How to paint still life (Cloth): Oil painting process explained

In this blog post, I will talk about the process of making this painting with oil paints from scratch, so let’s dive in!

Preparing for the paints

For the painting surface, I did this painting on a hard half A4 size paper, it comes in a mid-tone rather than white, so I didn’t apply any base layer.

Starting with, I sketched the subject with light strokes, and I even erased the sketch lightly to get rid of excess graphite so that it doesn’t interfere with the paints. I don’t tend to get values at this stage but I indicate most of the details. Most of the time by pencil and occasionally by a thin layer of paint that dries quickly or acrylics.

Colour mixing  

Then I moved on to colour mixing, I mixed the major colours that I wanted to have for each subject. I Keep a place for the mid values, dark values and light values of each colour. In this painting, they are the slightly bluish greys for the cloth and the desaturated yellowish colour for the background.

When mixing colours, I tend to focus on these 3 values and try to make variants of the same value by putting in hints of different colours to give some variation (but also, because I don’t tend to get the exact wanted colour), so some colours don’t get to be used. After starting the painting process, I might do further small colour mixings as needed with the brush.

Paint thinner

Occasionally when loading the brush, I mix a very small amount of oil paint thinner (Refined Linsead oil) to help the painting flow better but not too much so that it becomes transparent to any degree.

Brushes   

I used a small brush for this size to work on details comfortably but kept a larger brush on the side to block larger areas like the background.

Painting Process

Painting the cloth

Starting off, some people prefer to begin with background, others with the subject depending sometimes on the medium. I have no specific rule with oils but generally, I’d start with the most challenging which is most of the time the subject of the painting. For this one, I started with the cloth.

Because the cloth was relatively a small size portion, I focused on it as a whole rather than just a segment which I would normally do in larger paintings.

I started by blocking the mid-darks into a place where I could see them. This is not the darkest, just a medium-dark tone. I prefer starting with mid-dark or mid-light because if I start off with the darkest or the lightest, I might overdo them. This is obviously changing according to different artists, and I know some who would disagree and do the opposite.

Doing this gives me the chance to go to the end of the painting and add the darkest values just about where they need to be to get that depth, and the same with the lights.

After that, I did the same with the mid-lights, placing them where I can see them in the reference image, and in between the two values, I placed a value that is in between the two. Because it is oil paints and they take some time to dry, it is easy to blend between them with no rush.

I continued doing this as I moved from one section to another, with my mid-darks on paper, I applied the mid-lights, put a medial value in between them and then blended them together to provide a smoother transition.

However, I made sure not to over-blend, so I tried to keep the sharp edges as sharp as I see them even though it is sometimes tempting to smooth all edges. So at this point, I am only working with mid-darks, mid-lights and a value in between.

After I went through the cloth with the same technique, I applied the darkest darks I have on the areas that are the darkest in the painting compared to the rest of the values and blended as appropriate with the mid-dark value.

For this painting, I haven’t added the lightest lights. When I compared the light values with the rest of the values on the painting, the contrast in between wasn’t as big so there wasn’t a need for me to further emphasise the highlights, which may have been necessary if the subject is shiny.

Painting the background

The background of this painting is quite simple and plain. I layered a colour tone that is much lighter than the subject to create that contrast and make the cloth the main focal point.

A simple layer of paint with a very settled value changes for variation. In addition to the sharp shadow with a bit of smoothing created by the cloth which is simply a darker value of the background colour.

And by this stage, I have reached the final result that I am relatively satisfied with.

Conclusion

That was the process and the thoughts I had during the creation of this practice painting. Still-life painting is like the basics that you would want to master. The more you create these simple basic objects, the more you train your brain on painting shapes, values, colours, etc. Therefore, you get better and better when creating larger paintings with complex subjects.