The best Oil Painting books: Reddit reviews

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This is the answer. I bought this book (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1600582834/ ) when I first started out and it was helpful for a minute. But actually doing the mixing is how I learned too.

Mark Carder of Draw Mix Paint's video for mixing oil paints was really helpful for me in mixing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNB3XY67Q-I

Not really. In order to have an accurate calculator you would need accurate color values for every paint. Unfortunately paint varies from batch to batch just a little and frankly unless you are measuring at the 0.1ml level or precision you will get additional variations.

What you can do though is obtain a book of color recipes and then use primary colors from each paint line to mix a color you like. Useful if you want to mix a unique color.

For most typical modeling applications modelers have developed recipes for colors. For example: Soviet Aircraft were painted a light blue underneath called AMT-7 — one way to mix this using Tamiya paint is you mix 6 parts XF-23, 2 parts XF-8, 2 parts XF-2. There are other recipes for each color.

If you use an iPhone, the iModelKit app can help with mixing. I find it so-so, as it relies on scanning web colors, not measuring them directly. However once you know a color’s correct values, you can mix in the app to get close, which gives some ideas. I then try the mix IRL and adjust to my liking.

Get a color wheel. It helps with visualizing where to begin and which colors to start with. As you get more comfortable, consider getting a color recipe book that has every color you would want and ratios of colors needed to mix them.

If your available colors will be limited, but you are willing to buy modeling paints via mail order, I recommend Tamiya. It sprays very well using either DIY store lacquer or isopropyl alcohol 91%. The latter is better but it is possible to mix a tiny bit of lacquer thinner into the IPA. There are quite a few mixes using Tamiya for just about any and all military colors.

I’d focus on the base colors: white, black, red, blue, green, yellow, and silver. You can use the colors to mix or adjust the other colors to just about any color you would want. If you know you’ll use a premixed color often, get it.

Read Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting. It has all the answers.

Variety in unity. He talks about it a lot (as does Harold Speed, another author to read)

https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270

sure thing!

in this book https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270 he talks about integrating elements into the scene. I can't find a free version but it's definitely a good book even though it seems kind of old fashioned.

You got this!

I can recommend you a good landscape painting book.

https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270

It's very text heavy and you may initially feel disappointed with the lack of "tutorialized" instruction. But this is one of the more useful books on landscapes I've ever read.

They often didn't; you can't always tell that from just pictures on the internet, though, you need a really good quality reproduction or just head to a museum and have a look at them up close!

If you just want brushstrokes to be unnoticeable, use a medium that levels the paint, like Galkyd or Liquin. You can still work in opaque layers but your brushstrokes won't be obvious unless you really get in to get a close look.

If you want them to be essentially invisible, use more medium and glaze layers of color over a grisaille base. (Which would drive me insane trying to replicate, I think, because you have to wait at least a day between each layer for it to completely dry.)

This book has a ton of information on the subject, though I'd recommend skipping over the part about making your own mediums unless you're a painting history buff and just look for modern equivalents.

I've got a book around here somewhere... this one. It's got some crazy recipes for mediums in it, like making this stuff from scratch by cooking together linseed oil and lead paste until they turn black, which just seems wildly unhealthy to me! Some people swear by it, but my painting instructor told us that half linseed oil / half odorless mineral spirits would do the trick and keep you from fiddling too much. (But we were also doing a LOT of paintings, so stuff that would slow drying time a lot like liquin wasn't really a good option for us.)

Gotcha. The canvas paper is fine, I would use Liquin by W&N for medium, along with the paint thinner for very thin washes.

This book and the other WG textbooks on classical realism are very good if you want to go in that direction. Might be a good supplement for the ol' college of YouTube.

PS I <3 Bob Ross, he was the man.

The biographical novel Lust for Life by Irving Stone is pretty good. It's based off Vincent's letters to his brother Theo. You might find it of interest.

These kind of artist paints are all that I use to paint. Thinning them down is handy, but not essential. If you are careful to not overload the paint and rely on very thin layers they work fine right out of the tube with a bit of medium mixed in. Artist acrylics tend to have a very high pigment density and very finely ground pigment they also are very opaque compared to pre-mixed miniatures paints so it takes less paint to achieve a similar effect.

The biggest difference is that you'll be mixing colors more often. Artist paints are very forgiving in that regard, but you will probably want some kind of mixing guide until you are used to the properties of the paint.

Check out some of James Rosenquist's work. He did a lot of collage paintings during the pop art era. His book is pretty good too.

At a glance, I'd say you definitely need more contrast. Try to really deepen the dark areas. Also, play around more with using warmer and colder colors to create depth and shadow.

I HIGHLY recommend Oil Painting Secrets from a Master by Linda Cateura. My oil painting teacher worshiped that book, and for good reason. It's also fairly cheap.

I really like your style, and hope you continue to post as it develops :)