Oil Impasto
- impasto
- thick oil paint
- palette knife
- heavy body oil
Paint thick enough to hold the mark, so the surface has real height and casts shadows.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
Paint thick enough to hold a mark records the exact speed and pressure of the hand that made it. The picture becomes a relief as well as an image, which is why an impasto surface changes as you move past it and why a photograph of one never quite works.
How it works
Paint is applied heavily with a knife or a stiff brush so it stands proud. Ridges hold and cast small shadows. Bristle grooves stay in the surface. Wet colours push into each other and streak rather than blending. The canvas weave is visible only where the paint runs thin.
When to use it
Use it for energy, emotion and anything that should look physically made. Avoid it for fine detail, because thick paint cannot hold one.
Told apart from its neighbours
Concept Painting is digital and smooth edged. Limited Palette Dry Brush uses almost no paint where this uses too much. Paint on Glass is wet paint worked and rephotographed rather than left to dry.
Where it is used
It carries an album cover, a book jacket, an advertisement and any picture that should look expensive and handmade.
- Post-impressionist and expressionist painting
- Album covers, book jackets and advertising
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own character, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<character> painted in thick oil impasto, paint applied heavily enough to stand up off the surface so every stroke holds its own ridges and casts a small shadow, visible palette knife edges and stiff brush marks with the bristle grooves left in the paint, colours pushed into each other while wet so they mix only partly and streak, a raking light across the picture making the texture read, canvas weave showing only where the paint is thinnest
What goes wrong
A flat painterly image comes back with brush texture printed on it. Ask for the paint to stand off the surface, cast small shadows, and be lit from the side.
Leave out
flat paint, smooth blending, thin washes, a level surface, digital softness, even lighting
Watch for
Light it from the side. Impasto is a texture before it is a picture, and flat frontal light makes a thickly painted surface look like a thin one.
Questions
Draw it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
