Oil painting is simple, far simpler than engraving or even watercolor painting. If you could see something, you could paint it in oils. To create amazing memorable, however, you need to: 

1. Formulate what you expect to achieve, and plan a practical route to that objective. 
2. Research the market if you desire to sell the work. 
3. Approach the painting procedure in logical steps, which usually entail: 

        *Drawings to examine compositional possibilities. 
        *Blocked-out charcoal/pencil/oil sketches to position tonal values. 
        *Oil sketches to trial with various color schemes and harmonies. 
        *Preparing canvas and paint for the predictable tasks. 
        *Applying paint to canvas, either incorporating the outcome of b and c in direct painting, or by tackling them in distinct phases. 
        *Varnishing, framing and hanging the work.

1.Brushes. You must have many brushes so that not to lose time washing them while working. Take a new brush for every new mix. Use round kolinsky brushes, #1 to #10. To cover better surfaces, you would require a few #20 to #35 brushes.

2.The palette should be made of hard dark wood, best of all, of pear. After work wash the palette with turpentine and rub it with a razor. Before work clean the palette with linseed oil.

3.The canvas must be primed as well a few more times and in conclusion it should be ground with fine sandpaper. After that the canvas must be scraped with a razor to take away the canvas texture till smooth dead surface similar to the egg’s surface is achieved.

4.It is very significant to have objects for still lives in the studio. Don’t be stingy at garage sales and flea markets, you might regret it later.

5.The drawing is ready on paper life-size to the smallest details. Then it is transferred to the canvas by carbon-paper. After that the drawing is outlined with brown ink as the first oil layer.

6.Before each new layer the canvas (ideally dried during 7 weeks) is cautiously wiped with a half of an onion (in order to prepare the dried surface to soak up better) and then with linseed oil. After that the canvas is wiped with a soft part of cloth.

7.IMPRIMATURA or the first paint layer. The canvas is covered with a fluid mixture based on Red Ochre, Yellow Ochre Light and Ivory Black (the mixture must have an olive hue).

8.The dead layer - the fourth PODMALYOVOK - is made with white lead, light ocher, red ocher, and even burnt bone. The aim of this PODMALYOVOK is penumbra. The picture should look as if its objects were lit with moonlight - olive cold gray color. Colors are applied densely, half a tone higher, shadows are very transparent, half a tone lower.

There are basic tools you require for most any kind of painting job:

• Step stool or ladder
• Drop cloths
• Paintbrushes, 1” and 2”
• Artist brush for small spaces
• Angled sash brushes, 1 ½” and 2”
• Buckets
• Sandpaper
• Paint edger
• Rollers
• Roller pan with screen
• Roller handle
• Roller extension
• Paint guide
• Spackle or wood filler
• 2” masking tape
• Paint thinner – if you are using oil based paints
• Rags
• Tack cloth

There are expertise tools you might desire to use for special paint effects:

• Tape measurer
• Plumb line for marking vertical drops
• Natural or synthetic mop for the sponging technique
• Chamois for ragging
• Different shapes of rubber combs for wood grain effects
• Craft knives

There are a variety of paints suitable for use on dissimilar surfaces and for achieving dissimilar effects. It is significant that you decide the right paint for the surface on which you are painting, and to get the look you desire.

Porous surfaces and bare woods need the use of a primer to seal the wall and provide a base for the paint finishes. A basecoat on top of the primer not only protects the surface but also provides a soft base for the topcoat.

Traditional paints are water or oil based and classically come in four finishes:

• Matt – Flat finish water based paint used on essential walls. Fast drying and tends to mark easily.
• Satin – Mid sheen oil based paint that is washable and tougher than the matt finish.
• Gloss – Oil based paint with a high sheen end that is washable and durable.
• Eggshell – Faint sheen oil based paint that tends to show marks.

Acrylic paints are water based and could be added to other water based paints for decorative motifs and embellishments. Enamel paints are oil based and is used on metal surfaces and other surfaces requiring a rough finish. Both acrylic and enamel paints come in a broad variety of colors.

1. Buy a loaf (two or three loaves if the painting is large) of high-quality doughy bread–a large sourdough works nicely.

