Exercises in Black and White Oil Color

Leaning on One Arm - Half-hour Study
26 January 2013
Oil Colour on Paper
42cm x 53cm (17" x 21")

Section 22 of the Natural Way to Draw introduces three exercises using black and white oil paints:

• Gesture drawing in oil – This is a five minute study. It is similar to the gesture study in black and white (see Gesture in Black and White and More Gestures in Black and White) except it uses black and white oil paint instead of Conté crayons.
• Half-hour study in oil. This starts as a gesture study and continues into a combination of a modelled study and an extended gesture study.
• Sustained study in oil color – this is similar to the sustained study in crayon (see Sustained Study in Crayon and Try and Try Again) except for the use of oil paint instead of crayon. The instructions offer the opportunity to skip the contour study for the clothed pose, but I’ve chosen to include it.

Arm on Knee - Gesture Drawing
25 January 2013
Oil Colour on Paper
28cm x 22cm (11" x 8.5")

I am using water mixable oil paints (see http://www.winsornewton.com/products/oil-colours/artisan-water-mixable-oil-colour/) because I don’t want to stink the house up with turpentine or some other nasty solvent.

Kimon Nicolaides says oil paint is the best medium for the study of drawing, but I am yet to be convinced. The biggest problem is the brushes don’t hold enough paint to make continuous strokes – this is my excuse for why the gesture drawings are stilted. I couldn’t build up any momentum because I was continually having to stop to pick up more paint.


Hand On Hip in Oil - Gesture Drawing
25 January 2013
Oil Colour on Paper
29.5cm x 38cm (7.75" x 15")


Since painting these studies, I’ve started to add water to soften and loosen the paint. This has made the exercises much more enjoyable, but goes against Nicolaides instructions. He suggests the student should take moisture out of the paint to discourage it from spreading and mixing on the paper. I suspect the paints he was using were a lot wetter because the undiluted water mixable oils don’t show any tendency to slosh about on the paper.

Sustained Study - Section 22 - Contour Drawing
27 January 2013
Graphite Pencil on Tracing Paper
27.5cm x 51cm (10.75" x 20")

This is my contour drawing for the sustained study from Section 22. When I took the photo, the face detection facility on the camera noticed Elaine’s face. This surprised me because its never found a face in a drawing before.