How to Start a Painting in Oil

Let me go over how to properly use the dimensions of the frame in order to not get lost with regards to the proportions and the shape and really kind of try to emphasize those things that you were describing. Okay. I'm going to assume that my frame is of relatively good proportions in regard to my reference and then my very first moves are going to be trying to calculate distances of key features from the edges of the frame. For example, this shoulder over here is about yay high from the edge of the frame, right? Mark. Yes. Got it. Second shoulder higher. I'm estimating it's about here from the edge of the frame. Next thing that's kind of critical, the edge of the head, more distance there. It's around there. Now, having done just these three spots, if I continue to obey them, there's only so much that I can get lost, you know? Yeah, that's really helpful. This is like, okay, all right. So, I'm going to assume that my frame is of relatively good proportions in regard to Now, the next kind of thing I'm going to do is I'm going to be drawing some vectors from these points. Simple, simple vectors. So, from here, we have a shoulder thing. I just want to calculate that diagonal, roughly that. I'm not going into too much detail. In that diagonal, kind of conveniently, if you notice, if I were to continue it through the face, it would roughly hit the lower area of the back of the head. Do you see that, how these things continue each other? Yeah. Yeah? So, I'm just kind of capturing that right off the bat. Now, the second, second. The next thing that I'd like to calculate is the distance of the back of the head from the edge of the frame. So, it's roughly, roughly, you know, I'm not committed to any of these things, but it's roughly here. All right? So, now, I know that this is a little too, went a little too far. That's okay. Now, I can start adding more vectors. Now, what I'm looking at is this shape. This shape of the background. This shape is a pretty easy shape. You know? It's like, how do you call it? Like a trapezoid kind of thing. Like, that goes up, and then goes this way, then goes kind of like that, and something like this. Not done yet with accurately describing them, but it's roughly. You know, right now, what I have is a very rough description of what's going on there. And from here, I could still get lost, but I can't get a lot lost. I can get a little lost. Right? I've minimized the degree to which I can completely lose all of my proportion. Yeah. So, that's what I haven't been doing. So, when I've been doing a pot, my temptation has been to do exactly what you've done. But I've tried to just sort of, you know, do the shadow to this shape. You know what I mean? The shadow here, and paint that, and then it's all moved across. I haven't done that. Well, the shapes of the shadow are very important, but they are very important because they are very big shapes that help us navigate through our design. We don't, like, the reason that we're prioritizing shadow shapes are two reasons. One, we are using a dark pigment, so the dark pigment is naturally suitable for accurately capturing shapes that are dark. And the second thing is, you know, the shadows are usually kind of uniform, large shapes that help us situate the relationship between, you know, where are the planes that hit the light and where are the planes that are facing away from the light. But it's usually very helpful before we kind of start immediately putting shadow shapes to just understand, okay, where are we in the frame? Just get a broad idea. And it won't be long before I get into those shadow shapes, but first I want to kind of know who I am. You know, this is kind of like, oh, this is what I'm painting, kind of. But you are then drawing lines, you know. Certainly, I'm drawing lines, absolutely, but even when we were drawing shadow shapes, we were surrounding them by lines before we were filling them in. Yeah, I was thinking that the idea is to sort of just find the shadow and then the lines emerge from the shadows. I think we have a misunderstanding about the use of the, like, the function of line itself. What do I mean by that? Like, for example, let's just say I'm finding the shadow of the head, right? Let's just, something really, really basic, right? Not very accurate yet, but something like that. This is what you're talking about, right? Yeah. So this is still lines, right? There's no contradiction between using lines and finding the shadow shape. The lines that we're not trying to draw are the lines that have, that are describing shapes that are very small and very narrative. And right now, when I'm drawing these lines, I'm not thinking, oh, hair. You know, I'm thinking shape of background. Shape of background in this case is bigger than shape of shadow. You know, it's such a big shape that I'm actually going to address it first. You always want to address the big shapes first. And if the shape of the background is one of the bigger, simpler shapes, then that's a shape that, you know, is deserving of our attention. Right? And so I start with that, and then my next best thing is going to be, okay, now let's start to mark the shadow shape and see how we move forward. Now, I did that a little early just for the sake of argument, just because this is still not accurate enough. So I'm going to grab, remember how we were using a flatter one to erase? So I'm going to locate a flatter brush that's going to help me move some things around. And I'm cleaning it for all the soap that's on it. And I'm going to make some movement here because this line is not accurate enough. Moving this shape. Again, drawing this shape, this shape of the shadow. Not the shadow, sorry. This shape of the background. You know, it's by, I don't know how to say it in English. By negation, it's drawing the face. But in fact, this is what I'm looking at right there. Yeah, I see. So I'm trying to squint and see what is that green shape looking like. And that's, you know, really super helpful for me to be able to maintain my proportions. And I'm moving this line like a broom. You know, I'm like sweeping it, sweeping it up so that it can kind of find its place. And here we have this kind of shape happening. Like that, and like that, and like