Painting in oils is probably the aim of all who take up sketching. You can give the full representation of any­thing with oil paint (or almost anything, for some of nature's effects are beyond the skill of man, or the range of man-made paint). You can give some of the brilliance of sunlight as in "impressionistic" pictures, or the exact rendering of flowers and fruit, animals, birds, and people, as in the work of the older masters, for you have the full range of tone and density, which, when added to color, gives all that paint can give. Water-color painting, as we have seen, does not lend itself to full rendering, but to an approximation or summary, with limpidity and atmosphere and fresh­ness as its chief merits. Oil painting is more dense, more full-bodied, more complete in its rendering of the tones, the values we see in life. It is often thought of as being the most difficult medium for the artist to use, but that is really not true—it may be the most ex­pensive, but it is no harder to practice than water color, in fact in some ways it is an easier medium, for you can scrape out and alter over and over again with­out doing much harm. A greater range of subjects can be expressed in oil paint than any of the other media.

One of the difficulties of oil paint is that there are so many ways in which it can be used. I cannot hope to deal with all the various techniques, but one or two of the chief methods will be indicated, those that are in keeping with the general trend of practice today.

Let us therefore start off, as before, with a brief idea of the equipment and materials you will need to start painting in oils.

EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS

I am afraid that the necessary equipment for painting in oil colors is a bit more elaborate and more costly than that for other media, which is the reason, no doubt, why it is hardly ever taught to children at school, who begin with what, in reality, is the more difficult medium to handle, water colors. And also oil paint is a very "messy" medium to indulge in, for it gets on your hands and clothes so easily, and children do so love to get messed up with paint all over them­selves. So perhaps it would be as well to start with an overall or smock which can be kept to wear when painting with oils and which you can cover with paint without having to worry!

EASELS

There are light portable easels in numerous designs, but the sort to select must be simple to use, without dangling strings or complicated gadgets for fixing. The best all-round easel, which can be used indoors and out, is one about 4 feet 9 inches or 5 feet high that shuts up to about half its length and is light to carry and that has good stout irons at the foot of each rod to go into the earth. It should be made of strong wood. Easels for use in the studio are of course much firmer, with a stout base, and work up and down by handle. They can hold any size of canvas up to 6 feet or more, but it is not necessary to have one of these pieces of furniture, as a good-sized portable easel will serve for use in the studio or room, provided that a piece of matting or felt is put under each metal-shod foot. Some beginners buy those small, slight, folding easels that you have to sit down to use, but I advocate stand­ing up to work except under very exceptional circum­stances, and therefore recommend a bigger and stouter easel that will not easily be knocked down in a gust of wind and that allows you to stand up to do the painting. So long as it is strong, light, and large enough to take a fairly good size of canvas and enable the artist to stand up comfortably to work, it does not matter what make or pattern it is—whether it is made of wood or steel rods or any other metal; although I find from experience that wood is still the best material for an easel, but see Figure 16.

figure 16. Folding easel.

CANVASES

Canvases can be bought in all sizes ready stretched for use. You can of course buy the canvas separately and stretch it on to a wooden frame, either one that has had an old picture on it, which can be picked up in second-hand shops for a few cents, or a simple wooden frame that you can make for yourself. But usually it is simpler and more expedient to buy the canvas already stretched, as the stretching process is not easy and means buying a special stretching tool. However, it is all a question of expense and many a good picture has been painted on a canvas consisting of primed tailors' canvas or unbleached calico that has been stretched by hand when damp (with size and a coat of whitening) on to a stretcher removed from an old picture—the whole thing costing only a fraction of a dollar.

Canvas is made with various types of grain, or "tooth," to it—from the finest, smoothest surface to a very rough coarse grain, and the type of work you do will determine which grain of canvas you require. For ordinary use the standard "normal grain" is prob­ably the best. You can get canvas which already has a tinted coat of priming on it, but most is pure white. If you choose a tinted canvas you will find that the color of it will influence your whole scheme of color in the picture, so buy it white, and when you want a particu­lar tint to work on you can put a wash of color, with turpentine, over the whole surface. It dries in a few minutes.

