Oil Painting Made Easier: Simplifying Color, Shapes & Details 🌈 + Beginner Portrait Part

In this oil painting tutorial, I’ll take you through the full process of building a complex painting step by step, from the portrait and hair to the dress, fish, flowers, clouds and background.

The tutorial starts with a dedicated Beginner Section, where we focus on the portrait and simplify the skin tones into easy color groups. You can stop after this section and still have a finished portrait study, or continue with the rest of the painting.

Throughout the tutorial, I show you how I premix colors, work with separate brushes, simplify complex elements, use an acrylic underpainting, build up the oil layers, correct values with glazes and keep the painting loose without overworking the details.

This is also a great tutorial if you want to learn how to plan a more complex painting in smaller, manageable sections instead of trying to solve everything at once. 😊🫶

The finished Painting:

Find the High Resolution Referenc, Sketch and Material List below. ⬇️

Part 1: [Available for Members]
Part 2: [Available for Members]

⚠️ Please use the chapter markers on Youtube to navigate through the tutorial otherwise you won’t find my Voiceover!!!

Video Length: ~2 1/2 h (Beginner Part) and ~6 1/2 hours (Intermediate Part)

Painting Size: 40 x 50 cm

Painting Surface: Stretched Canvas

Recommended Materials:

Acrylic Paints: Ivory Black, Burnt Sienna (I like to work with Acrylic Paints from Amsterdam, W&N or Schmincke), Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine, A Red and a Green tone, a Pink/Magenta tone

Oil Paints: Titanium White, Ivory Black, Burnt Sienna or Transparent Oxide Red, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Red Orange, Cadmium Red, Permanent Red Violet, Ultramarine Blue, Lemon Yellow, Chrome Oxide Green (I like to work with Oil Paints from Schmincke, Sennelier or Rembrandt)

Mediums for the Acrylic Painting part: Flow Improver for example from W&N or Fluid Medium from Boesner

Mediums for the Oil Painting part: Liquin Original from Winsor&Newton and a Paint Thinner, for example, Green for Oil from Sennelier or Gamsol

My Reference: