How to: oil-painting over a photograph
I was working on a few handmade gifts leading up to Christmas when I realized the hardest part of oil painting isn’t the painting itself — it’s getting the scale right.
I was painting a portrait of my mom’s cat and struggled mightily to get the position of the eyes just right. No matter how carefully I thought I’d transferred the details from the photograph to the canvas, using a pencil, the cat’s face just felt ... wrong.
I grudgingly finished the painting and decided it was OK, but I kept thinking there had to be a better way. Some kind of method for getting the basic shapes from a photograph perfectly transferred to a canvas so I could get the scale right.
Well ... what if I painted directly over a photograph? I decided to give it a try.
I wasn’t sure if oil paint would adhere to glossy photo paper, so I went online and ordered a few photos to be printed on white 100 pound cardstock. I decided to start with one of my sister’s wedding photos, since she’d just gotten married over Labour Day weekend.
I tacked the photo to a piece of cardboard on my easel and nervously decided to start with the background. I mixed blue, green, yellow and white to make the different shades of the trees of the Public Gardens. I just moved around the picture filling in areas that matched up with the colour on my brush.
‘Hey! It’s like paint-by-number,’ I realized. Instead of looking around a canvas for tiny number fours or eights, I was scanning for a particular shade of green that needed to be filled in.
I moved from greens to browns, and then used a clean brush to do the touches of yellow in the trees and the brown leaves on the sides of the path. I saved the people for last because I knew they’d be the hardest.
The clothes were tricky, especially the intricate pattern on my brother-in-law’s shirt and the beaded bodice of my sister’s top. But I actually had fun painting over his trousers — just a few shades of grey, darkened and lightened.
My sister’s tulle skirt was an interesting challenge because the sun was shining through certain layers, and I really needed to layer on murky greys to show the parts in shadow. You don’t realize that white isn’t really white until you try oil painting.
I spent the most time on the skin. For months I’d been meaning to buy a tube of ready-made flesh paint — which is a good starter that you can lighten and darken — but I refused to stop working to run to the store. So I played around with mixtures of yellow, red, brown, white and blue (yup, blue) until I was satisfied.
I let the painting dry for a full month just to be on the safe side, and then framed it (without glass) and wrapped it up for Christmas. My sister and brother-in-law now have it hung in their bedroom, and I hope it holds up over time.
I’ve painted over a few more photographs since then and it’s a technique I really enjoy. Yes, it does feel a little like cheating, but I’ve decided I’m OK with cheating if it means I’m spending a few hours feeling happy and relaxed when I work on a painting. It’s quite refreshing to not have to agonize over the placement of someone’s eyes.