As regards size, a good general standard size is 20 inches by 16 inches. It is as well to keep to one or two sizes regularly because you then have a chance of acquiring one or two frames for your usual sized pictures and you always have a frame handy to try the picture in when you have finished it, or when you think it is about finished. To see it in a frame will give you a new view and you will realize at once whether it requires anything further to complete it or whether it is fin­ished to your satisfaction. Also a good size for a larger picture is 20 inches by 24 inches and 18 inches by 14 inches for a smaller one. If these three sizes are used fairly regularly to begin with, you will get used to visualizing your compositions in those particular shapes.

I have experimented with using canvas boards but have found that for outdoor work they are hopeless, as, however stout they are, they will warp and bend and become a nuisance to carry; for indoor use they are not bad, their drawback being that they have a harsh un­yielding surface and have not the sympathetic response to the touch that a stretched canvas has.

CANVAS PINS

These special pins made of wood, with a point at either side, are essential. It is always wise to take with you, when you go out sketching in oils, two canvases of ex­actly the same size, then when your painting is finished for the day, you put one canvas pin in each corner of the used canvas, and placing the other (spare) canvas on top, fix them together so that the wooden pins keep the two apart. This is the only practicable method for carrying wet paintings. They also need a piece of string or a strap to keep them firmly in position and prevent the pins from moving. (See Figure 17).

STOOLS

There are many good folding stools of a very light weight, but I do not advocate using one save on very rare occasions. It is nearly always preferable to stand up to work. You get far more freedom of arm move­ment and also are able to keep stepping back and see­ing your work from a distance, which is of great importance. If you are sitting you are too near your picture and cannot easily get away from it to see things with a fresh eye, or, what is more important, to see the total effect of the subject in relation to your own ren­dering of it.

PALETTES

As I said in the previous chapter, it is both wise and easy to make your own palette from a piece of three-ply wood or stout cardboard. Suitably primed and with a surface of neutral tint, it will prove just as useful as a bought palette. It can be held on the palm of the hand without a tiring thumb rest. But for those who prefer a ready-made palette there are various patterns made in good light wood. I personally think the ordi­nary oblong shape is better than the curved, because there is more room for mixing the colors. A size of about 15 inches in length is quite large enough for most work.

BRUSHES

The best brushes for most modern types of work in oils are the hoghair, either round or flat. Of course, for certain sorts of technique, such as glazing and smooth work, red sable brushes, again both flat and round, are needed. The two sizes of sables I recommend as most useful are size 6 and 10. In hoghair brushes you need three flat, size 4, 6, and 10, and in the round style, one of size 8 will probably be enough. The brushes should be rinsed in turpentine after use and then washed with warm water and soft soap. They should be kept in a long tin or wrapped in a soft muslin cloth. At home they can be put into a jar of water after they have been thoroughly washed; the following day they should be taken out of the water and dried well.

PAINTS

It will be as well to enumerate the really permanent colors in oil pigment, colors that anyone can rely upon to be absolutely permanent under all conditions. They are as follows: burnt sienna and burnt umber, cobalt blue, viridian green (or emerald oxide of chromium), yellow ocher, Indian red and light red, terre-verte green, and titanium white. So most of the colors of your regular palette should be composed of these. Un­fortunately you need one or two further colors in gen­eral practice which come under the next category of semi-permanent or those which have proved to be dur­able under most ordinary conditions and are quite suitable to use. These are: cadmium yellow, deep and pale, crimson lake or alizarin crimson, French ultra­marine blue (which, however, should not be used if you are using a lead white, but is quite all right if you have titanium white), rose madder, which is also known as madder lake, or there is the genuine rose madder tint, which is slightly more transparent (these are both about of the same durability), and, lastly, Naples yellow (this does not mix well with some other colors).

The only colors in oils which it is wise to avoid are the chrome yellows, gamboge, strontium (yellow), in­digo, Prussian blue, and carmine. Vandyke brown, which is a very useful and desirable color is unfortunate­ly not very permanent and should on no account be used in a thin wash or for glazing over other colors.

