Old Masters Oil Painting Technique for Beginners!

At Hidden Talent we want to 'make it real!' Our focus is to be able to accurately paint what you see...and use the best and simplest ways to do this. So we look to the Old Masters of Art and find that many of them underpainted in a neutral color and once all the details and composition were worked out, the color layer was added. At Hidden Talent we keep the color layer thin and smooth ( no visible brush strokes), which allows us to glaze the canvas and ensure luminosity.
Here are a few students who are working on their monochromatic underpainting ....And just think-this is only the beginning. Every painting brings more challenges and techniques to learn. (I love the moment when a student realizes that they can paint ANYTHING with this method!)

Shane has a collection of beautiful old barns and buildings (even outhouses) that were on his family’s property in Southern Alberta. Sadly, many of them have been torn down. This painting is the front porch of a homestead from the 1920’s-1930’s. The turquoise blue gives it away! He paints a unique view point of looking through the front door from inside the porch.

June is working on a beautiful stylized floral of daisies. Her underpainting was in black and white and her color layer has been a big surprise...she didn’t think there was soooo much color in white! We actually went through the color spectrum from yellow to indigo and added glazes to bring out the flowers without overpowering the white.

Scale is a fun element to play with...these larger than life daisies look like a elegant abstract when painted so large. Infact many ‘abstract’ artists take their cues from cropped and manipulated images of nature.

Ron is dedicated to painting wildlife and has completed ‘Wallice’, a leopard and a very large elephant from Africa! Next on his list is an owl picture that he has gotten permission to paint from a newspaper photographer. Sometimes it is just a matter of asking to get!

He is planning to spent alot more time at Hidden Talent in the next year (between golfing in Palm Springs and travelling the world)....retirement has its advantages!

Jeannette was born with a wrench in her hand! She loves to paint classic cars and you can imagine she has a long list of commissions. Jeannette has actually turned down invitations to car shows so that she can finish the restored car painting she has already taken on. This is an old abandoned tow truck. What makes her car paintings so unique is that the backgrounds are as well done as the vehicles. Jeannette prides herself on being an automotive ‘oil’ artist...so clever! Jeannette's monochromatic is in the warm neutral tones to give an overall sun filled feeling to her finished painting.

Irene is painting the view of the lake from her BC cabin‘s front porch. Her trees are still in the monochromatic stage and you can see her gradually adding color on the right. A good rule of thumb is to add color to the area that is the furthest away-this helps with issues of overlap and not having a ‘cut out’ subject. It is so very important to integrate everything on the picture plane, sometimes by blurring or eliminating edges, or having a color harmony strategy.