Art lovers are now rediscovering the charm of oil painting. Going by the rising number of aspirants joining the best online oil painting classes, the huge demand for art education is duly apparent.
Oil painting is a challenging area, and learners need the guidance of experts and trial with practical assignments to master its nuances.
Most of the top online oil painting classes are exhaustive as they try to explain the nuances of oil painting methods.
Now, to add wings to your imagination and take your painting to the canvas, you need to know more about the oil painting classes online to pick the perfect course that matches your requirements.
Here we will walk you through a list of oil painting classes that can allow you to learn at your own pace and will explain its important features too.
1. Basic Oil Painting Methods [Skillshare]
This course is good to be called one of the best online oil painting classes meeting the needs of beginners in mind as it teaches the core fundamentals of oil paints. The instructor, Ashleigh Smith, unveils the basics of oil painting, including the large variety, how to choose the right paint brushes and palette knife, and ways to obtain various textures with a grand mix of paint to add layers. The Skillshare course offers a free trial in the first 30 days.
2. Master Plan for Oil Painting [Udemy]
In this Udemy course, students get to know the painting with bristle brushes, oil paints, canvas, oil medium, and Gesso as important areas. They will also gain confidence in the panel and palette preparation. The techniques of direct painting and underpainting tactics are also taught. Other benefits include learning to paint clouds, Alla prima, and painting in the impressionist way. You will also get lots of downloadable resources, plus a certificate at the end of the course.
3. Portrait Oil Painting in the Fastest Way [Skillshare]
Students with basic painting skills will find this as one of the best online oil painting classes as it explains how to do portraits with oil paint in a rapid way. The instructor Chris Hong takes you beyond the essential oil paint methods to do the task of portrait painting. The course teaches tips on life objects, painting with photos as points of reference, and playing with the right color scheme.
4. Oil Painting From Traveler Perspective [Skillshare]
The Skillshare course will teach you how to use oil paints to do landscape painting, including sea beaches. The lessons are short and crisp, and the teacher Robyn Whale rolls out the best tips from her travel painting experience. Intermediate artists will find the class helpful in sharpening their painting prowess and refining their techniques. This course also touches upon mark-making and glazing.
5. Landscape Painting Starter [Udemy]
Landscape painting poses a challenge to many painters. This class by Jill Poyerd breaks that myth with new methods of landscape composition to paint a fascinating landscape. Regarded as one of the best online oil painting classes, the course has Jill teaching how to use your tools to break down your desired landscape ideas in pithy planes, fix the focal point, and make lines that capture the eye. The course with 40 lectures will give you a completion certificate at the end.
6. Canvas-making and Priming [Hunter College]
In this course, Katerina Lanfranco guides you through setting up the canvas and means of stretching the canvas too. They explain canvas priming methods and best practices to produce effective canvas and the process of cutting and Gesso-based priming.
7. Smart Working with Oil Paints [Creative Live]
Taught by Mary Jane Begin, the course covers many aspects of oil painting via demonstrations that explain the simple steps. The demos confirm it as one of the best online oil painting classes to refine your skills. The modules effectively teach ways to make shapes in terms of varnishes and solvents.This course is comprehensive and worth the time for learning at the student’s own pace.
8. Simple PathWays to Oil Painting [Florent Farges]
In this course, Florent Farges teaches the atelier method, taking you back to the styles of masters like Leonardo da Vinci and Picasso. The video lessons make things simple. All your questions, like why oil paint and its complicated nature, are explained methodically. You can build on the basics lessons on drying, pigments, and air painting.
9. Oil Painting Class [Jerrysartarama]
This free class is ideal for all levels of learners, and the composite lectures by professional artists will strengthen your knowledge about oil painting. Video lessons discuss a slew of topics, such as color mixing, blocking, focal points, and portraying shapes. In-demand methods, including upside-down painting, palette knife painting, diluting of bright colors, and ratio planning in portrait painting, are some of the highlights. Ways to paint clouds, sun rays, fabric, sunsets, and ocean waves will make you confident. You can count this as one of the best online oil painting classes.
10. How to do Non-Toxic Oil Painting [Skillshare]
This Skillshare oil painting class for beginners explicates valuable oil painting techniques in a non-toxic way. The classes by Adele Mcfarlane take up various types of oil painting, making a painting surface and setting a beginner color palette without any poisonous paint thinners.