2. On a pretty day, take the painting outdoors–or work in on a large drop cloth–since this is an untidy procedure.

3. Using dough pulled from the inside of the loaf; scrub the painting using gentle pressure. You would see the soil collect on the dough. Get a new hunk of dough as the older piece gets filthy or disintegrates. Continue this process over the whole surface of the work.

4. Using a soft bristle brush– such as a fine quality house painting brush–brush the left over dough crumbs off the painting. Go systematically over the entire surface as the dough likes to stick and any remaining crumbs would be an enticement to insects.

Good luck with your spring cleaning!

When painting a room, the first step (and perhaps the most important) is preparing the surface. Poor surface preparation is the number one cause of paint failure and could also ruin your desired effect if not done properly.

1.Before you start, do not forget to put a drop sheet on the floor and cover any  furnishings you don’t desire splattered with paint.
2.Thoroughly fresh and dry the surface before painting.
3.As a general rule of thumb, anything with a glossy surface needs to be dulled before painting.
4.High-gloss surfaces should be cleaned and sanded in order for the paint to bond.
5.An oil based primer or coat of flat paint can take the shine off a surface and arrange it for the new paint.You would require a flat, smooth surface for this to work effectively.
6.Scrape off flaking paint and wallpaper.
7.Patch holes and cracks, allowing the area to dry before proceeding.
8.Sand raised imperfections, bubbles and blisters.
9.Apply a primer if necessary. Repaired, patched, stained and new surfaces need a coat of primer before painting.If the surface has been painted before, you only require to paint the patched or repaired areas.

Oil painting is straightforward, far easer than etching or even watercolor painting. If you can see something, you could paint it in oils. To create something memorable, however, you need to:
1. Formulate what you hope to attain, and devise a workable route to that objective.
2. Research the market if you desire to sell the work.
3. Approach the painting course in logical steps that usually entail:
A. Drawings to explore compositional possibilities.
B. Blocked-out charcoal/pencil/oil sketches to arrange tonal values.
C. Oil sketches to experiment with a range of color schemes and harmonies.
D. Preparing canvas and paint for the anticipated tasks.
E. Applying paint to canvas, either incorporate the results of b and c in direct painting, or by tackling them in distinct phases.
F. Varnishing, framing and hanging the work.

Abstract art is now usually understood to mean art that does not portray objects in the natural world, but in its place uses shapes and colors in a non-representational or prejudiced way. In the very early 20th century, the term was more frequently used to explain art, such as Cubist and Futurist art, which depicts real forms in a cut down or rather abridged way - keeping only a reference of the original natural subject. Such paintings were frequently claimed to capture something of the depicted objects’ immutable inherent qualities rather than its exterior appearance. See Abstraction. The term non-figurative is used as a synonym

History

On White 2, 1924, by Kandinsky Non-objective art is not a creation of the twentieth century. In the Jewish and Islamic devotion the depiction of human beings was not allowed. Consequently the Islamic and Jewish cultures urbanized a high standard of decorative arts. Calligraphy is too a form of non-figurative art. Abstract designs have also existed in western culture in a lot of contexts. However, Abstract art is distinct from pattern-making in design, since it draws on the difference between decorative art and fine art, in which a painting is an entity of thoughtful contemplation in its own right.

Even before the extensive use of photography some artists, such as James McNeill Whistler were insertion greater emphasis on illustration sensation than the depiction of objects. Whistler argued that art must concern itself with the harmonious arrangement of colors, just as music deals with the harmonious deal of sounds. Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874) is frequently seen as a main move towards abstraction. Later artists such as Wassily Kandinsky argued that modern science dealt with active forces, enlightening that matter was eventually spiritual in character: art must display the spiritual forces behind the image world. Many of these artists were prejudiced by esotericism movements such as theosophy, in which abstract “thought forms” were used to illustrate the psychic forces allegedly generated by emotions, music and other events. The work of Wassily Kandinsky and Kashmir Malevich in addition to Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, are usually seen as the first entirely abstract paintings in 1911. Movements in modern art are to be careful in terms of the concepts which they exemplify, accompanied as they were by manifestos and declarations.

