The Oil Paint Website

Light in oil paint

How does light affect oil painting?

In oil painting, if a picture does not have light flowing through it, it looks weak. It will not look three dimensional and will not look real and exciting.

The thing to remember is that you are not oil painting the apple, you are actually oil painting light hitting the apple. The apple's existence is reveled to us by light. The artist has somehow to convert that light into strokes of paint. The apple has a color but the light has color too, and light both reveals the color of the apple and imposes its color on the apple. If the apple is in sunlight, the highlight would be warmer, more  yellow. To really get the look of the object, you must analyze the light on it.

• What direction is it coming from?
• What color is it?
• How bright is it?
• How much of the object's surface does it cover?

All of thest questions have to be asked and answered. This procedure can be hard at the beginning but the artist will soon get used to the process. It is more like a science than art at times.

Example of oil paintings - in culinary arts theme

Below are examples of oil paintings in culinary arts theme. Culinary arts theme is among the most common theme of oil painting. This may be because oil painters can still paint life objects, yet don't have to pay a model to sit still for hours and don't have to put up with models not following instructions. Oil painting in culinary arts theme are oil paintings of food, drinks, wine, fruit, cookery, and other fine food objects. You can see from examples of oil paintings below how the oil paint artists used light in their oil paintings and also combinations of colors to express moods. At culinary arts institutes, chefs in the making capture the senses with the taste, smell and sight their food and the whole presentation, oil paint artists capture the essense of the classy atmosphere using lights, shades, and colors in their oil paintings.

Example of oil painting in culinary arts theme

• Creating depth
• Green
• Tone