You will also learn ideas about the difference between water-soluble oil paints and traditional oil paints. Make use of the one-month free class and do various assignments.
11. Online Painting Enhancement [Virtual Art]
The course handles many areas of painting, including oil painting. Other regions of painting briefly touched include acrylic painting and watercolors. The experienced instructors, with their masterly touch, make learning easier yet in-depth and show ways to improve the work, including the complex Art of painting still-life objects. This is certainly one of the best online oil painting class programs with the scope to improve skills in line with new trends.
12. Basic Patterns of Oil Painting [Evolve Artist]
Instructor Kevin Murphy’s well-structured lessons ease the complexities of oil painting and raise the bar to take you to new frontiers of painting in terms of monitored practical classes. The class explains all aspects of oil painting, such as brushwork, color play, and working on portraits and still life. Exhaustive detailing of painting supplies adds confidence in choosing the appropriate paint colors for the work.
13. Online Oil Painting Class [Stephanie Weaver]
This is one of the best online oil painting classes that will make you adept at oil painting in a shorter time. You will learn color theory, drawing methods, and painting techniques with insight into glazing, blending, alla prima, and stumbling. You can also discuss your painting goals with instructor Stephanie Weaver directly. An online artist forum extends support to learners. The art business program will help you monetize your oil paintings when required.
14. Earn Oil Painting Mastery [Udemy]
The class, manned by Joseph Patric Daniels, teaches oil painting via video lectures with many examples, setting a higher focus on color. This course explains how you must color in oil painting, such as mixing in a value grayscale, planning gradients, plus making color charts. In portrait painting, Joseph explains ways to combine colors to get the perfect flesh tone.
15. Color Mixing in Oil Painting [Jeanette Jobson]
This course explains the color theory and the critical relationship between colors and combinations. The importance of this course as the best online oil painting class is that it teaches color mixing and the utility of hands-on training in making work easy on the canvas.
Instructor Jeanette Jobson explains the ways of shade mixing and how to split the primary palette in terms of primary colors such as red, blue, and yellow. Blending warm and cool shades with assorted advantages is well explained by Jobson. She illustrates how each shade and other hues can find the right place on the palette.
Leverage Online Painting Classes to Boost Your Career
In the market, you will find a plethora of painting classes, but the final choice of an online oil painting class must be decided on the basis of how far it can justify your needs. The online courses differ in terms of content and focal areas. So, skim through the lesson plan and see if that covers your learning targets.
The learners’ level is also important. A course meant for intermediate learners with some background in painting will be unsuitable for beginners and vice versa. When we discuss oil painting techniques, one cannot forget the contribution of the late Bob Ross, whose full name is Robert Norman Ross. He was a brilliant art instructor and host of The Joy of Painting television show on PBS in the USA and CBC in Canada. Bob was able to spread his passion for painting to thousands of young minds.
With oil painting, master painters of the past centuries continue to add perennial inspiration. Evidence suggests oil-based paints were in use way back in the 7th century; although it was in the 15th century, it became more widespread.
Oil painting learners hitching to the best online oil painting classes want superior quality and have famous oil painters like Leonardo da Vinci as inspiring global masters. The works of Da Vinci, including The Last Supper and the Mona Lisapainting, are always in the limelight.
In the latter, the realistic portrait’s brilliance hits the zenith of perfection with the beautiful woman’s softly sculptural face undergoing the ‘Sfumato technique’ of subtle gradations of light and shadow, making it lifelike. Michelangelo Buonarottiis another genius whose paintings are adorning the walls of the Sistine Chapel. These artists made use of the luminosity and plasticity of oil colors to infuse fine realism in their works.
Vincent Van Gogh played with oil paints through a mix of natural pigments in “Starry Night”. Pablo Picasso dabbled in Surrealism and Expressionism with oil-based paint materials infused with Enamels Salvador.
Dalí, in his work ‘Persistence of Memory,’ takes the capacity of oil painting artistry to its extremes.
Conclusion
In this round-up on the best online oil painting classes, we have discussed an array of oil painting classes.
We have also included each course’s merits to help you choose the right one to pursue your dream of becoming an oil painting artist to produce works of Art blooming in your imagination.
Beyond a hobby, oil painters can also grab many commercial opportunities by enrolling in the best online oil painting classes. In addition, painting artists are sought by art houses to manage masterpieces.
Oil painting consultants are also hired by art collectors or those in the art business to plan a painting’s price and assess its origin, quality, and longevity.