So I should suggest starting with a palette of the fol­lowing, set out in this order from left to right on the palette and kept always in the same rotation: titanium white, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, cadmium yellow, light red, rose madder, viridian green, cobalt blue, French ultramarine blue, and burnt umber. You can, if you find it necessary, have a little Naples yellow and a very small tube of Vandyke brown, but do use these two colors with caution.

In oil painting it is essential to squeeze out enough paint from the tubes, and especially a good deal of white, for you will use three times as much white as any other color, as it is the diluting medium, like the water in water-color painting.

The best standard size tube of white to buy is the large half-pound tube; of yellow ocher, light red, co­balt blue, burnt sienna and burnt umber, you can have the slightly smaller "studio" size tubes, and of the more expensive colors such as rose madder, French ultramarine, viridian green, cadmium yellow and Van­dyke brown, you can have the 3-inch tubes.

These colors should be kept in a metal box, and it is to be hoped that you will have sufficient strength of mind to fix the tops of the tubes on tightly, each time, after use.

MEDIA

Turpentine you will need in fairly large quantities, and this can be bought from a druggist, paint store, or art supply store. A good-sized bottle is required. Lin­seed oil you will need in about half the quantity of turpentine and the purified linseed oil sold in artists' supply stores is just the thing. I should not go in for the many so-called oil vehicles that are already mixed up from various ingredients, but stick to linseed oil and turpentine. As regards varnish, there is picture mastic which can be used very thinly when the picture has been painted a few months and is thoroughly dry —six months is better in winter or cold weather. And there is retouching varnish, which can be used almost as soon as the picture is finished and dry, in, say, a few days or a week after painting. This varnish is very light and colorless and is easily removed, and it will not hurt the surface of the picture. It is useful for bringing together the various parts of the painting that have gone dull while being worked upon. These var­nishes should be brushed on very lightly, making a little varnish go as far as possible and using a soft brush that is flat and does not molt.

CHARCOAL

It is usual to rough in the main outlines of the chosen subject with charcoal, but I think that to do this with a small hoghair brush, using a little cobalt blue and plenty of turpentine, is better. Charcoal is a messy thing to use, and it must be thoroughly brushed off with a soft rag, or it will mix in with the paint and spoil all the color. When you vigorously dust off the charcoal you are inclined to leave only a faint blur, making it difficult to follow your drawing. If you use charcoal, dust it off lightly, and then go over the lines with a neutral gray tint consisting of green and red paint mixed with turpentine, thus fixing your draw­ing. Some spray with a "fixitive," but this is cumber­some and costly and I do not consider it really necessary.

PALETTE KNIVES

There are two kinds of palette knives made for artists —one is trowel-shaped and the other is flat, with a blunt point.

figure 18. Palette knives.

The only use for the trowel type of knife is to mix up colors on the palette—it is too unwieldy and too flexible to use for other purposes; but the flat type of knife, which should not be too long (about 5 inches), is a very useful tool for all sorts of purposes— for example, scraping off, mixing, and even painting the picture, as I shall describe in my subsequent pages on "Palette-Knife Technique." See Figure 18.

KNAPSACK

All one's loose equipment—brushes, canvas pins, paints, turpentine, linseed oil, rags—should go into a knapsack (of good size, strong, and with a pocket in front), which can be slung over the shoulder. This leaves the easel and the two equal-sized canvases to be carried separately—the palette can be fitted in at the back of one of the canvases. Fitted-up wooden paint boxes, with slots for boards or canvas and metal parts to hold paints, media, and brushes, are of course made in all sorts of sizes and styles, from the simple to the most luxurious. I do not favor them in practice nearly as much as the knapsack slung over the shoulder, be­cause this leaves the hands free to deal with easel and canvases. If you buy a fitted box, there is a danger that you will feel yourself tied down to use only the one size of canvas—that which fits into the box. You will avoid this pitfall if you have a knapsack and carry separate canvases.

