View source for Court Jones: An Oil Painting Demonstration

==Article Transcript==
I don’t like the term “How-to” when it comes to demonstrating
an artistic method. “How-to” instructions are
for furniture assembly manuals. It would be a little bit
presumptive for anyone to say “This is how you are supposed
to draw or paint something.” So instead of this being
a “How-to-paint” article, think of this more as a “How I
paint” article. Or more appropriately: “How I usually paint
when creating a portrait to be photographed for printing
in a magazine” because that is what I was thinking as I
worked on this piece.

I often focus on different goals each time I stand in front
of the easel. In this particular painting demonstration
of a Morgan Freeman caricature portrait, I begin with a
detailed line drawing and attempt to create a realistic
rendering, with some minor painterly touches and visible
brush strokes. At other times, I might work with no
line drawing at all and focus more on creating interesting
edges or color harmonies. Other times, I may only want
to spend thirty minutes on a painting to capture a quick
impression or gesture. The important thing is to have a
goal and a finished look in mind when starting a painting,
and then modify the procedure to achieve that look.

And I can’t emphasize enough how important fundamental
drawing skills are in painting. When you begin any
painting, you usually quickly obscure any line drawing
that is on the canvas. So you must be able to find the correct
shapes again and again, and you will need to correct
the drawing and likeness as you go. You can’t separate
drawing from painting; they are one and the same. When
you lay down a paint stroke, that stroke must have a
shape. So that is a type of drawing. And being able to
design good shapes is a skill you develop through years
of training. If your drawing skills are not adequate, you
will not produce successful paintings.

First, it is important to find a painting surface that works
well for you. There are many choices out there, from
smoothly gessoed hardboards to fine or coarsely woven
canvases and linens which come in either acrylic or oil
primed finishes. I personally like a fine grain linen surface
with lead oil priming. There is not a heavy grain which
tends to cause lots of little reflections when photographing
the work for print. Lead-primed linen is generally more
expensive than cotton canvas, but it takes the paint more
cooperatively without absorbing too much into the surface.
I like a little bit of texture on the canvas, but not so much
as to be distracting from the brush strokes. For this painting,
I am using Raphael Oil Primed Linen which I purchased
on the roll. It’s a very slick surface which requires
me to use softer sable brushes more often than the stiffer
hog’s hair bristle brushes.

'''Preparing the Canvas'''<br>
Before I begin any painting, one of the things that I always do consistently is stain
the canvas with a thinned down mixture of a brown and blue in order to get a warm
grey/brown even tone. It is easier to judge the values accurately when you eliminate
the glaring bright white of the canvas from the beginning. A common problem I see in
many novice painters’ works is that the flesh colors are often too light in value. This is
caused by the artist judging the value of the flesh adjacent to the bright white canvas.
A white background tricks the eye into thinking that any color you apply to the surface
is much darker than it really is. But in reality the value of skin tone is often right in the
middle of the value scale, rather than towards the lighter end.

'''Palette'''<br>
My mixing palette is glass with a sheet of warm grey paper underneath,
which is a close match to the color and value of the stained
tone I apply to a canvas. In order to have the colors and values I apply
to the canvas look the same as they do on my palette, it is important
to have the backgrounds of each to be similar. My colors, listed from
left to right: Ultramarine Blue, Sap Green, Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson
Permanent, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Orange, Lemon
Yellow and Titanium White.

'''Drawing'''<br>
After the canvas stain is dry, I then apply the drawing to the
canvas. In this instance, I drew the original caricature of
Morgan Freeman on a small sheet of paper. Then I scanned
it in to Photoshop and printed out a larger version to fit onto
a 16 x 20 inch canvas. I then use a sheet of graphite paper
to transfer the line drawing onto the canvas. I use a hard
red pencil so that I can easily see the lines which I have
already traced.

'''Painting'''<br>
Sometimes the lines transferred into
the canvas by the graphite paper
are very light, so I then use a thin
pointy bristle brush to apply Burnt
Sienna thinned down with odorless
mineral spirits to darken and
reinforce those lines. I have found it
necessary to do this if I want to preserve
my original drawing as long
as possible during the oil painting
process. In the next step I will apply
dark color stains, which would have
quickly obscured or even dissolved
away the light graphite lines.

I apply rich, dark colors thinned down
with odorless mineral spirits (OMS). The
colors are darker and more intense than
will appear on the finished canvas. But
they will help add color variety and interest
when they show through in areas. I
thin the paint with OMS because it helps
them to dry faster and lets some of the
original canvas luminosity show through
the paint. Plus, it is important to remember
the rule of painting “fat over lean”
when working with oils. The linseed oil in
paints is basically a type of fat. The more
you dilute it with a solvent like OMS, you
are making the paint more “lean.” So the
thinner leaner pigments should be applied
first. And then the “fatter” undiluted
paints can be painted over them. This will
help ensure the paint layers dry properly
without cracking.

