How to Oil Paint for Beginners

Place the primed canvas on your easel and secure it with the easel's top clamp. Adjust the easel's height and angle so that you can comfortably work on the canvas either standing or sitting, depending on your preference and subject matter.

Arrange your oil colors by placing a small amount of each paint along two sides of your palette. Leave room in the center of the palette for mixing colors. Secure the palette cup to the top edge of the palette and fill it with odorless mineral spirits.

Mix odorless mineral spirits into one of your paint colors with a palette knife to begin sketching the painting subject. Choose a neutral or dark color such as burnt umber or ultramarine blue. Pick up the diluted paint with a round-tipped bristle brush and keep the paint thin and workable by adding more odorless mineral spirits from the palette cup as necessary. Wipe away any errors in the sketch using painting rags or paper towels. Complete the sketch to your desired level of completeness, using a flat-tipped bristle brush and very thin paint to indicate shadows and darker value forms.

Refill the palette cup with an equal amount of linseed oil and odorless mineral spirits. This combination will be your medium for the next stage of the painting process. Mix colors on your palette using the palette knife, adding a small amount of medium to them as you mix. Apply the mixed paint to the canvas in broad strokes, concentrating on major values and tones until the entire canvas surface is covered with color.

Cover any remaining paint on the palette with plastic wrap to keep paints from drying out. Allow the canvas surface to dry before continuing to the next painting session. Depending on the paints and colors used, drying time can vary from one day to several weeks.

Mix fresh painting medium, now adding more linseed oil and less odorless mineral spirits. Return to your painting to refine the colors, shadows and values. You may use softer sable brushes to apply thin glazes of color or paint very fine details.

Continue painting sessions, allowing each layer of paint to completely dry to the touch before returning to work on the canvas. For every session, use increasingly more linseed oil and less odorless mineral spirits in your mixed painting medium. Each layer in an oil painting should contain more oil and less paint to ensure that the top layers dry more slowly and to prevent cracking.

Allow your painting to completely dry before framing or otherwise mounting. An oil painting can take up to six months to completely dry, depending on the number of painting layers and thickness of paint application.