist. I believe it's important to move the paint around, so you can see how the paint feels and reacts as you move the paint. My paintings hang in private and corporate collections around the country and also retail stores in the DC area. So let's go ahead and talk about our composition and layout of our still life oil painting. So let's get started.