How Do You Blend Oil Paint?
One of the biggest draws of using oil-based paints as a medium is the time it takes oil paint to dry. Because oil paint can take several days or even weeks to fully dry depending on temperature and humidity, artists can easily blend and touch up their works in progress and stretch out their painting over several sessions. Many artists find blending oil paint is significantly easier than blending other types of paints, particularly acrylics, which can dry within minutes of application. • Begin your painting with a charcoal sketch. This sketch is the framework you’ll use to differentiate the areas where you’ll need to blend oil paint from the rest of the painting. • Shake off the excess charcoal or spray the canvas with a fixative to prevent smudging. • Add values of lightness and darkness to the sketch with an underpainting. The underpainting should be painted with a thinned out base color. Use turpentine or your preferred thinner to create the consistency of a watercolor. More pigment