MAKING A START WITH OIL PAINTS

If you tried out the oils-and-turpentine-on-paper method, you will be, to a certain extent, familiar with oil paints and ready to carry the use of them a step further. About the handiest size of canvas to start with is probably 12 inches by 10 inches, for it is not wise to start with too large a space to fill, and on the other hand a very small size is just cramping and leads to "finicky" little dabs of paint. Don't forget to squeeze out a generous amount of each color of paint on to your palette, arranged in the definite order already re­ferred to in giving the list of paints required. The amount of white you will need will be at least three times that of the other colors, so give an extra generous squeeze to the tube of white. Keep the paints well to the top of the palette to give all the room possible for mixing the colors. Put the caps back on each tube after squeezing—if you make a regular habit of doing this it will save a lot of paint in the end.

If you have your view-finder with you, see that the rectangular hole in the cardboard is in proportion to your canvas shape—when you think you have spotted a likely subject, hold your "view-finder" before you at almost arm's length and note where the objects come in relation to one another; note also how much sky and how much foreground you need to compose a good picture. Do not hurry over these preliminary tests—it is so easy to rush off and start, only to find that the por­tion of the landscape you have chosen to draw and paint is badly balanced (either from side to side, or in the relative proportions of foreground, middle dis­tance, and sky). Avoid equal divisions. If you decide to rough in the general drawing first, in charcoal, then do so lightly and flick off all the superfluous charcoal dust with a soft rag, before you begin to paint. It is as well to go over your faint charcoal lines with a pointed sable brush dipped in turpentine and using a light blue or a mixture of green and red. Then you have a definite outline established on your canvas. I don't think I mentioned, when giving a list of equipment necessary, that you will need a "combined" dipper now, with two containers together, one for linseed oil and one for turpentine (see Figure 15). This must be firmly fixed on to the palette so that it does not fall off when the palette is moved or held at an angle—this is done by pressing the clip turnover at the bottom very hard so that it is quite firm. If necessary it should be wedged with paper until you are satisfied it will not slip. This precaution prevents much bad temper and loss of turpentine and oil.

At the moment, I am taking it for granted that you are choosing a subject that not only appeals to your feelings, but that has line, mass, balance, design—in other words a subject in which the relationship of colors as shapes, as patches, makes a unity, a design that you can see will make a good painting before you touch brush to canvas. From the multiplicity of nature you are selecting something that you visualize in terms of paints put on the canvas, in strokes of a brush, side by side, so that the whole will make a pleasing, unified composition. But this question of the right choice of subjects will be dealt with again in the next chapter, so we will here concentrate upon the actual methods of putting on the paint, mixing colors, and so forth.

ORDINARY BRUSH TECHNIQUE

The usual procedure is to rough in the color scheme of the whole picture with fairly large, flat hoghair brushes, using only turpentine to thin out the color. You need not start with light colors—or, for that mat­ter with dark ones—you can please yourself. It is a good idea to start off with the main center of interest in your composition and then work outwards from that —you can put the sky in last if you like, or, if the effect you want is likely to pass quickly, you can put the sky in broadly straightaway. You are now using a medium that can give the full depth of tone at once, so you need not be thinking of working up from light effects to dark ones, you can plunge at once for the full strength of your color. Remember to be light-hearted, not nerv­ous or timid—you can never overexaggerate; although you think you are being very brave and daring you will find by the time you have finished that you have in fact been quite tame. So start away with all the dash and excitement you can muster—do not think of your friends or the people at home, just go all out for the thing you have seen and that you wish to express. Never mind about making mistakes. If you do want to change a color or shape, scrape out the paint with your palette knife and put on another color or shape. Do not put paint on top of paint with either palette knife or brushes unless the underneath paint is really dry.

When the rough lay-in of the whole picture, with the color mixed with turpentine, is completed, it will dry in a few minutes. When dry you can start again— this time with your paint mixed with a little linseed oil, not much, and a quick dip of turpentine. By the way, clean out your "turps" dipper with a rag after the first rough-in and refill it before starting again, as you will not want dirty "turps" mixed with the linseed oil.