In this next step, I add a darker brown
stain to the background so that I can better
judge the new darker values on the
face. I also start to apply more opaque
“fat” paint on the shadowed half of the
face. This is the part where it really starts
to feel like true artistic painting. I am using
only soft sable brushes at this stage.
And I am trying to indicate the various
plane changes and thinking about things
on the large scale. Details do not interest
me yet. One of the most important things
I have learned about how to paint is to
focus on the big picture and overall value
relationships for the first half of the painting.
Do not let yourself become seduced
with details and rendering too early or
you risk creating a disjointed badly structured
portrait.

Here, I continue to add more opaque paint in other areas without
getting too focused on a single area. I try to stand far back from the
canvas and keep the overall relationships working well. The paint is
applied in small “color tiles” (pretend you are laying down color mosaic
tiles) with very little mixing or blending of edges. You must not overblend
oil paints or you will soon get a muddy soup of browns or an unattractive
airbrushed look. Oil paints stay wet for a long time and it is
tempting to blend. But you will lose all sense of structure if you blend
too much. You can achieve smooth transitions between values and
colors simply by applying the correct intermediate value and color in
between the larger color tiles. The foundation color for all of my flesh
tones when painting any ethnicity is Burnt Sienna. It can be mixed with
a red and white for lighter flesh tones, or cooled down and darkened
with Ultramarine Blue. It is a very versatile color which can be bent
any direction you like by adding other colors.

At this stage, I have almost all of the
face covered with large flat color tiles.
So I begin getting into some of the detail
work around the eye. My technique still
is to apply color tiles, but now they are
much smaller and I blend just a little bit
here and there to help give variety to the
edges. Sometimes I use a clean brush
to soften an edge or even a finger to
wipe an area. Manipulation of the edges
between colors and values is where
the illusion of three dimensional reality
occurs as well as some of the personal
style of the artist.

Here I have continued to add more
refinement and details by layering smaller
color tiles over the rest of the face. I am
waiting to apply the lightest values and
highlights until near the end. This will give
time for the darker under-layers to dry so
that I can keep the lighter values clean
without contamination by darker wet paint.
Also you can see that I chose to use a
middle value color for the background. It
is lighter than the shadow side of the face,
but darker than the light side of the face.
By doing this, I maintain a good contrast
and the face pops out of the background.
Some of the warm brown canvas stain
shows through in areas.

I am now in the final stages of painting the
face, where I add the lightest values in
the hair and other highlights. Frequently, I
stand far back to judge the overall effect.
If there are any areas which call too much
attention to themselves or any problems
with edges or shapes, I can easily modify
them because the paint is still wet. I did
the original drawing transfer and canvas
staining on one day, allowed it to dry
overnight and then did all of the opaque
wet painting on the second day. It’s best
to work quickly wet into wet if you want to
have control over the soft and hard edges.
Here, in Southern California’s dry climate,
oil paints dry very quickly and become
unworkable after a few hours. So it’s necessary
to get large sections of a canvas
done in a single day’s work.

The clothing did not take very long.
I spent an additional hour or so on
that. Overall, I spent about nine to ten
hours painting this caricature portrait.
The main lessons I hope to convey
in sharing my procedure are: having
a clear goal or finished look in mind
before beginning, solving the bigger
problems first before solving the
smaller ones, and understanding that
oil painting requires following a procedure
of layering and a disciplined
application of paint strokes. You can’t
let your focus drift away. That leads
to making sloppy or poor decisions.
But really, the only poor decisions
you can make in painting are using
the wrong value, shape or edge than
the situation calls for. Color hue and
saturation are issues too, but are not
as important as the first three elements
of values, shapes and edges.
The guiding principles of oil painting
are simple in theory, but applying
them well is the tricky part. That’s why
getting proper instruction where the
ideas are reinforced through constant
repetition and numerous life studies
are so essential.

'''Recommended Materials:'''<br>
Court paints on Raphael Double Oil
Primed Linen or Claessen’s #13 Double
Primed Portrait Linen using Robert
Simmons Signet bristle brushes and
Royal Langnickle Sable brushes. His
solvent is Gamsol Odorless Mineral
Spirits. The brand of paint varies
and is not very important. But Court
recommends using only professional
grade oil paints. Not the more diluted
“academic” or “student” grade paints.

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''Court Jones works as an illustrator, portrait artist and instructor at the Watts Atelier of the Arts in San Diego, California. Find more of Court’s caricatures at www.courtjones.com. For more fine art work, see www.crjonesart.com.''

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