01 Oil painting technique of scraping method
Scraping the paint off the canvas or panel with the smooth edges of an oil painting knife is not only used to correct the picture, it is also a valuable oil painting technique in itself. Scraping off the pigment leaves a blurry ghost formed by the remaining thin layers of pigment, which allows a work composed of the same texture layers to be drawn.
On the canvas, the paint knife scrapes off the protruding pigment, leaving behind those pigments that are more or less trapped between the lines, and when the substrate used is a smooth plate, the scraping of the paint leaves a very flat layer of pigment with almost no texture.
No matter what substrate you use, the effects of repeatedly scraping the pigment (waiting for a layer of pigment to dry each time you add it) are difficult to achieve in any traditional way. James Whistler inadvertently developed this technique, because when painting portraits, since he preferred to start over rather than cover, he often scraped the paint off the painting at the end of a stage. When he removed the paint from the portrait of a girl in a white dress, he suddenly found that the picture looked thin and transparent, which was the ideal effect of the exquisite softness of the cloth he hoped to paint.
Scrape on a white base, and the light of the bottom layer will be transmitted, giving you the same effect as a hood dye. If performed on a colored base, this technique can make subtle changes in color.
1. The scraping method is suitable for creating a hazy atmosphere. The painting has been scraped off again, so the image feels a little stale.
2. From this part, it is clear that the pigment is scraped off from the bulge of the canvas fiber, but some of the pigment in the texture groove is retained. As you can see here, scratches can sometimes create some marking effects.
3. Now add more colors and tones to the screen. These pigments will also eventually be scraped off, leaving some old and new paints behind in a random way. In fact, these colors produce an optical blending effect.
4. Paint some blue and greenish colors on the screen, and then scrape it off with a drawing knife.
5. Now scrape the trees on the shore of the lake again to enhance the effect of the fog. The horizontal stripes created by this technique vividly express the tulle-like cloud feeling.
6. Use a paint knife to partially scrape off the white paint that was previously painted on the hillside, so that these thin pigments will slightly melt into the color of the sky.
02 Tang Ke Method of Oil Painting Technique
A painting at certain stages is often unable to continue because too much paint has accumulated on the surface. The paint on any new painting will only mix with the paint below, creating a frustrating sense of dirtiness, which will also affect the effect of the previous picture. When this happens, you can use the "Donk Method" to remove excess paint from the picture, named after Henry Tonks, who was a professor of painting at the Slade School of Art in London. The specific method is to use an absorbent piece of paper, such as newspaper or kitchen paper, to place it on the area of the picture with too much paint or the whole picture, gently rub it with the palm of your hand and carefully remove it. This method removes the excess paint from the top layer of the picture, giving the picture a thinner and softer contour line at the beginning, thus providing an ideal base for the next work. The Don Kefa is very useful in the drawing of portraits, as it is able to remove details while leaving a large structure of the head frame. Often, the slightest misalignment of facial details, especially the eyes and mouth, can destroy the similarity of the entire portrait to the object. In order to make them as accurate as possible, you will repeatedly paint layer after layer and accumulate too much paint. Sometimes the Don Ke Method can be used to facilitate the completion of a painting, and you only need to add a little more retouching, or even make any changes at all.
1． The picture has a common problem of excessive accumulation of pigments. Obviously, to the extent of this thick painting, the picture needs to be further portrayed.
2、3． Carefully cover the left screen with newspaper or other absorbent paper to implement the Donk method, and rub it smoothly with the palm of your hand to ensure that the uppermost layer of pigment can be adsorbed by the paper. Then slowly remove the paper with the paint sticking to it.
4． After the completion of the Don Kefa, only a thin layer of paint remains on the picture, and the brushstrokes and details are removed from the ideal surface for further portrayal. You can use the Don Ke Method whenever you like throughout the creative process.
03 Oil painting scratch technique
The name of the oil painting scratch technique comes from the Italian "graffiare", which has the meaning of scraping: any hard object can be used to scratch the picture, such as the barrel of the oil paintbrush, the scraper, the fork and even the comb, etc. After the wet pigment on the surface is scratched, the dried color in the lower layer will be revealed from the scratch, and any width of line can be hung on the pigment, and between the separated color layers, it is necessary to determine whether to create a brightness contrast or complementary color contrast. For example, scratching on dark brown pigment reveals light blue, or scratching dark green reveals a lighter and brighter green underneath.
