Oil painting techniques can be created with many traditional methods and experimentation with special effects. Standard brushes, palette knives and sponges can produce exciting variations of textures, highlights, blends and glazes. You can stamp, slash, smear and scratch, stipple, scrape, sponge and spatter! You can drag, dab and dry-brush – all of these terms become self-explanatory once you experiment with them.
Explore the many ways you can work with your tools on either a blank support or covering it with a thin wash of color (imprimatura). An underpainting provides the base to build upon since it can be painted in a mid-tone that makes it easier to consider the next step of painting darks and lights.