Oil Painting

During the 15th century, Jan van Eyck, a famous Belgian painter developed oil painting by mixing linseed oil and oil from nuts with diverse colors. Some English artists too made use of oils, and first advocated the oil painting technique.

Oil paints are one of the great classic media. They have been used for hundreds of years and have stood the test of time with great durability and steadfast color. They have a slow-drying time, during which their colors do not change, allowing the artist to rework and correct the painting ( if needed ).

What initially made oil painting art so appealing was the brightness and richness of its colors. What has allowed it to stand the test of time is its adaptability to an artist’s whims and requirements. For instance, Renaissance oil painting artists tended to use oil paints in layers, working fat over lean (which means adding more oil to the pigment as you go through each successive layer to allow for proper drying or curing so the final surface of the painting won’t crack) and dark to light. This is usually called indirect painting and allows an artist to build up the painting surface from toned underpainting to finishing glazes.

During the Impressionist period, much of the things changed. Oil pigments were put into tubes and artists were free to move outdoors, where they often painted “wet into wet,” mixing paint directly on the surface and not waiting for a layer of paint to dry before going into the painting again. Nowadays artists often combine one or both of these methods in their oil art.

The main advantages of oil paints are their flexibility and depth of colour. They can be applied in many different ways, from thin glazes diluted with linseed oil to dense thick impasto. Oils also allow the artist to create greater richness of colour as well as a wide range of tonal transitions and shades.

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