How To Begin An Oil Painting, Alla Prima + Color Mixing Basics (Zorn Palette)

thanks, how to start an oil

painting

, as we have discussed before, there are several different ways to start an oil

painting

, including the im

prima

tura or layer of dye and the Grassai. My previous demos on both methods are linked below in the Alla Prima description. It is a very popular method in which the paint is often created in a single session where the wet paint is applied to previous layers of still wet paint. The Alla Prima method is much more of a contemporary method, well seen as contemporary compared to high Renaissance techniques let's go back ala

prima

is Italian for once or the first attempt and please forgive me for my pronunciations my desert accent prevents me from proper embellishments it's definitely because of the heat anyway this method is also called direct painting or wet on wet the technique was originally famous by the baroque painter Franz Towels Hal's works were considered very painterly, a term later coined to describe loose, expressive brush strokes , this style was very different to the much more precise and meticulous layered approach of other artists at the time, the alaprima technique is perfect for shorter or more temporary sessions allowing artists the opportunity to capture the impression of the landscape before Whether time and nature have other ideas or allowing the painter to capture and translate those instantaneous intangibles of the figure in the moment, making them tangible forever in painting, the immediacy of the method forces a spontaneity in the expression of the brushstrokes,

color

and value, while at the same time pushing the artist to be so decisive with his instructions, the artist simply lacks time to agonize over the details or reflect on the process.

Nice, great question, Scully. I think I'm going to keep it super limited with the zorin

palette

talking about Anderson, born to oil painting master Alla Prima from Sweden, he is still widely known today for his artwork but also in part for the warm primary

palette

of the Earth that bears his name Anders regularly. I used lead or flakes white yellow ocher vermilion and black ivory okay where is my black ivory good job eagle eyes well I'm not sure yet oh hi Michael it looks like you need my help again and please you don't have to ask twice I will be you painting topic for today's session, in addition to being your muse, I will also be a constant reminder of the academy to limit your modernity.

Great, okay, thanks, but let's get ready, yes of course, I'm classically trained, just give me a second, ouch! this is going to be good behold the end of the earth Hermes Hermes, can we tone it down maybe something a little more classic and elegant? I mean, of course, of course, just give me a second, here we go, this pose is titled perfect, that's wonderful, thank you. Are you sure, yes, of course. Now let's go over our materials first. We will need a sealed palette to mix our paints. I prefer an oiled wooden or glass palette for this painting.

I will use a titanium white, a yellow ocher, a vermilion but a light cadmium red. and ivory black will do on the brushes, we'll need some larger brushes to lock in our initial

color

s for the overall drawing and solidify smaller shapes. I prefer a quarter inch filbert and a 3.8 inch flat and finally for details and edges. an eighth of an inch of hazelnut and a number zero round brush we will need an odorless artistic quality mineral spirits to clean our brushes. I prefer Weber's terpenoid or Gamblin's gamsol. Odorless mineral spirits are still quite toxic, so you'll need an airtight glass or metal jar. container to store it in I like a container with a built-in stirrer to help clean stubborn paint from those brushes a small to medium sized metal spatula for

mixing

consistent oil colors We will also need an artist grade oil and there are a number of them, the most commonly used is linseed oil, but I prefer walnut oil to store our artist oil for paint.

You will need a small metal or glass copper jar for general cleaning and some paint removal. We will need a cotton cloth or a resistant cloth. shop towel, finally, a primed surface, either canvas OR paper or cardboard. Linked In the description is my brush cleaning and care video and also my detailed video on how to build and prime a canvas. Now, before we

begin

, let's go over some color

mixing

basics

again. Zorn is a very limited and neutral primary palette, with ivory black being our only cool color, since our yellow-ocher blue is more of a neutral orange-yellow and vermilion is a very intense orange-red.

