Best Oil Painting Classes Online (2026): 9 Picks for Beginners

Last updated: October 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson. See our review methodology.

The best online oil painting classes in 2026 teach the parts of oil painting that are hard to work out alone: how to mix and load paint, how layers dry and why the order matters, and how to keep colors from turning to mud. We re-checked every class below on its live listing on 17 October 2026, recording the rating, number of ratings, length and last update. We also read recent threads in r/oilpainting to see which teachers painters actually recommend and what they wish they had known before buying a course.

Quick picks: the 9 classes at a glance

The 9 best online oil painting classes

1. Best complete beginner course: Oil Painting for Beginners: A Classical Approach (Udemy)

Luis Borrero’s course is the longest well-rated beginner course we found: 12 hours, 4.6 from 421 ratings, 3,683 students, last updated in August 2025. It takes a classical approach, starting with materials, the palette and value before color, then building a painting in stages the way academic painters were taught.

That structure matters because the most common complaint about learning oils from short videos is that each teacher shows a finished technique without the foundation underneath. A 12-hour course has room for the foundation.

Best for: beginners who want one course that covers the whole process in order.  Worth knowing: the classical approach suits realism. If you want loose, expressive work, add pick 3 or a Domestika course.

View the course on Udemy →

2. Best for understanding layers: The Oil Painting Process (Udemy)

Jill Poyerd’s course (4.8 from 414 ratings, 5 hours, updated September 2023) is a step-by-step look at how an oil painting is built, from the surface and underpainting through to varnish. It covers the rules that trip up new oil painters: fat over lean (each layer slightly more flexible than the one under it, so the paint doesn’t crack), how long different layers need, and when a painting is ready to varnish.

Poyerd is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society and also teaches pick 3. Her teaching is methodical rather than flashy, which is what this subject needs.

Best for: anyone whose oil paintings get muddy or stall partway through.  Worth knowing: it is about process, not a single subject, so pair it with a project course.

View The Oil Painting Process →

3. Best for brush control: Mastering Brushstrokes, Part 1 (Udemy)

Also by Jill Poyerd, this is the most-rated course on the page: 4.8 from 2,386 ratings, 14,352 students, 6.5 hours, updated June 2026. It teaches the core brushstrokes behind oil, acrylic and watercolor painting: how to hold and load a brush, how pressure and angle change a mark, and how to make edges that look intentional.

Brushwork is a skill most beginners skip, and it is often the difference between a painting that looks careful and one that looks confident. Because it covers several media, it also helps if you later move between oils and watercolor.

Best for: beginners and self-taught painters who want more control over their marks.  Worth knowing: it is media-general, so some exercises are not oil-specific.

View Mastering Brushstrokes →

4. Best for range of styles: Domestika oil painting courses

Domestika’s catalog is the best place to try different approaches to oil. Its Oil Painting Techniques Specialization runs 20 hours 48 minutes across 7 modules and 100 lessons taught by six painters. Single courses include Oil Painting for Beginners by Ale Casanova (28,983 students, 4 hours 18 minutes), Portrait Painting with Oil: Explore Light and Shade by Jane French (22,069 students), Contemporary Oil Painting Techniques by Alai Ganuza (19,469) and Contemporary Oil Portraiture by Torsten Wolber (16,620).

Single courses list at $29.99 and specializations at $94.99. Domestika runs frequent sitewide sales: on 17 October 2026 its oil courses showed a 98% discount at checkout. Domestika Plus was $164.50 for the first year, renewing at $329. One Reddit painter singled out Alai Ganuza’s color theory teaching as the thing that improved their painting most.

Best for: painters who want to sample several styles, from academic portraits to contemporary work.  Worth knowing: many courses are taught in Spanish with English subtitles. Check the language tag before you buy.

Browse Domestika oil courses →

5. Best for old-master techniques: Oil Painting Techniques: Rembrandt (Udemy)

Luis Borrero’s second pick (4.7 from 306 ratings, 8.5 hours, updated January 2025) teaches impasto and glazing through a Rembrandt-style study. Glazing (thin, transparent layers over a dried underpainting) is the technique behind the glow in old-master work, and it is hard to learn from a single video because each layer has to dry first.

It is rated intermediate. Take it after pick 1 or pick 2, once you are comfortable with how layers and drying times work. Borrero also has a Vermeer course on underpainting and glazing if you want a second study.

Best for: painters drawn to classical realism who already know the basics.  Worth knowing: a glazed painting takes days or weeks because of drying time, so plan the course around that.

