Hi all, today I would like to share a recent oil painting study of a young woman. It has been a while since I have done oil painting so I completed this on paper as I find there is less pressure compared to doing it on canvas. I learned a lot from this study and will share some of the process with you below.
Process
I complete the initial drawing enough to know where to add the paints. I make a mistake here in the foreshortening of the head which I later have to correct. Her head is leaning slightly down and the view is slightly from above which I missed in my initial drawing.
Reference for study
I then blocked in the main colours on the paper with the intention of filling all the white space. The precision of the colour choice is not too important at this stage, the purpose is to make it so that the next layer will be easier to paint since there will be no strong whites in the face that would make it difficult to pick the correct hues. A colour next to white can look completely different to the eye compared to being next to a different colour.
The final step involved going over with another layer of paint but this time with more details and values and hues that are closer to the original intention. The length of the lower face was shortened and her right eye was also lowered slightly to achieve the correct perspective. I am pleased with the final result however in future I would like to apply the paint more thickly to achieve an impasto technique that gives the painting texture. I have heard this can be achieved by combining bees wax with the oil paint rather than buying more expensive oil paints. This piece took me a few hours to complete over 2-3 days.
