Techniques of oil painting

The historical conditions of the primary development for oil paintings led to the realistic trend of classical oil painting.During the European Renaissance in 15th century, as a result of criticism for religion,the humanist thought had active requirements for paying attention to the social reality, Many famous artists gradually got rid of the single creative theme for the Christian classics, They began to observe and describe those figures, landscapes, objects in daily life. so that those religious works had obvious unreligious factors as well as some artists compeletely described the real scenes in daily life. Painters during Renaissance inherited the art conceptions of Greek and Rome,which not only focused on describing an event or fact, but also revealed the causes and consequences of events or facts, so that the artistic techniques of focuing on the typical plots and images were taking shape. At the same time, artists were also exploring the use of anatomy, perspective science in painting so that the shape of scientific principles were forming. And the use of human anatomy helped the characters of hand painted  have the accurate and actual relationship among the distribution, shape and structure in the picture. The establishment of focusing perspective formed deep illusion space through the composition of picture, and it also made the landscapes of the paintings had the same visual feelings in the real life. The chiaroscuro made the objects and sences in the painting can form clear coverages from far to near vision under the same light. Owning to the restriction of tools and materials, the theme of humanism and the shape conception of seeking reality had not been improved.However,The characters of oil paintings tools and materials were approriate to reflect the theme of humanism and the shape conception of seeking reality. Thus, classical painting has become an image produced by the long-term, highly realistic operation.

The limition of tools and materials for oil painting led to the complexity of drawing techniques. For the past several centuries, artists have created a variety of painting techniques in practice, which makes the materials of oil paintings express a full performance effects. The major techniques of cheap oil painting are:

①The method of transparent covered color, That is a multi-level description to picture by using diluted oil paint without white color.Painters must draw color to picture only after the previous color has been dry. Due to the color of each layer is relatively thin, the color of next layer can vaguely disclosed so that colors between layers have delicate effect.For example, Drawing the blue color in dark red color layer can produce abundant effect that implies the wamth through the cold,which is often unable to draw in the palette.This method is suitable to express the feeling of visible and solid sense for objects’ images, especially it can vividly describe the changes of color to the skin of figures and make people feel the blood flowing under the surface of skin. The disadvantage of the mathod is the color is narrow, the procedure is careful and the time of one work is long so that it is unfavorable for painters to express the creative ispiration for art. 

The mathod of drawing transparent color, also called as: Direct drawing color. That is after drawing images on the canvas, with the colors’feeling for the images of onjects,painters think about the applicable colors and draw these colors in one time. And those mistaken parts of picture will be scratched and continue to draw colors on it, This method uses so much paint that the saturation of colors is high and is favorable to show the active feelings of painters. During the mid and late19th century, most painters use this method. In order to achieve the full effect of color for picture in one time, painters must pay attention to the use of brush-pencil,And the common ways of drawing colors are smooth,disperse and thick drawings. Smooth drawing is drawing colors to wide areas in a single strength and reasonal pencil,which is suitable for those objects in a stable and peaceful atomosphere of picture. Disperse drawing is using brush-pencil according to natural changes of objects,which is relatively disperse and flexible. Thick drawing is drawing paints in a full or partial manner so as to the picture have some deep colored parts,in which the paints can be interesting and the image of objects can also been enhanced.