How to Paint a Candle in Oils | Oil Painting for Beginners

Thank you for joining me for this painting demonstration. I'll be showing you how I painted this candle in oils. Normally I take my own reference photos to use for my art, but this time I used this lovely photo that I found on pexels.com. It's royalty free so I have permission to use it and not get sued, which is always great. And I figured this would be easy enough for a beginner that's just starting out with oils. This is going to be a quick summarized demonstration of the process, but the full step-by-step real-time demonstration, which is a 55 minute long video, is on my Patreon page for only $5 and you get all my other real time demonstrations as well, not just that one painting. The colors I'll be using are titanium white, cadmium lemon, cadmium red light, quinacridone red, if you don't have quinacridone red you can also use alizarin crimson instead, burnt umber, and ultramarine blue. I'll be combining the burnt umber and ultramarine blue to make black, but if you have black paint at your disposal you can use that instead. And I'm using solvent-free gel from Gamblin as my medium. I always start my paintings with toning the surface. I'm working on a wood panel that I primed with gesso myself, and I have a video all about how I prime my wood panels, which will be in the description if you would like to check that out. So I take a little bit of solvent, also known as paint thinner, the one I'm using is called Gamzol, and I mix some of that solvent in with the burnt umber to significantly dilute the paint into an almost watercolor-like consistency, and I use this to cover the entire surface. At this point you can either let it dry, after which you can draw on a pencil sketch of all the shapes in the painting, or what I did is I just started painting on the basic shapes of the candle with a little bit more burnt umber, not as heavily diluted with solvent. When it came to the flame part, I just brought in a clean brush with some Gamzol on it, and I was able to lift up some of that pigment to make this section of the painting lighter. Once my underpainting was done, I let it dry for a couple days while I worked on some other paintings. If you want to start sooner, I would recommend waiting at least a couple hours or so if you're working on a wood panel or canvas, or if you're using canvas paper, you probably only need like 15 to 30 minutes or so. Different surfaces absorb pigment and solvent differently, so that's why I recommend a little extra time if you're working on a wood panel, in order for your colors to apply smoothly and not mix with the underpainting layer. Once my underpainting was totally dry, I went in with colors. I decided to start with the brightest part of the flame, which appeared mostly white in the reference image, so I'm mixing titanium white with the tiniest, barely noticeable bit of cadmium lemon, and I placed it into the lightest part of the flame where I was seeing that in the If you look really closely at the reference image, you can see that right next to the brightest part of the flame, which appeared white in the photo, there's a yellow color bordering it, and it gets a little bit more orange the further out it goes. So I mixed a good amount of cadmium lemon with a bit of titanium white, and I used it to sort of outline that shape, making sure it's thinner along the sides, following what I was seeing in my reference. I brought in a little cadmium red light to bring that color to slightly more orange, and continued to sort of outline the yellow that I just placed down, using a bit more cadmium red light for that section in the middle right near the wick. And if you look at the reference really closely, you can see that the burning wick is like a deep red, or even a bit more of a darker orange in some areas. So to create that color, I a lot more cadmium red, and even a tiny amount of burnt umber to darken it slightly. Towards the lower part of the wick, I used more of an orange rather than a deep red. Then I switched to an angle brush and started mixing the colors for the base of the candle, which was mostly reddish orange, like the rest of this painting. I used cadmium red light, cadmium lemon, a bit of quinacridone red, and some titanium white, and I started painting on the base of the candle. It's important that this color is lighter than the wick, in order for that detail to continue to stand out. I didn't paint this orange all the way down, because if you look at the reference, you can see that the candle base just gets darker the further away it is from the light. So I mixed a bunch of cadmium red light with quinacridone red, and a very small amount of burnt umber, and I started to blend this upwards in the candle. And then for the much darker shadowy parts of the candle, towards the bottom-most section, I added significantly more burnt umber with some more quinacridone red and cadmium red light, so that it's not too brown. Now that the basic shapes and colors of the flame and candle are down, it's time to paint the glowing light halo around the flame, which to me appears like a very deep orange-red color that turns into a darker and darker red, gradually fading into black. So I'm just going to start with the lighter part and then work my way out. I already have some yellows and orange on my palette, so I'm just bringing in