Scratches are often used to accurately depict folds in hair and skin, as well as marks on the surface of flat objects, such as walls and sidewalks. Rembrandt used this technique extensively in his work, using a pen shaft to scrape on thick, moist paint to emphasize the unique beard of the figure and the pattern on the lace of the collar. Shaded areas can be linearly scratched with scratches, revealing a black background: microwaves on the surface of the sea, bright skies, spots of leaves, light in flames, and cremation are all recommended for expression.
The texture of the line marks depends on the thickness of the pigment and the degree of dryness. Although it is also possible to scrape with a tool sharp enough when the paint is completely dry, the lines that are scraped out in this way will be white, because all the layers are scraped away, revealing only the color of the substrate, of course, when representing certain objects. However, it is best to avoid scratching the dry pigment of hard plates, as this is likely to damage the plates.
1 The base color of the wooden table is quite thick with paint. In the next process, the scratch method is used to express the grain of the wood on these thick pigments – a dark brown undertone.
2 Small table towels are painted white before being scratched
3． Use an oil painting knife to "paint" the wood grain of the tabletop.
4． With this technique, wooden knots can be perfectly depicted.
5 If you've accumulated too much paint on the screen before, it's also a good way to draw fine lines on thick paint. The lines here are drawn with the top of the oil paint brush shaft.
6 Use a pencil to draw the intricate pattern of a small table towel on the still wet paint. Just like the oil stroke holder used earlier, this method scrapes the paint to the sides, leaving traces of pencil drawing, and the brown base will see through these marks.
Oil painting: Glossy Water Tank Painter: Rupert Sherbod
Scratching is the main expressive technique of this painting, which the painter skillfully uses to define contours and represent objects and patterns in the scene. The paint on the background is flat, but it doesn't look dull due to the fine interwoven scratches covered. On this painting, all the layers of paint are scraped off to reveal a white background, which is best done when the paint is dry or semi-dry.
04 Oil painting technique of color pressing method
This technique can use sponges, fabrics, or crumpled paper to color the picture to create a texture that is rougher than the brushstrokes, and this technique is well suited to cover large areas of flat area. While other materials are also worth trying, sponges are one of the most practical tools among them, creating a bold and interesting trace, such as a fine sponge, which will give a better and tighter texture, and is the ideal tool for drawing clouds, leaves and foam.
No matter which color pressing tool you choose, you need to constantly change the color angle when painting, so that the texture can be changed and avoid the formation of a monotonous repetition of these marks. Painting with a fine textured color pressing tool gently dipped in paint can obtain a delicate atomization effect. Rubbing on the place where the painting has been painted with a slighter force can be superimposed on two or more layers to create a color blending effect, but unlike the scraping method, the pigment is added to the canvas rather than removed.
1 Press the white pigment with a sponge onto the prepared colored base plate. The texture of the pigment is relatively dispersed.
2 Use a sponge to press the blue and gray pigments. They blend softly together and do not appear sharp edges.
3． Through the picture coated with mist-like paint, the base color can still be seen.
4、5． In the oil canvas or oil painting board pressing, there will be some canvas surface patterns can not be covered, through the pigment mixed with each other, that is, the optical mix of colors.
05 Oil painting technique of printing pressing method
Sometimes you may find that the textures made by brushes and JJs don't meet your performance needs, or you just want to try a different way of painting. The slow drying and plasticity of oil paints allows us to emboss different lines with different objects on the base of the paint, so that we can reshape the texture of the picture. Basically all objects can be used to create texture for the picture – a hole (colander), a groove (fork), a jagged edge (saw blade), or any object with an open structure can leave a satisfactory mark. The thickness of the pigment, the force of the press, and some other factors can affect the texture and the quality of the imprint, so try more effects. Experimentation is essential before actual creation is made.
The oil painting technique printing and pressing method may be very close to the non-figurative painting method, because of the very important factor of the surface texture of oil paint, this method has been successfully used by many contemporary artists to create texture for the picture.
Press the marks with the bottom of the film can on a thick pink paint. In some places, the pink pigment has faded to reveal a red base.
Here, the green pigment is lightly rubbed by the scratched metal foil, thus revealing a blurry image of a yellow background. Those spots and stripes are scraped out
This ribbed texture uses the suction and division method, which is similar to the embossing method. In this case, place a non-absorbent piece of paper on the pigment and pull the paper off. The pattern of the bricks is stamped with the bottom of the matchbox.
The pattern uses a fork to scrape off the upper layer of black pigment and then reveal the lower layer of red.