Put plenty of paint on your brush and don't try to make a little go a long way. Keep mixing up fresh paint, altering the color and tone slightly according to your need, and place each stroke definitely in its place. Make it as nearly as possible the shape and size that will "draw" what you want to convey: as if you were laying many small pieces of stone to make a mosaic, each one fitting into its place with the others, making a kind of jig­saw that comes out in the end as the finished picture. After the first day, when you have gone all over the canvas and painted a fairly complete picture, if you feel dissatisfied but still keen to continue on another day, the best plan is to scrape off the top paint with the palette knife and leave a "smirred" version of the whole picture. This should dry in a few days. When you start again, just rub the canvas over with a very thin coat of linseed oil and repaint your picture from beginning to end. This seems hard, but it is definitely advisable. Where each day is so different in atmosphere and color from the previous day it is better to do the picture entirely afresh than to try to repaint certain parts.

PALETTE KNIFE TECHNIQUE

This more or less specialized technique is my own per­sonal favorite which I have developed over the course of the years. It suits my particular vision of life and nature and has the great advantage of keeping the color fresh and clean, for one does not use any medium once the first rough-in has been made with turpentine and thin paint (see Illustration 5, "Thames at Vaux-hall" and also the frontispiece).

Here is a tip about the palette knife itself. Do not clean off all the paint from the blade. Keep the top half-inch quite clean and then leave a slight amount of paint, getting thicker toward the handle, until a thick "wodge" of paint has accumulated at the base of the blade. Hold the knife with your thumb on this thick dry paint, leaving the point the only flexible part of the knife.

A perfectly clean knife is too flexible and cannot give the subtle effects that can be obtained with a knife which has been worn into use over the course of time. So look after your favorite palette knife: it will take some time to accumulate the required covering of paint on a new one.

Of course you cannot get the detail of drawing with a palette knife that you can with a brush. But that is one of its advantages, in a way, as it makes you "broad" in your treatment and prevents you from overloading the picture with excessive detail.

Should you wish to make any alteration, scrape out the offending part before you repaint. Use plenty of paint at all times, but alter the thickness according to the subject. For instance, the sky can usually be in thinner paint than the rest, and to achieve this, you should use the side of the knife, rather than the point. Once you have finished your preliminary painting with brushes you then rely entirely on your palette knife to finish the picture—do not leave parts of the canvas with brush work and others with palette knife painting, but make the whole complete, whichever tools you use.

COLORS AND COLOR. MIXING

Anything to do with color is so entirely a personal mat­ter, concerned with each individual's reactions and sensations, that very little can be passed on from teach­er to student concerning the use of colors. The best plan is to go entirely by your own reactions—if you see the subject in a heightened, vivid color scheme, then put on the full strength of the color straight from the tubes. If, on the other hand, you see the subject in delicate pastel shades of misty tints, then obtain the softness and delicacy, by mixing white, blue, and gray with the colors.

One of the chief things to bear in mind is that each strong primary color—yellow, blue, or red—has its cor­responding gray in the shadow. So we speak of yellow-gray, blue-gray, and red-gray. Gray can be obtained quickly by mixing viridian green with rose madder: gray is really a mixture of yellow, blue, and red, but in the green you have yellow and blue already mixed, and this viridian tint is most admirable for giving a delight­ful gray when mixed with almost any sort of red—al­though for a straightforward, pure gray, rose madder is probably the best red to use. If you require a cool gray use more viridian than red or put some blue in the mix­ture, but if you wish for a warm gray add more rose mad­der. If the gray is on the brownish side, use a dash of yellow with your green and red. As you can guess, the use of gray is very important in oil painting, for it gives the shadow which is always present in the color. In bright light the shadows are naturally most pronounced. Only practice and experience can give the knowledge of mixing colors and their shadows, but it is surprising how quickly this knowledge comes and how soon it be­comes almost an instinct. You find that very soon the hand goes out to the right color, and the right mixture and tone are found, almost without conscious thought the mixture is achieved and the tone obtained.

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