- 1). Assemble your materials within easy reach in your work area. Use larger, flat-tipped brushes for washes. Keep the volatile solvents turpentine and linseed oil sealed in glass jars until you're ready to use them. Prepare your canvas ahead of time with gesso applied in successively thinner layers. Sand between the layers. Paint oil washes on thick paper, illustration board, masonite or canvas.
- 2). Mix up your paint on the palette with a large proportion of linseed oil or turpentine to oil paint. Dilute the paint with linseed oil for painting thick washes. It dries more slowly, but produces a nice finish to your painting. Use turpentine for very thin washes of transparent to translucent layers of color. Oil paint thinned with turpentine dries quickly with a watercolor-like appearance.
- 3). Load your brush up with the thinned-out paint and apply it to your painting surface. Spread out the paint in puddles of color that you push across the canvas with your brush. Control the pools of paint to stay within the drawing of your composition. Use the washes as an underpainting to provide the foundation of your picture or for later overpainting. Use muted earth colors and shades of gray when you paint in washes as an underpainted guide to the value and color scale of the picture.
- 4). Grade your wash when painting in large background areas, or blocking in color schemes and the tonal structure of your picture. Tone grade the wash by making one end darker than the other. Mix in darker colors while painting the wash to suggest shadows and the edges of forms. Lay in multicolored washes by adding different colors to the wash as you paint. Clean your brush between colors to avoid a muddy look. Paint wet-in-wet into the wash with different colors.
- 5). Paint over the wash areas with brighter, more opaque colors to finish your painting if you're using washes as underpaintings. Let areas of the underpainting show through to add colors and touches of drawing to your composition. Use the thin washes of oil paint in a glazing technique to build up your final finish if you're doing a wash painting from beginning to end. Paint layer after layer of pure color oil washes to build up your color effects. Use washes to form different color combinations without mixing your colors on the palette.
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