Category: Artist Blog

Why is varnishing your oil paintings so important? Let’s find out.

Now that you have acquired that beautiful oil painting, you will want to take measures to ensure that it stays that way. One important thing to do is make sure it has received several coats of artist-grade, non-yellowing varnish. Varnishing their oil paintings is something every artist should do before their artworks leave the studio.

Varnish is a final, transparent protective layer applied to a painting after it is finished and completely dry. It is an important first step in preserving the work of art so it lasts for generations to come.

Why varnish an oil painting?

1. Varnish saturates the colors, making them pop. It brings out the vibrancy of the colors and gives them that just-painted look and shine. In addition, varnish helps to keep those beautiful colors from fading as the years go by.

2. Varnish creates an even sheen over the entire surface of the painting. Oil paint colors dry very differently because of the different pigments that make up each color. When completely dry, some colors appear matte, some satin, and some glossy. A layer or two of varnish will even out the final appearance of the painting, giving it a consistent overall look.

3. Varnish protects the painted surface from atmospheric elements and makes the surface easier to clean. All paintings will require cleaning as time goes by; however, the varnish will reduce the frequency of those cleanings and reduce the risk of any possible damage to the painting. If the painting isn’t varnished, over time, dust, grime, dirt, grease, moisture, and pollution in the environment will change the look of the painting. These can dull the colors, causing them to crack and chip off as the years go by.

When should paintings be varnished?

An oil painting should be allowed to dry for a minimum of 6 months before applying varnish. Depending on how thick the paint is applied, it might even need as much as 12 months of drying time. It’s crucial that the oil painting is thoroughly dry before the varnish is applied; otherwise, the varnish may crack. The reason for this is that varnish dries before oil paint does. As oil paint dries, it moves slightly, and since the varnish is already dry, it begins to crack.

If your painting has never been varnished, you will need to wait at least a year and then take it to a reputable frame shop. They may be able to varnish the painting for you; however, it will probably be for a fee. Or, if you know of an artist in your area who is an oil painter, they can varnish the painting for you as well.

One final solution is varnishing oil paintings yourself. However, I wouldn’t recommend this if your painting is a valuable piece of art. If you do varnish the painting yourself, be sure to use varnish designed for fine art oil paintings. And make sure to follow all the instructions on the label. It is not recommended that you use varnish obtained from a hardware store, as this kind is too harsh for the painting and could wind up damaging it.

Additional information on how to preserve the beauty of your oil paintings can be found here.

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FROM THE EDITORS: We hope you enjoyed this blog about varnishing oil paintings and found it’s information to be useful. We’re sure you’ll enjoy the oil paintings below too. For more information and details, click or tap the thumbnail link.

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Additional Reading

Making and Using a Viewfinder to Compose Better Paintings

Using a Grid to Enlarge and Transfer an Image to Canvas

More information about this topic and many others can be found in My Artist Blog Index. Check it out!

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What exactly is a viewfinder?

A viewfinder is a useful tool that many photographers and painters use.

In photography, it is the apparatus on the camera that the photographer looks through to compose the photograph he/she wants to take.

In the world of oil painting, a viewfinder is a tool used to perform a similar function. Artists use these devices as an aid in organizing the scenery of their paintings. It can be moved around to isolate the most appealing aspects of the scenery. A viewfinder achieves this by cutting out the unnecessary elements, resulting in a significantly better composition.

How to Make an Artist’s Viewfinder

Making a viewfinder requires little effort. There are two types: window and L-shape. Both types are simple to make, and which one you choose to use depends on the canvas you plan to paint on. They can be made from cardboard, matboard, or paper.

Making a Window Viewfinder

For standard-size canvases, you may want to choose the window viewfinder. Take a simple piece of paper, scrap matboard, or thin cardboard and cut a rectangular window in the center to look through. The window opening should be proportionate to the prepared canvas in height and width. For example, a 16″ x 20″ canvas would require the viewfinder window to be 2″ x 2.5″ or 4″ x 5″.

