Oil Painting References

If you’re looking for resources to help improve your oil painting, whether you’re just getting started or looking to refine already advanced skills, there are lots of ways to find great information:

Sometimes a good book can be quite helpful in learning a new technique, or even just providing a different view into material you might have seen in another format. Here are some well regarded books on oil painting:

• Landscape Painting Inside and Out: Capture the Vitality of Outdoor Painting in Your Studio With Oils
• Oil Painter’s Solution Book Landscapes: 100 Answers to Your Oil Painting Questions
• Problem Solving for Oil Painters
• Oil Painting Secrets from a Master
• The Oil Painting Book: Materials and Techniques for Today’s Artist
• Traditional Oil Painting: Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the Renaissance to the Present
• The Oil Painting Course You’ve Always Wanted: Guided Lessons for Beginners and Experienced Artists

One way to get ideas and inspiration for your own work is by reading about and seeing the works of other painters. Lots of painters are blogging about their work today, and they can provide a great source of motivation and insight:

• Postcards from Detroit
• A Painting Today
• State Of The Art
• Urban Painter William Wray
• Paintings in Oil
• Luis Colan
• Art Studio Secrets

If you can’t learn from someone in person, watching a video is often the next best way to learn. Here are some videos that are the current favorites of SmartFlix customers:

• Basic Landscape Painting: The Forked Path
• Drawing the Head in Oil
• Quang Ho "Painting A Figure"
• Classical Still Life Painting
• Painting Still Life With Betty Carr
• Quick Studies in Oil Painting with Craig Nelson
• Painting Outside the Lines - A Positive Approach to Negative Painting

• Painting Resources
• Bill Martin’s Guide to Oil Painting