more cadmium red light and cadmium lemon into that part of my palette, and then placing this color around the flame, but not too far out. Just basically outlining the flame, maybe doing a very minor correction to the shape of the flame, but in general trying to avoid covering up any of that yellow I placed down in the beginning. I also gently blended the very top of the flame with some of those reds, then I added some quinacridone red to some of the reds that I was using for the shadows of the candle base, and I'm placing this darker red color around some of the orange that I just placed down, and then blending those two colors together to create like a gradient that gets darker gradually the further out it goes. I'm taking the color I was just using and I'm blending it with some of the darkest tones that I used for the candle base, adding a little more quinacridone red and burnt umber just to continue making this darker, and then again placing this color around the ones I'd already painted and blending. I'm also painting that empty space of underpainting peeking through between the candle base and the reds I placed down, just basically filling in that circle that I created, while also darkening the wick just a little bit. I felt like I painted it just a bit too light, so I wanted to darken it. In order to get a really smooth gradient, it's good to use a brush that has very soft bristles and to also wipe your brush periodically while you blend if you find that it's coming out a little too streaky. As you blend, you get more paint on the bristles which can cause that streaky effect, so I often wipe my brush to dry it throughout the whole blending process. Every few brush strokes or so, I'll wipe my brush on a paper towel. Next, using a clean brush, I'm combining ultramarine blue with burnt umber to make black, or you can just use black paint if you want to. I'm mixing this color with some of the reds on my palette and adding some more quinacridone red and cadmium red light to it, and I'm placing this color further out into the background and also blending with the lighter reds as I've been doing this whole time. This is basically the last reddish color I'm using before switching completely to black, and if you accidentally bring a dark color too far in over some of your lighter reds as you blend, you can always bring back those lighter reds. Just pick them up again and mix them with that darker color just to go over it and lighten it up a bit, so you can always kind of go back and forth if you're not fully getting the results you want right away. Using a clean brush, I'm once again mixing ultramarine blue with burnt umber to make some more black paint since I used up most of the one I already mixed by combining it with my reds. This time, however, I'm using it as is and I'm filling in the last empty spaces in the painting where the underpainting is still peeking through and into basically the corners and the bottom most section of the painting, and I'm blending it with the darkest reds I placed down, continuing to touch up that color gradient. Whenever I'm painting a light source of any kind, whether it's a candle, a light bulb, a street light, whatever it may be, I always try to pay attention to the colors that are surrounding the brightest point of that light and how that light source affects nearby objects. There's usually going to be some kind of a glow or halo around the brightest point of light, so it's important to really zoom into that reference, look super closely, see what color that bright colorful halo is, and painting all those surrounding colors properly is going to help create the illusion of light. After painting the darkest parts of the background, I realized I wasn't too happy with the candle base. It seemed a little bit too light to me, so I went back to some of the deeper reds and started to rework the colors on that candle, the fade into the shadow towards the bottom candle, just basically making it more saturated, adding some deeper reds to make it look better with the very dark background. I also used some more yellows and oranges to brighten up the area closest to the flame and soften up the edges of the flame and generally just add a bit more detail to the candle itself, which again, if you want to see this all in real time with me explaining my brush strokes with my palette side by side, that longer version of this tutorial is available on my Patreon. And although I say this in every tutorial I make, but I have to say this again, this is not the only way to approach oil painting. This isn't the only way to paint a candle. This is just one reference, one palette, and one painting from one artist. There are so many options and possibilities with art. Maybe using a different ISO and shutter speed setting on a camera, you can capture a candle where the flame looks more golden or orange and not like a bright white. So this is just one option, one painting, and oil painting is endless. There are no limits to what you can create and how when it comes to art. So I hope you found this video helpful. Please give it a like if you did and be sure to subscribe for more oil painting time lapses and tutorials. I'm actually posting this video on my birthday and I'm so happy I managed to get this out today. I'm wishing you all a beautiful and inspiring day and I hope to see you in my next video. Bye everyone!