This limited palette is perfect when you have a dominant amber light. source or when the elements of the painting are much warmer dominant and very limited in cooler temperatures to mix them to create your greens, you will want to mix your ivory black with your yellow ocher, the greens are very subtle and quite muted to create your oranges. They simply mix the yellow ocher together with the vermilion. This combination is where all the intensity lies within the palette and they finally mix the vermilion with the ivory black to create a truer red and its full range of violets due to how dark the black is.

It's a little hard to see, but by adding just a little bit of white you can unlock all those beautiful colors. Ivory black is a very dark but muted blue and in this set of colors it is used as the coldest tone and at the same time as shading. valuing the direct opposite or complement of a color, such as violet and yellow, darkening a color while neutralizing or desaturating that color, so that the more violet I add to yellow, the more neutral and darker the yellow becomes. This works with all the opposite orange and blue red and green yellow orange and blue violet etc., but for now I wanted to do an earthy brown like burnt umber for my initial drawing.

A brown is a darker orange, so I'm going to start by mixing my vermilion and yellow ocher to create that orange and the opposite of orange. blue our blue that we're using is ivory black, so the more I mix ivory black, the darker the brown will be while I reduce the intensity of that orange. I was hoping to make something like a burnt umber, remember if the mixture starts to turn green, that just means you've used too much yellow in making the orange, as we saw before. Ocher yellow and ivory black make a green and the direct opposite of green is red, so to eliminate the green and neutralize it back to a brown add more red there that resembles the brown you wanted. let's get started with the demonstration starting with the initial drying.

Also, in this initial pass we will tone and activate the surface to do this effectively, use a large one inch brush load. To fill your brush with small amounts of this odorless turpentine and your artist's oil, you'll want to use enough of this mixture to adequately dilute the color and create the desired shade, but not so much that the next few coats drip right off the brush. Brush. canvas By toning our gypsum board we can create a more fluid surface for the oil paints to dance on and we also create a unifying mid-tone value that immediately blocks the bleached white primer allowing our eyes to see much more effectively and precise color and value relationships to ensure a uniform surface I like to wipe the base tone with a cotton cloth I prefer a slightly slippery surface but never wet a final note when it comes to choosing a toning base I like to create the color of the average overall temperature and paint value before moving on to drawing a few notes on what to look for keep your initial sketch loose with no details focusing on basic shapes the easiest way to capture basic shapes is to define the light and shadow again , simply think about what is being illuminated and what is not in direct lighting, then outline those light and shadow contours.

I prefer to draw with a quarter inch of medium sized hazelnut, it's usually big enough to block everything out. those shapes and yet it is too big to immediately become intoxicated with all those details. Draw lightly with the paint, this allows you to really search and explore the surface, becoming aware of proportions and values, plus you always want to keep your initial paint thin so you can. We are not fighting the application of paint on the additional coats. Focus on the largest shapes first by defining the proportions by recognizing those angles. Always draw your shapes by measuring those relationships forcing the eye to really see what is there.

The beauty of all Prima is that the drawing evolves. with the painting build they are not separate, so keep the initial drawing super simple and loose to allow for those continued reactions and redefinitions once the Light and Shadow Contours are locked in. I like to wipe away any extra build-up of the medium shade on the light shapes with a cotton rag so it doesn't cloud my future colors, allowing for a clear indication. Remember that shapes and forms dictate details and edges, so always work from the largest shapes to the smallest. Now let's mix up our color palette to do it.

Let's take a look at how color relates to light and shadow. The visual cues of light and shadow have already been brilliantly categorized through the classical order of light thanks to the Nice academy. Anyway, this sequence maps how direct light illuminates an object, giving us a few different ways to set up our palette. First, keeping things a little simpler, we can create a color that is the average of the temperature and value for the side. light and for the dark side, so if we look at Hermes Morning Mist We can create this light mid-tone yellowish-orange gray to capture the averages of how light reflects off Hermes and then we can create this darker very dull reddish brown for the average temperature and value within the Shadow and then you would too. that for the background, creating an average of the light side and an average of the dark side, this way any additional color or value variation we need to mix, we can simply adjust it from the appropriate color stack, creating color unity and consistency .

