Painting the Landscape in Oils

Soft pencil or charcoal is best for the initial drawing, especially on canvas. Hogs hair brushes are best suited for oil painting.

The main types are: flats, brights, filbert, and round. Sable, fitch, and squirrel hair brushes are also used, mainly to apply highlights and detail to the painting.

A palette is essential for mixing paint. Shown here is a traditional style wooden palette, but any non-absorbent board will do, even an old dinner plate.

Palette knives are for mixing paint on the palette or applying large amounts of paint to the canvas.

Turpentine and linseed oil are used to thin the paint.

For the best results use good quality tubes of oil colour.

The surface to be painted is usually referred to as the support. Stretched canvas, oil painting boards and oil painting paper are the most common. Hardboard can be used but must be primed with at least three coats of acrylic primer.

There are several types of easel. Shown here is a radial studio easel, which can be adjusted for height and the size of canvas (support).
A collapsible easel is very portable and can be used for outdoor work.(See step by step watercolours).

A good supply of rags, for wiping surplus paint off brushes and cleaning the palette, should always be at hand.

This is a small canvas 16 inches x 12 inches (40x31cm approx.)
Draw out the basic shapes of the painting, using soft pencil or charcoal. There is no need to draw in any detail as you will see in the next stages.

Keep the colours as simple as possible at this stage, try to use the colours you see but in darker tones.

Put in some of the darker details, for example the trees in the background.

If possible leave surface to dry.

Back to the sky: Starting from the horizon, work in the colour and first details of the sky.

Add some detail and dark areas to the middle ground of the picture.

Work in the middle ground.

Work in the foreground of the painting.