Cenni di Pepo (Giovanni) Cimabue (c 1240 in Florence, Italy — c 1302 in Florence, Italy) also known as Bencivieni Di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benevento Di Giuseppe was a Florentine painter and inventor of mosaics, superior known as the artist who discovered Giotto and with him moved towards treating figures as individuals. Cimabue is usually thought of as the last great painter working in the Byzantine tradition. The art of this time showed scenes and styles that emerged relatively flat. Cimabue was a pioneer in the move towards naturalism, as his figures showed more life-like size and shading. His works prejudiced later artists such as Giotto.

Not much is recognized about his life, and there is small surviving documentation. His life was described in Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the most outstanding Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, extensively regarded as the first art history book. However, Vasari complete his book over 200 years after Cimabue’s death, so although it is one of the few records we have of him, its accuracy is unknown.

From the commissions that he got, Cimabue appears to have been extremely regarded in his day. While Cimabue was at work in Florence, Duccio was the chief artist, and possibly his rival, in nearby Siena. Cimabue was specially made to paint two very large frescoes for the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. They are on the walls of the transepts, a Crucifixion and a Deposition. Both paintings have the Cross at the centre and are filled with abundant figures. Unfortunately, these works are a dim shadow of the magnificence that they once were. Invading French crowd used the building as a stable. The straw caught alight and the frescoes were harshly damaged. The white paint had contained silver that oxidized and turned black, leaving the faces and much of the drapery of the figures in negative.

The Madonna of St Francis Another unhappily damaged work is the great Crucifix of Santa Croce reproduced on this page. It was the key work of art that was lost in the flood in Florence in 1966. Much of the paint from the body and face washed away.

‘Zeuxis and Parrhasius, painters of Ephesus in the 5th century BC, are reported in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder to have dramatic a contest to determine which of the two the greater artist was. When Zeuxis exposes his painting of grapes, they appeared so luscious and inviting those birds flew down from the sky to peck at them. Zeuxis then asked Parrhasius to drag aside the curtain from his painting. When it was exposed that the blind itself was Parrhasius’ painting, Zeuxis was forced to grant defeat, for while his work had managed to fool the eyes of birds, Parrhasius had take in the eyes of an artist.

Zeuxis’ most notable works included Helen, Zeus Enthroned, and The Infant Hercules Strangling the Serpent. He is said to have laughed to death at one of his own paintings.

Apelles (flourished 4th century BC) was a famous painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom we owe a great deal of our knowledge of this artist (N.H. 35.36.79-97 and passim) rated him greater to preceding and following artists. He dated Apelles to the 112th Olympiad (332-329 BC), possibly as he had shaped a portrait of Alexander the Great.

Biography

Probably born at Colophon in Ionia, he first deliberates under Ephorus of Ephesus, but after he had attained some star he became a student to Pamphilus at Sicyon (N.H. 35.36.75). He thus joints the Dorian thoroughness with the Ionic grace. Attracted to the court of Philip II, he painted him and the young Alexander with such achievement that he became the documented court painter of Macedon, and his picture of Alexander holding a thunderbolt ranked with the Alexander with the spear of the sculptor Lysippus.

Apelles was a modern of Protogenes, whose reputation he advocated. Apelles traveled to Protogenes’ home on Rhodes make the acquaintance of this painter he had heard so much about. Arriving at Protogenes’s studio, he came across an old woman who told him that Protogenes was out and asked for his name so she could report who had enquired after him. Observing in the studio a panel Protogenes had ready for a painting, Apelles walk over to the easel, and taking up a brush tells the servant to tell Protogenes “this came from me,” and drew in color a very fine line across the panel. When Protogenes returned, and the old woman explained what had taken place, he looked at the line and marked that only Apelles can have done so ideal of work; Protogenes then curved in a brush into another color and drew a still finer line above the first one, and asked his servant to demonstrate this to the visitor must he return. When Apelles returned, and was shown Protogenes’ response, ashamed that his strength be bettered, he drew in a third color an even finer line between the first two, leaving no room for another show of craftsmanship. On seeing this, Protogenes admit defeat, and went out to seek Apelles and meet him face-to-face.

Pliny claims that this extremely painting had been part of the collection of Julius Caesar, but was destroyed when Caesar’s mansion on the Palatine Hill burned down.