Oil

Oil Painting Art

Oil painting is a technique where artists mix pigments into a drying oil.  Many colors and shades are created with oil painting.

The oldest oil paintings were made by some Buddhist artists in the region of Afghanistan around the seventh century.

One of the most significant forms of art are oil paintings. Masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” by artist Leonardo Da Vinci and “American Gothic,” by Grant Wood, are made of oil painting.

In addition to that, here are many oil techniques: (linseed) include tempera (egg based), acrylic (house paint), gouache (water based), etc. 

A basic rule of oil paint technique is ‘fat over lean’, which means that each extra layer of paint has to have more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying.

An example of innovation in the technique of oil paintings came right out of Chicago by local artist Ramon Shiva. Ramon Shiva was a painter in avant-garde artwork who was unsatisfied with the paints available for artists.  He was from Spain and a Chemist by trade.

Another curiosity about oil is that the technique of blending pigments in oil came to Europe only in twelve century and became popular in the north of the continent, taking all the atetntion of the painters. Oil Painting is common to be seen in the Renaissance period in Europe.  It’s interesting how this technique took over the previous popular tempera painting.

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