This pattern with concave and convex veins is made by pressing a teaspoon against the wet pigment and gently twisting it.
06 Oil painting cover dyeing technique
Hood dyeing is to cover a dry layer of painting with a layer of transparent thin pigment, which can be either thick or thin. Since the color of the underlying layer can be revealed through the hood dye layer, this is very different from the effect obtained by any opaque painting method.
Renaissance painters used increasingly increasing layers of color to get very bright reds and blues, and opaque pigments were used in small amounts in this technique, sometimes even completely, but in paintings with thicker pigments, the use of the hood dyeing technique would also have a good effect.
Rembrandt used thick lead carbonate to pile up the bright parts of his portraits, and then represented them in a series of hood-dyed layers, and Turner used the same method to paint his distant and bright skies. Rembrandt always painted the shadows with transparent paint, which made the shadows both transparent and had an illusory effect—it would be visually difficult for the viewer to judge the direction of the light in the painting.
Since the color of the picture can be changed using the hood dyeing technique, it is also used as a method of mixing colors, for example, a transparent ultramarine hood dyes a green on yellow, and a dark red hood stained on a blue color to produce a purple.
Before dyeing, make sure that the previous layers of color have been completely dried. If you want to cover dye directly on the base painting, the base painting can be drawn directly using acrylic pigment (in the same case it dries out in a few minutes). Oil-based hood dyeing, or perhaps all oil paints, can completely cover the acrylic painting layer, but the acrylic pigment cannot adhere to the oily painting layer.
The best hood dyeing materials are those specially formulated for this purpose, if you are not sure which one to choose, you can consult the material supplier. Raw linseed oil is not suitable for color grading, because a high proportion of oil is added to the pigment to make the pigment transparent, while raw linseed oil will only cause the pigment to flow down from the picture, or let the hood dye layers mix with each other.
Figure 1 . The hood dyeing medium extruded from the tube (top) is mixed directly with the pigment (bottom).
Figure II. The color of the bottom layer is very dull, so it can be brightened by hood dyeing. The red houses in the distance here have been painted in a deep red.
Figure III. The shadow of the red house after the hood is cast on the house next to it, and you can add detail to the hood dye layer later.
Figure IV. Through the purple hood dye layer, the details of the previous drawing are still clearly visible.
Figure V. Dyeing the entire right wall in purple allows you to add more hood-stain layers at a later stage.
Figure VI. The hood stain used here mixes ultramarines, crimson and Payne grey.
Figure VII. In the large area of shadows on the foreground and on the right side of the picture, the effectiveness of the mask dye as a painting technique is shown. The details of the previous painting are not obscured, and the colors at the bottom of the picture are revealed through the hood dye layer, making the color and layering of the picture very subtle and rich.
07 The solo printmaking method of oil painting technique
It's a fascinating technique that spans both oil painting and printmaking. Degas often used this technique for his creations, and it is now widely used by artists. This technique is divided into two steps. First, finish painting on a glass or non-absorbent surface, then put a piece of paper on it and roll it on the paper with a roller, or use your hand to gently rub it, carefully peel off the paper, and you will see a "transfer" of the image you originally drew on the paper.
If the effect is satisfactory, it can be left behind, or wait for the pigment to dry before reprocessing it with paint or oil paint sticks. This technique requires some attempts to find the right color consistency for the transfer, and the pigment also needs to be wet, but not too thick or the image will become blurred. Either way, experiments are exciting, and in the experiments we always get all sorts of fortuitous effects.
The second method is to apply paint evenly over the entire piece of glass, and then cover it with paper when the pigment becomes only a small amount of stickiness. The peculiarity of this method is that selective pressurization can be carried out on the back (top) of the paper, and only where it is scraped will the pigment be printed on the paper. But if the pigment is too wet, then all the pigments will be adsorbed onto the paper, and the experiment will risk failure.
Use this method to get a variety of different effects, change the lines you scratch, and create some texture by pressing some objects on the paper. You can also print two or more colors, just use different colors on the glass. However, this will take more time, because you will have to wait for the first layer of paint to dry out before printing another layer of color.
Oil painting: Figure 1, painter: Ange Hackett
One of the benefits of the single-panel printmaking technique is that it is very quick and direct. Both oil paint and printing ink can be used, but this work is done entirely using oil paint. Paint the image on a glass plate with thick but not very oily oil paint (too much oil is difficult to master), and then rub the image with your hands to transfer the image.
