Value Studies

• Practice painting tonal studies to learn how to control a picture's value structure. Start with a band of pure black. Paint more bands of progressively lighter values side by side. Add a little more white to each band, noting how it changes the value scale. Paint little scenes and studies in shades and tones of gray. Practice monochromatic gray-scale painting without worrying about color. Learn to arrange patches of black, white and gray tones into representational forms.
  
  

Geometric Forms

• Practice painting the five basic geometrical forms that are the basis of three-dimensional objects. Learn to convincingly represent the cylinder, cube, cone, sphere and torus, a round cylindrical ring. Study how light falls on the objects and imitate the effects with careful placement of shadows, mid-tones and highlights. Define and follow the contours of the shapes with your brush strokes. Establish the forms in values of gray, then try adding some colors.
  
  

Color

• Practice painting swatches of color to familiarize yourself with the many different chromatic hues of oil paints. Spread out the paint or brush it on thick to compare how the colors look. Raise the key and lighten colors by tinting with white. Practice mixing tones by adding black for darker, low-key colors. Mix the primary colors together to produce secondary colors. Lay patches of complementary colors side by side to observe how they affect each other. Practice devising color schemes with related and contrasting colors.
  
  

Brush Strokes

• Practice different varieties of brush strokes. Take advantage of the thickness of oil paint to paint textured strokes. Paint short, broken, impressionistic strokes. Try rows of parallel strokes. Experiment with different amounts of pressure on the brush to spread the bristles in different ways. Hold the brush at different angles. Paint with the side of the brush. Use fully loaded brushes to paint heavy impasto effects. Get a feeling for manipulating oil paint and moving it around on the paper. Mix paint with turpentine or linseed oil to see how it affects the look and flow of brush strokes.