Udemy – Oil Painting Tutorial – Night Lights

In this course, you’ll gradually develop the core skills needed to create your own oil painting of a nocturnal scene. Through three focused exercises, you’ll learn how to organize your painting process, control values, and handle colours effectively. These exercises will lead up to the final painting, where you’ll bring it all together to create your unique nightscape.

Steps to Complete the Project:

1. Exercise 1 – Understand Focus:
   Start by choosing a simple object or element to paint. Focus on learning how to structure your painting, deciding where to concentrate attention in your scene, and understanding the key aspects that make the subject stand out.
2. Exercise 2 – Understand Values:
   Create a small grayscale painting (or use a limited colour palette) to practice how light and dark areas interact. This will help you control values and create depth in your painting, which is crucial for capturing the mood of a night scene.
3. Exercise 3 – Handling Colours:
   In this step, you’ll move on to handling colours. Practice mixing and applying colours to create the desired contrasts and mood in your painting. Focus on layering and how different colours affect the light and atmosphere of the scene.
4. Final Project – Your Nightscape:
   Using everything you’ve learned, create your own full oil painting of a nocturnal scene. This can be a landscape, cityscape, or any image that inspires you. Apply the techniques of focus, values, and colour handling to bring your nightscape to life.

Final Deliverable:

Upload your final nocturnal painting to the Project Gallery. You can also share your exercises along the way to get feedback. For your final project, be sure to include:

• A photo of your completed nightscape painting
• Optional: Any of your three practice exercises
• Notes about your creative process, inspirations, or challenges you overcame

This project is designed to help you build a strong foundation while also encouraging creative freedom. Enjoy the process and make the painting your own!