View the Rembrandt course →

6. Best for portraits: Portraiture in Oil (Udemy)

8D Studio and Juan Martinez’s course (4.6 from 522 ratings, 6,076 students, 5 hours) covers the fundamentals of traditional portrait painting: proportion, value, mixing skin tones and building a head in stages. It was last updated in February 2021, so the course itself is older, but traditional portrait method has not changed.

For a more recent alternative, Proko sells a Portrait Painting in Oil course for $145 with three free lessons to try first. One Reddit painter who used Proko’s drawing course recommended its painting course to someone looking for structure. We have no affiliate relationship with Proko.

Best for: painters who want to paint people.  Worth knowing: portraits are unforgiving. Most teachers recommend some drawing practice first, such as the courses in our figure drawing guide.

View Portraiture in Oil →

7. Best full curriculum: Virtual Art Academy (unlinked)

Virtual Art Academy is a structured online oil painting program created by painter Barry John Raybould. It is built as a self-study art school with a sequenced “ladder” of lessons for beginners through advanced painters, plus a reference library and a community. On 17 October 2026 membership was 89 USD a month plus local taxes, billed month to month, and you can pause or cancel at any time.

It is the closest thing online to a full program rather than a collection of courses, and it is the most expensive option here over time. It suits painters who want someone else to decide what to learn next.

Best for: committed painters who want a long-term, sequenced curriculum.  Worth knowing: at $89 a month, a year costs over $1,000. Try the cheaper picks first to confirm you will paint regularly.

8. Best subscription art school: New Masters Academy (unlinked)

New Masters Academy is a subscription library of drawing and painting courses from working artists, with structured tracks and live sessions on its digital campus. It starts at $25 a month. One Reddit painter used it monthly for about six months, then bought a year during a Black Friday sale, and pairs it with a weekly local studio class: the courses teach concepts better, while the studio gives real-time feedback.

It is a strong choice if you want drawing and painting together, since weak drawing is behind many oil painting problems.

Best for: painters who want drawing and painting fundamentals in one subscription.  Worth knowing: like most libraries, it does not grade your work. Feedback comes from live sessions and the community.

9. Best free option: Draw Mix Paint by Mark Carder (unlinked)

Mark Carder’s Draw Mix Paint has 385,000 YouTube subscribers and 251 videos, with the stated aim of covering all the essential instruction for painting realism in oil for free. His method centers on matching colors exactly, using a limited palette and a controlled light setup. His site also sells full courses (How to Paint Realism and Painting Landscapes were $100 each on 17 October 2026).

It is the most-recommended free oil resource in Reddit threads on where to start. Use it alongside a structured course, or as your first course if budget is tight.

Best for: realism on a tight budget.  Worth knowing: his method is deliberately systematic. If you want looser painting, Paint Coach on YouTube is a good free counterpart.

Links: Virtual Art Academy · New Masters Academy · Draw Mix Paint · Proko Portrait Painting in Oil.

Free oil painting classes online

Free material is plentiful. The trade-off is structure: free videos rarely come in an order, and nobody reviews your paintings. These are the free sources painters recommend most:

• Draw Mix Paint (Mark Carder). 385,000 subscribers. Systematic realism, color matching and setup.
• Paint Coach (Chris Fornataro). 608,000 subscribers and 551 videos. Looser, beginner-friendly painting. A Reddit commenter noted the one thing free videos cannot give you is feedback on your own work.
• Proko’s free lessons. Three free lessons from its Portrait Painting in Oil course, enough to judge the teaching before paying.
• Books. Painters on Reddit recommend Color and Light by James Gurney, Brushwork Essentials by Mark Christopher Weber and Traditional Oil Painting by Virgil Elliott. Libraries often stock all three.

What you need to start oil painting

A beginner’s kit is smaller than art-store aisles suggest. Most courses above start with something close to this:

• A limited palette: titanium white plus a warm and cool version of each primary (for example, cadmium yellow and lemon yellow, cadmium red and alizarin crimson, ultramarine and phthalo blue), and burnt umber. Student-grade paint is fine for learning.
• Brushes: a few hog-bristle flats and filberts in small, medium and large sizes, plus one small synthetic round for detail.
• A surface: canvas panels or oil painting paper for practice; save stretched canvas for finished work.
• Medium and cleanup: a painting medium, and either odorless mineral spirits or a solvent-free cleanup method using oil and soap.
• A palette and palette knife for mixing.

If fumes or toxicity worry you (a common question from people with health conditions or pets), you have two good options: paint solvent-free, using only oil-based mediums and cleaning brushes with oil and soap, or use water-mixable oils, which clean up with water. Ventilate your space either way, read the label and safety data sheet for each pigment, and keep paints away from food and animals.