Oil painting: "Spring Scene", painter: Ange Hackett
The painting was first painted on glass and then transferred, but the paper used for the transfer was pre-painted with a thin layer of pink and blue acrylic paint. Since the picture requires a clear image, a hand-pushed ink roller is used here to apply even pressure. More oil paint was used after the transfer to add some extra texture to the picture.
Oil painting: The Seated Human Body, painter: Ange Hackett
This more complex work is the result of multiple transfers, each of which adds a little color and texture to the glass pane. The effects are interesting because the addition of pigments to the glass creates a variety of textures for the transfer painting. The white lines are still drawn on the paint, but this time a pen holder is used.
08 Oil painting dot color technique
This technique is a method of painting with very small color points, which are closely arranged throughout the work but do not overlap. It evolved from the Impressionist idea of color division, advocated by George Seurat, who preferred to use the term Neo-Impressionism to categorize it. Xiu La was fascinated by the study of color theory. At that time, French scientists Schaeffler and Ruud found in their study of the properties of light and color that when colors are closely arranged with each other, they produce a mixture in the eyes of the viewer. This discovery had a big impact on Seurat. The principle of light mixing was later used in color television and color printing (the entire work consisted of countless color points of three primary colors).
Seurat not only created a second and third visual mixture of colors in this way, but also used another of Schaeffler's theories to show that when it was necessary to emphasize the brightness of a color, it was enough to paint its complementary colors on the side, and vice versa.
Compared to some artists who like to cover the picture quickly, Seurat's work uses very restrictive techniques. Paul Signek, Camille Pissarro, and Henry Edmund Cross were initially keen on this, but they soon began to replace smaller color points with larger color points, so their work focused more on composition than just optical theory and pointillism.
Oil painting: "Song and Dance", painter: George Seurat
In this work, the separated solid color points suppress the color intensity of the picture as a whole. This may be due to decolorization, which was later noted that the colors of Seurat's works from the same period began to darken shortly after he completed his work. The method was slow and laborious from the slightest brushstroke, so later painters improved on the method, but the pointillist school still had a great influence in the history of art
Oil painting: The Courtyard, painter: Pete Graham
This brilliant and dazzling work is a successful reproduction of the pointillist painting. The painter boldly creates spots on the picture with colors of high purity, which have not been mixed, and there are some light mixing effects, where red and blue are combined in the distance to produce a purple effect as a whole.
Oil painting: Sunset in Dorniedo, painter: Arthur Madsen
The small dots of color in the distance of the painting become plump and blurry in the foreground, thus constituting an impressionistic feeling. A bright red base color can be seen between the brush strokes, which increases the strong effect of the picture. The painter eschewed all dark brown, gray, and black, and used purple, blue, and green to form the shadow parts.
Oil painting: Erie Cathedral, painter: Arthur Madsen
The top layer of the painting is mainly through the relatively dry pigments with a pen, dragging these pigments on the surface layer, so that the colors on the earlier paintings are looming. The painter also used a method close to the Seurat pointillist method, painting with purer colors, so that the viewer can produce a light mixing effect when admiring the work at a certain distance.
09 Mixing techniques of oil painting and pastel painting
This technique was invented by Degas and is also used in the works of Toulouse-Rotreek, which uses turpentine to mix oil paints, so that the consistency of oil paint becomes the same as that of gouache paints, to create a matte effect. Degas didn't like oily, thick paint, and sometimes he scraped it off the canvas while it was still wet, and then got a soft, mural-like effect that he liked.
He often painted using uncoated wooden planks or paper mounted on canvas, which absorbed most of the grease from the pigment. The thin pigment removed all the lines on the surface of the substrate, resulting in the effect of flat paint, which he found to be ideal as a first draft.
Rothrek followed Degas's method and also painted on wooden panels. He painted mainly in line rice and made extensive use of thin pigments. Some of his on-board paintings look close to pastel paintings.
Pastel painting is still used by painters who, like Degas, did not like oil paints. By using thick cardboard or untreated cardboard instead of the usual palette, they can absorb most of the oil from the pigment on it. Although this "oil-free" oil paint looks similar to gouache paint, it is simpler and more convenient to use because it does not affect the bottom layer of the earlier drawing when used on the top layer of the picture. This is a great way to try, especially when it comes to sketching.
Pastel painting: Lucy Bellanga, painter: Rottlek
The combination of thin pigments and an absorbent cardboard substrate allows Lautrec to wield his brush freely, a way that is more suitable for his painting style. This painting effect is closer to that of a color chalk painting.