This paddle configuration is kind of improvised. Jazz is very reactionary and allows for ample flexibility, but if you prefer the color palette arrangement of a well-conducted orchestra, the classical order of light provides that mapping as well. When we open the transitions from light to shadow, we find variable values ​​related to the light reflection, each with its own specific color, such as Highlight Midtone, Center Shadow, Reflective Light, and Cast Shadow with Highlight and the middle tone contained in the Light Side, the central Shadow, the reflective light and the projected Shadow. they are all located within the Shadows for the Morning Mist pose within the light side of Hermes.

I'll premix a highlight color plus a lighter midtone and a darker midtone and then on the Hermes shadow side I'll do that. I'll premix a color for the reflective light, a color for the overall average shadow, and finally a color for the central shadow relative to the background. I will premix a highlight color, a midtone, and an overall shadow color. Normally Honestly, don't premix more than nine or ten colors total until you have them all applied. I have no idea how they actually work together. Okay, let's mix our palette. Just please be brief. Michael, it's quite difficult to maintain this pose. you, Hermes, anything, thanks Michael, well, through the magic of editing.

Lo and behold, our colors are already mixed together again, since I don't know how much of each color I'll end up using or if the color is accurate enough. I personally don't mix a ton. of the color and just blend a little more than I think I'll need now in the blocking stage. I will use a half inch flat brush to block or apply all the general large shapes of our colors to achieve To achieve visual balance and the painterly expression of Alla Prima, you must build the hole in the image immediately, which is why we block the shapes first bigger and then we work with the smaller shapes and then with the details.

Remember that in Alla Prima painting we are working wet on wet, therefore our blocking layer will mix with the initial layer under the drawing, so it is good practice to keep the initial layer under the drawing very thin because the Painting is done while everything is wet, you have constant flexibility to react and redefine the shapes. and structures as you apply color, meaning painting and drawing are now synonymous, every painting is different and every painting requires a slightly different process, but I usually start with my mid tones and then work through my dark tones and clear at the same time.

If I haven't premixed my palette, which we've already done with a variety of dark shades, I would start applying the darkest valuesfirst by applying my values. I loosely define the transitions of those values ​​as a topographic map. I don't want to mix too much at this stage and I want to keep clear separations of my value transitions. I try to stay away from my highlights until I build up all my midtones or I'm continually reworking the same areas over and over again and I don't see anything new, but then I quickly go back to my darker values.

If you have difficulties with any part of a painting, the drawing, the proportions, the values ​​and the mixing of colors almost all the time it is because you have not put your darks. However, either it's because its dark tones don't really match what you're actually seeing, even though it may seem unrelated. Having a proper value range with solid dark tones allows you much more ease and precision when evaluating colors and mixing them much more effectively - hue and saturation. Initially you could define the identity of a color, but remember that colors are values. Understanding and then defining the proper lightness and darkness of a color effortlessly allows for true evaluation of that hue and saturation, simply put, if you have difficulty mixing colors, place your dark values ​​like I did.

I work from the largest shapes to the smallest. I adjust my brush size to what I need and always use the largest brush I can within that given space. The larger the brush, the more effective the application of color is and the more confident you feel, using smaller or tiny brushes to scrub large areas ruins the brushes but also muddies the colors and visually drains the surface of your painting. In the final blocking stage, how much paint should you apply initially? A lot of this is artistic preference, but you'll want to apply enough to cover the surface fairly opaquely and so that you can blend future coats on top, i.e. blend, but you don't want to apply it so heavy that all future coats will smear. become so cloudy.

And the uncontrollable understanding of how much paint to put on when initially applying comes with time and practice, but if you find that you rub on too little paint on your first pass, I bet you simply didn't mix in enough of the color you needed. I mentioned before to mix a little more than you think you'll need. That way you can be much more liberal with the application instead of worrying about running out of that specific color. How do you know when you've blocked in enough of the color? paint and you can really start to develop the image.