Other proportions that might be useful are:

Canvas Size

Window Cutout Size

After carefully measuring and cutting out the window opening, move it slowly around on the surface of your snapshot until the image that interests you appears in the opening. Once you have decided on the composition, tape the viewfinder in position on your photograph to hold it in place.

Making an L-shaped Viewfinder

The L-shaped viewfinder is beneficial in helping to determine what size canvas is required for a particular scene if you do not plan on using a standard-size canvas. The two L’s work together much like the aperture of a camera. You move them out and away from each other to enlarge the opening, or you move them closer together to shrink the inside opening.

The L-shaped viewfinder is made from two L-shaped pieces of cardboard, matboard, or paper that, when placed together, create a frame around your area of focus. You then look through this frame to determine the scene you wish to paint. To make one, you will need a ruler and pencil to draw two identical-sized L-shaped pieces. A good width is about two inches, so they can easily crop out the unwanted areas of the scenery. The length of the arms of each L can be any size; however, 6″ to 8″ works best if you are going to use it on photographs.

How to Use an Artist’s Viewfinder

Using the viewfinder is a simple technique that has been around and used by artists for centuries. What a viewfinder does is frame and crop out unimportant areas of an image. The elements that are left make up an attractive focal point that can be used to begin creating your painting.

How this is done is to take your image and slowly move the viewfinder around until you pinpoint a precise spot that makes an eye-catching center of interest. Once you have your composition picked out, attach the viewfinder to the picture using low-adhesive tape to hold it in place. This will permit you to make several drawings of the scene needed or sketch it directly onto the canvas, getting it ready for painting.

A viewfinder is also beneficial for training your eye to distinguish a good composition. This instrument will give the artist an idea of how an arrangement might work as a viable composition. Over time, your “mind’s eye” will become adept at ignoring extraneous elements, allowing you to visualize compositions without any assistance.

Lastly, both artist viewfinders can be used in either portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) positions. This allows the artist to use it as a drawing aid to determine which orientation works best for their painting. By holding the viewfinder in a vertical position, the top and bottom of the view will be emphasized. If you hold it horizontally, the composition’s width will be emphasized. This helps you focus on particular parts of the scene, enabling you to decide what will make the best composition, both in terms of emphasis and orientation.

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FROM THE EDITORS: We hope you enjoyed this blog about using a viewfinder and found it’s information to be useful. We’re sure you’ll enjoy the paintings below too. For more information and details, click or tap the thumbnail link.

Art Gallery Quick Links

Flowers     |     Landscapes     |     Marine     |     People

Space Art     |     Still Life     |     Wildlife

Additional Reading

The Importance of Varnishing Oil Paintings

Using a Grid to Enlarge and Transfer an Image to Canvas

More information about this topic and many others can be found in My Artist Blog Index. Check it out!

Thanks for reading this!

Feel free to share this with your friends.

The Grid Enlarging Technique

Grid-enlarging is a simple technique used by great artists every day to create sensational works of art. The best part is that you don’t have to be skilled at drawing to achieve extraordinary results when using this method. Many of the world’s greatest oil painting artists don’t draw well at all, yet they use the grid-enlarging technique to start their paintings, which then become beautiful works of art.

Regardless of where you get your inspiration, be it from a photograph, drawing, or some other representation of an image you want to paint, grid enlarging can help the artist transfer a smaller image onto a larger canvas with precise detail, or as much detail as the artist desires.

What exactly is grid-enlarging?

Grid enlarging is the process of using a grid to precisely copy and enlarge a smaller image and transfer it onto a larger canvas. Artists use this technique regularly to enlarge and transfer compositions they desire to paint to a canvas as part of preparing it for painting. This entails drawing a grid on your reference image and then drawing another grid on your canvas of equal or greater proportion. Then, one square at a time, you draw the picture onto your canvas, concentrating on the contents of each square until the image is complete.

Just about everyone knows what a grid is; however, if you don’t, a grid is a series of equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines that intersect to form a boxed pattern. It serves to divide the original image into smaller blocks to see what goes where more easily. Grid enlarging is a valuable exercise in helping to improve your drawing and observational skills.

