I started to learn digital oil painting, online, since beginning of 2021, online, from traditional painters. I have tried my best to replicate oil on canvas texture, feeling and technique using digital oil brushes in Adobe Fresco. It has been a fun ride for me, and I hope you're going to like the experience too. So, let's have a nice sip of coffee, relax, and enjoy the story.
(Notes: I'm not sponsored by Adobe or New Masters Academy at all. I'm writing this blog post because I think it will be useful for other fellow artists who would like to learn digital oil painting skills but do not know where and how to get started. I'm currently very happy with the result of my training, and I hope you, my dear readers, may eventually find satisfying results with your drawing journey too!)
"Was it hard to learn digital oil painting?", you may ask. For me, I had never thought about learning oil painting traditionally or digitally at all in Photoshop. Everything changed when I gave a free app on Windows called Adobe Fresco a try because of its Live brushes. In the app, it was tricky to know which Live Oil brush would do the job in Fresco at first. There are seven of them, and I did not even know how to do traditional oil painting at all. So, i thought it was about time for me to look for a real oil painting master to learn from, So, I started my oil painting training on January 2021 on New Masters Academy (https://www.nma.art/) (this felt kinda like a New Year Resolution).
I started with Introduction to Painting with Steve Huston on NMA. I thought it would be better to understand digital oil brushes when I could see how real oil brushes and real oil paint work. Yes, guess what. this thinking worked for me because I could at least know how to mix Black and White paint to create monochromatic painting. The fun part was to see wet paint smudge or blend with subsequent brush strokes in Adobe Fresco. I also discovered that the Oilpaint short brush in Fresco would lose its strength over the length of my stroke. This helped me create gradient effect on the box in the image below where light lost its intensive as it travelled down the lit side the box. The Oilpaint chunky is great for covering large areas quickly while the Oilpaint detail is better for tight corners.
After knowing how these seven brushes worked, I then tried portrait painting from Joseph Todorovitch on NMA to see how far I could go with these Live brushes. He is a great traditional oil painter in Los Angeles. His oil paintings feel so lively that I just want to learn from him to improve my digital oil painting workflow. The knowledge I learned before from Steve Huston's Constructive Head Drawing, has combined magically with this portrait painting course from Joseph Todorovitch. This led to my first portrait made by Live Oil brushes in the digital canvas below.
I'm really impressed with Joseph's teaching methods. He clearly explains how to approach a painting from a blank white scary canvas. I only need to start grouping light and dark areas and paint with big brushes at the beginning. Then, go with small brushes for intricate areas like the eyes. So, big to small, loose to tight and only with the mixture of black and white oil paint can really create wonderful portrait painting. I'm very pleased with his calm voice and logical approach. Following him along his oil demonstrations has really helped me get better at portrait painting digitally using Live Oil brushes.
I'm still learning and improving my digital oil painting now. Today is Sunday, February 14, 2021 which is the third day of Tet holiday in Vietnam (Lunar New Year), so I wish you all, my dear readers, a Prosperous, Productive, and Youthful New Year. Hopefully, COVID-19 pandemic will be soon over, and we can all enjoy a brighter future ahead.