Traditional Oil Painting Techniques

This page is to help you learn HOW to apply oil paint to your canvas. Traditional oil painting techniques are various ways to do this application.

Below I have listed different techniques to apply paint and I will describe each one with a link to it with a graphic for an example.

ALLA PRIMA (at first try)

UNDERPAINTING and GLAZING

BLENDING and WET into WET

BROKEN COLOR

FROTTAGE

PALETTE KNIFE

STIPPLING

TONED CANVAS

FAT over LEAN

You can do all the above techniques with oil paints. Click on each link to learn more about each one.

NOTE: I have not covered ALL of the painting techniques you can do with oil paints but the ones listed here will give you a good idea of what you can do.

For more information about different painting techniques please check out the valuable art books listed below.