5 Easy Steps to Grid Enlarging

Step 1: Select your reference photograph and use a viewfinder to isolate the section you want to paint. Next, you will need to determine the proportions of your composition. It is important that the image and the canvas be in the same proportion. For example, a composition that measures 4″ x 5″ is the same proportion as a 16″ x 20″ or 24″ x 30″ canvas. If your canvas is 12″ x 16″ or 18″ x 24″, then you will need to crop your reference photo to 3″ x 4″ or 6″ x 8″.

Smart tip: For detailed information about what a viewfinder is and how to use one, see the article titled "Making and Using a Viewfinder to Compose Better Paintings."

Step 2: The most important thing to keep in mind when drawing your grids is that they must be in a 1-to-1 ratio. It’s math 101. The size of your reference photo must always be equal in proportion to the size of the art canvas. If you fail to adhere to this principle, your drawing will be distorted. Also, the lines must be equally spaced vertically and horizontally, intersecting to create perfect squares.

Smart tip: After you have drawn your grids on both your reference photo and canvas, count the number of squares in each row and column on your canvas. It should be the same amount as the ones in your picture.

Step 3: Use a pencil and ruler to carefully measure and mark along the outside edge of the photo. Put tick marks at every inch, half-inch, or quarter inch, depending on the size of your reference image and how much detail you need to transfer. Then carefully connect your marks by lightly drawing your grid directly onto the image.

Be sure to draw the grid very lightly so you can easily erase it when you are finished. If you don’t want to draw on your photograph, you can tape a piece of clear acetate over your picture and then draw your grid on it using a very fine-point Sharpie marker.

Smart tip: Use a mechanical pencil to draw your grid. A mechanical pencil produces a very thin and precise line.

Step 4: Begin your transfer by drawing everything you see in one block of the reference photograph into the corresponding block on your canvas. Focus only on one square and ignore all the others until the one is completed, and it is time to copy the next block to canvas. The reason you should focus on only one block at a time is so that you will end up drawing what is actually there—what your eye sees—rather than what you think should be there.

Try as best you can to copy exactly all the details you see in that one little block on the photo to its corresponding block on your canvas. Be sure to include the shadows and highlights too. Continue this process one block at a time until all the blocks have been drawn onto your canvas. When you have finished that last block, you will have a very close rendering of your reference photo ready to paint.

A good place to start drawing is with the top left square of your canvas. Then work your way across and down the canvas, row-by-row and column-by-column, until you have completed your detailed drawing. Pay careful attention to make sure you are in the correct square, or your drawing will be off, and you will have to erase some of the drawing and start over from the point where you went off-grid.

An excellent way to keep your blocks straight is by marking them numerically and alphabetically along the edges of the photo and canvas. In other words, the first block on your canvas that is located in the top left corner would be block A1, the next one to the right on the same row would be block A2, and so forth. This will help keep you from getting lost, especially within much larger paintings that have a lot of squares. Write the numbers and letters small and faint enough so that they can be easily erased.

Smart tip: Use a thin piece of sharpened charcoal instead of a pencil when transferring your drawing. The advantage of charcoal over pencil is that charcoal can be easily wiped off with your finger, kneaded eraser, paper towel, or rag, whereas pencil lead requires more effort to erase. Spray with a fixative to keep your charcoal drawing from rubbing off when you finish your drawing.

Step 5: When you have finished transferring the complete image to canvas, gently erase the grid lines and begin your oil painting.

A helpful online tool you can use to draw your grids is ArtTutor. Here is the link.

You May Also Like

FROM THE EDITORS: We hope you enjoyed this blog about grid enlarging and found it’s information to be useful. We’re sure you’ll enjoy the paintings below too. For more information and details, click or tap the thumbnail link.

Art Gallery Quick Links

Flowers     |     Landscapes     |     Marine     |     People

Space Art     |     Still Life     |     Wildlife

Additional Reading

Making and Using a Viewfinder to Compose Better Paintings

The Importance of Varnishing Oil Paintings

More information about this topic and many others can be found in My Artist Blog Index. Check it out!

Thanks for reading this!

Feel free to share this with your friends.