Paint & Palette Essentials: A Beginner’s Guide to Oil Painting

Class Preview

Learn to use color-mixing techniques and a variety of palettes to create eye-catching works of art!

Introduction to Palette & Value

Meet your instructor, fine artist and author Jay Senetchko. You’ll start with a careful introduction to basic oil palettes, learning about the properties and colors of paint, various mediums and more. Next, Jay helps you start your first study as you block in the basic forms of your still life and develop the values.

Tints, Shades & Tones

Transition from values into a world of color as Jay breaks down the differences among tints, shades and tones. Experiment with the colors in your palette, mixing your hues with black, white and gray as you familiarize yourself with the range that you can achieve with each color. Jay demonstrates how to create gradient references that will help you re-create the exact colors that you want.

Creating a Monochromatic Painting

Put your budding skills into practice as you paint alongside Jay to create a monochromatic still life. You’ll put down a wash, rub out the major values and set to work blocking in basic colors as you establish the value relationships in your work. Jay shares valuable tips for mapping out areas of light and shadow, developing forms, and adding a background to your still life.

Basic Color Theory With Mixing

Continue your studies of form, light and shadow while incorporating the simplified colors of the classical palette onto your canvas. Jay guides you through the relationships among primary, secondary, tertiary and complementary colors to help you start mixing and applying various hues.

Practical Application of Color Theory

Using your monochromatic studies from previous lessons as starting points, you’ll apply a new understanding of color theory to your still life. Jay shows you how to juxtapose colors and values to create stronger context and relationships between your forms, demonstrating valuable techniques for creating transitions and dimension along the way.

Expanding the Color Palette

Expand your palette with the addition of more saturated colors, including vibrant blue, red and yellow hues. Jay shows you how to introduce these into your still life with the consideration of color relationships and the effect that they will create in your painting. Next, you’ll make a series of sample gradients on your canvas as you practice mixing colors and creating the exact tints, tones and shades that you desire.

Applying the Saturated Palette

Apply the saturated palette that you developed in Lesson 6 to your still life as Jay shows you how to balance more vivid tones with understated ones. You’ll also practice mixing and applying brown and neutral tones that you can use to depict transitions and backgrounds with artful mastery. You’ll be amazed by the transition that will take place as your still life begins to come to life on the canvas.

Glazing Techniques

Jay wraps up the class with a thorough exploration of glazes, starting with a definition of glazing and demonstrations of how to apply it to your work. You’ll learn how to test drive various hues to determine the effect they will have over your dried paints, weighing the vibrancy and transparency of each aesthetic as you work. After you select your glaze, Jay shows you how to apply it and add the final touches to your painting.