How to Blend Oil Paints

Oil paints have been used for centuries to create incredibly beautiful and realistic works of art. Due to the nature of oil paints, they can be blended and shaded to create almost any image from a golden chalice to the soft cheek of a baby's face. Oil paints can evoke mood and emotion through the play of light in the painting or the presence of intense or disturbing shadows. Blending the paint plays a key role in accomplishing these feats of artistry and learning the technique to effectively blend oil paints is a must for any artists.

Things You'll Need

• Oil paints
• Linseed oil
• Oil paint brushes
• Varnish brush

Instructions

1. 

   Paint the base coat of the image onto the canvas. Make sure you already have your background color painted in place. The background color should be a dark natural color. Paint the main light color of the image and the main shadow color. You can figure out what this color is by squinting your eyes at a reference photo of the image and use the average of each color. Keep the shapes and colors simple at this stage.

2. 

   Add highlights on top of of the main light color you have on the canvas. Add a small amount of darker color to the edge of the shadow sections. Place this dark color only on the edges furthest away from the light.

3. 

   Stroke a clean varnish brush across the the darker areas to blend the shadow colors. Start the brush at the darkest sections, and push the dark paint across the shadow sections. Stop in the middle of the shadow section, and clean the brush quickly. Place the brush in the middle of the shadow section, and pull the paint slightly into the light color.

4. Clean the brush. Blend the highlights into the light color by starting in the center of the highlight with the varnish brush and painting out with small back-and-forth strokes, mixing into the main light color. Clean the brush, and start in the main light-colored section, brushing into the highlight area to further blend the colors. Clean the brush, and blend the light-colored section into the shadow section with very light strokes.

Tips & Warnings

• Set aside a few varnish brushes so that you don't have to clean the brush as often.

• Work fast, as the paint is far easier to blend while wet.

References

• Zest It Painting Techniques

Resources

• Gallery of Dutch Masters oil paintings