This is different for all artists, but for me it's usually when most of the surface has been revealed or when I can finally see the paint, meaning I have references from light to dark, warm to cool. a foreground established with the background and I have enough of the

begin

nings of shapes developing in front of me as I begin to feel right now. I can start rendering and developing the smaller shapes. Now remember that in a true Alla Prima painting, our greatest adversary is time. From our first stroke of color on the canvas, the surface began to dry on us, so finishing the image with Quicken may seem like a runner's sprint, but you'll want to slow down, be intentional, be deliberate, be aggressive, Follow your shape guidelines and adhere to the Classical Order of Light, as I've said several times in our previous larger shapes, chase the smaller shapes and then work out the smaller shapes with the inside of that, the details just They will start to emerge and when you capture them to make sure you don't overwork your image, take a step back from your painting from time to time to see how everything comes together optically, which usually prevents me from over-blending all my details and forming honestly, all that goes into how to finish an oil painting is really a topic upon itself creating an image is creating a series of hierarchies a hierarchy of depth a hierarchy of value and a hierarchy of visual clarity and of course to help achieve this You'll want to use a variety of brushes to fine-tune individual details, mark out the edges and shapes you're ultimately building to create a surface that is visually interesting and appealing.

The conclusion of each painting differs depending on the artist, his style, the subject and the methodology which takes us back to the alaprima method. The Alla Prima technique can be whatever you want. should be and can be seen however you want it to be seen Traditionally Alla Prima is about the expression of energy, life and vitality, the exaggeration of color and fluidity, effortless, Mark made the artists of the Impressionist movement clearly define the idea definitive of what Alla Prima You can and perhaps should focus on the creation of the moment, clothed in spontaneity and defined with a determined sense of economy to create that moment, one that is apparently not overdeveloped and that creates the impression that you have guessed it, so you learn to finish your oil. paintings within this method, I would recommend looking towards the inspiration of the impressionists, blurring their colors and color relationships, pushing their ranges of values, playing with their edges and allowing them to dance and, above all, experimenting with their strokes or marks, creating textures wonderful.

The Prima method really resonates with me, it is completely capable of getting rid of my procrastination nature simply due to the fact that I simply don't have time to wait for the layers to dry, but in the end due to its built-in time frame that forces Finish the Alla Prima method doesn't allow me to overthink or agonize over decisions that keep me in the moment. I honestly think it allows for the most honesty in the painting and apparently evokes my inner President Kennedy anyway, which I meant and won't sugarcoat it anymore. This is difficult because there is nowhere to hide, so know that it takes a little time and some effort to acquire a proficiency, but that doesn't mean you won't fall in love during that journey and rack up countless small victories. good luck everyone and allow yourself the grace to create, which reminds me of what a great artist and even best friend once told me, even a bad day painting is still a great day, would you really take your own advice, Michael, be deliberate Okay, Hermes.

I think the painting is almost done, just one more highlight that should work well. Another oil painting. A study of La Prima in books or on the blackboard. Anyway, thanks again Hermes for posing for those couple of hours. Hermes, where are you? Hey, Scully, where did he? see Michael, I am with your painting called Allah Prima The Academy will not tolerate this you have painted me in the wrong tone chasing an abstraction I see, however this does not conform to these strict rules and conventions of the Hermes academy, please remember that we had you under a yellowish amber light a probable story always blaming your tools okay i'll light it up for you sorcery what is this?

What have you done well? Okay, okay Walter, please like, thank you, that's better, the paint seems to match the light source you set up, you know you should really make a color theory video regardless Michael, the academy isn't there yet impressed by the thickness of your paint, oh how vulgar, you'll have to tone it down if you ever want to be considered for acceptance now. I must excuse myself to listen to the Top Gun soundtrack, a true classic, until next time, thanks everyone for watching, I mean come on I'm sorry but it really doesn't look like me, maybe it's time to get that mustache.