that. And then we can broom this inwards like that. And very soon it will be time to go inside and really look for those shadows. But if you want to start doing yours, what do you want, what do you prefer? That I go in or that I leave it this way and you catch up? I'll catch up now, should I? Yeah, go for it. I'm going to come up. I could make all sorts of mistakes. Oh yeah, that's what I mean. I don't want to run ahead. So I'm going to do this. Okay. Now let me pause and take a look at what you're doing. Very nice. All right, I'm going to carry on with mine and then we're going to throw the ball back to you. I should stop and watch now, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we're going to take turns a little bit. Yeah. So now I really want to start getting into these shadows, which I started to define as part of the conversation, but haven't really done a great job at. But yeah, I'm looking for them. And here, you know, I'm looking at this. You know, how wide is the light area over here, this little light corridor? And this is a very important point right here when the chin is because the shadow makes this little thing, which is kind of a great hint at the anatomy. See this? This is a great moment because it's very easy to find it because it's like right here. And that's fantastic for me. And here it goes kind of inwards. Does that. Then this shadow I put in a completely wrong place because as I'm trying to measure it now, I see that it kind of comes from the neck. I imagine this to continue. You know, it kind of hits the clavicle and this area is already in shadow. Right. So this was very off. This is kind of where the shirt is. See what I mean? Yes, it did. Yes. So now I'm just checking all these points and I'm going to start by giving it a light, dark wash to see how it kind of starts to function, whether or not I'm happy with it as a basic structure or not. Wow. So you don't give any consideration to her anatomy or bone structure? I am. I just see them as shapes. You know, this is the clavicle. You know, this is the mandible. This right here somewhere is the zygomatic arch. Only I am prioritizing what's visible. What's visible at this point is where the light, where the shadow. And, you know, that gives me structure. The kind of structure that I need, you know, optical structure. This already looks three dimensional, you know. And if I were trying to rely on bones at this point, it would take me forever to get this thing to work. Because bones is what we know. It's not what we see. Right. All right? Yep. Okay. Now you're grooming it, right? What? I'm going to stop. I'm going to throw the ball to you. Also, I want to just say that I noticed a mistake on mine. I don't want to, like, get you on the wrong path. This thing on my end needs to come up. I'm just going to casually groom it upwards. A little too low. There we go. All right. So next stage on my piece over here. I'm going to find some of the smaller shadows over here. So right here I'm going to calculate the distance roughly between the edge of this cheek and where the nose starts. Right? There's a corridor of shadow that is the nose. And how low is it? I'm going to try to calculate this distance. I think I have it a little too low. And then I'm going to try to get to see this triangle over here. This light triangle. Yep. I'm going to try to make sure that it's proper. And you're going to notice there's something beautiful happening here compositionally. Again, there's a relationship between this line and this line. I see, yeah. It's very, very beautiful compositionally. Okay. So I'm sensitive to where I'm putting this triangle. And then. Wow. Okay. Trying to find the location. Oh, you're doing it simultaneously? You don't want to. No, I'm sorry. I was just correcting. Oh. I didn't bear looking at mine anymore. Just tell me to pause. I don't want you to miss out. Okay. Now this comes here. And then the size of the forehead is roughly like that. Wow. And then this thing can be groomed into a little bit of a better shape. So the anatomy is not too late to show up just at the right time. And it's going to be better than too early. Okay. Now the bottom here is this shape goes down like that. And I don't really know what happens in the mouth quite yet, because that's very sophisticated. But the chin I can pull off. Something like that. And I don't want to go more complicated than this quite yet, because right now I really want to take a moment to refine these shapes, because they're very consequential, as you can see. Because they basically express everything. Right? Even though I'm not out yet, I have a lot. So at this point there is really room to, how do you call it, delay gratification and really make sure that these shapes are. That's your broom you're using there. Correct. I'm grooming it into submission. Amazing. And then this requires a little bit more grooming on top over here. Right now, grab a little bit more and get this shadow to behave. Make sure that everything is correct. This is quite an important step. So it should not be rushed. And, you know, it's very tempting to go into detail at this point, and I'm going to advocate discipline. Fantastic. Thank you. Let's see. The shape here. The shape of the eye socket. Very important. Very, very important to get right. And again, I keep coming back to this triangle. I must have moved it like 20 times. But if this triangle finds its place, you know, the painting is going to really benefit from that tremendously. Yeah, that sort of heart shape is the center of the painting really, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's super critical. Otherwise everything here would be way too simplistic. You know what it is? You know the yin-yang sign? We have here a situation where this is the light inside of the dark, and this is the dark inside of the light. This and this. See the relationship? That's a yin and yang composition that's going on here. Thank you for watching. I really appreciate it. And if you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to like and subscribe. For longer videos, please consider supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com slash ken goshen. For lessons, please visit my website at kengoshen.com slash lessons. See you next time.