The core ideas every oil painting class teaches

• Fat over lean. Each layer should contain a little more oil than the one beneath it, so upper layers stay flexible and the painting does not crack as it dries.
• Drying time varies by pigment. Earth colors such as burnt umber dry in a day or two; some whites and blacks take much longer. Planning around this is a large part of the craft.
• Alla prima vs indirect painting. Alla prima (wet-on-wet) finishes a painting in one session; the indirect method builds an underpainting and glazes over it across days or weeks. Pick 1 and pick 4 cover the first; pick 5 covers the second.
• Value before color. Getting light and dark right matters more than exact hue, which is why classical courses start in monochrome.

Oil vs acrylic vs watercolor for beginners

Many teachers suggest oils as a first medium precisely because they dry slowly: you have time to blend, adjust and correct, which watercolor does not allow.

Common beginner mistakes, and the class that fixes each

• Mud. Over-mixing on the canvas and adding too many colors to one mix turns paint gray-brown. Fix: mix on the palette, use fewer colors per mix, and study value. Picks 1 and 2.
• Brushes that are too small. Beginners reach for detail brushes early and the painting becomes fussy. Fix: block in with large flats and save small brushes for the end. Pick 3.
• Breaking fat over lean. Thick, oily paint underneath and thin paint on top can crack. Fix: thin, lean first layers with more oil in each layer above. Pick 2.
• Rushing glazes. Glazing over a layer that is not dry lifts or muddies it. Fix: learn which pigments dry fast and plan sessions around drying. Pick 5.
• Unprepared surfaces. Oil paint on raw canvas or paper without a ground soaks in and can damage the support over time. Fix: use primed panels or oil painting paper.

A first-month practice plan

If you are starting from scratch, this four-week plan pairs the classes above with regular painting time. Two or three sessions a week of about an hour each is enough.

1. Week 1: materials and value. Set up a limited palette, then paint three small value studies of simple objects in black, white and one earth color. Follow the opening sections of pick 1.
2. Week 2: mixing color. Make a color chart from your palette, then paint a single piece of fruit matching its colors as closely as you can. Draw Mix Paint’s color-matching videos help here.
3. Week 3: brushwork. Work through the stroke exercises in pick 3, then repeat week 2’s study using larger brushes and fewer strokes.
4. Week 4: a full painting. Paint a simple still life of two or three objects over several sessions, using the layering order from pick 2, and let it dry between layers.

At the end of the month, compare your week 1 and week 4 paintings, then pick your next course by subject: portraits (pick 6), old-master glazing (pick 5) or a style from Domestika (pick 4).

How long does it take to learn oil painting?

Expect a few weeks of regular practice to finish a simple still life you are happy with, and several months to paint confidently from life. The courses here run 5 to 12 hours of video, but the video is the small part: each lesson comes with painting time, and oil’s drying time spreads layered paintings over days. Painting two or three times a week, one structured course plus practice takes most beginners one to three months.

Online vs in-person oil painting classes

The honest limit of online classes is feedback. Several Reddit painters who learned online said the courses explained concepts well but could not tell them what was wrong with their own painting. The common solution is a mix: an online course or subscription for the concepts, plus a local class, community college course or painting group for critique. If you are searching for oil painting classes near you, community college continuing education programs and local art centers are the usual starting points, and some art schools run online continuing education courses with a live instructor.

How we chose

We searched Udemy and Domestika for oil painting courses and opened each candidate’s live listing on 17 October 2026, recording rating, number of ratings, length and last update. Courses had to teach transferable oil technique to beginners or a clear next step. We favored courses with hundreds of ratings over high scores on tiny samples, and flagged older courses. We read four recent r/oilpainting threads on online courses and checked the independent programs painters recommended there (Virtual Art Academy, New Masters Academy, Draw Mix Paint, Proko) on their own sites. Picks marked unlinked have no affiliate relationship with us. Full process: how we review.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best online oil painting class for beginners?

Oil Painting for Beginners: A Classical Approach on Udemy is the most complete beginner course we found: 12 hours, rated 4.6 from 421 ratings on 17 October 2026. For understanding how layers work, The Oil Painting Process (4.8 from 414 ratings) is the best companion.

Can you learn oil painting online?

Yes. Online courses teach materials, mixing, brushwork and layering well. Their limit is feedback on your own paintings, so many painters combine an online course with a local class or critique group.

Are there free online oil painting classes?

Yes. Draw Mix Paint by Mark Carder and Paint Coach both teach oil painting free on YouTube, with 385,000 and 608,000 subscribers respectively. Proko also offers three free lessons from its oil portrait course.

How much do online oil painting classes cost?

Udemy courses were mostly under $20 on sale on 17 October 2026. Domestika lists single courses at $29.99 with frequent discounts. New Masters Academy starts at $25 a month and Virtual Art Academy costs 89 USD a month.

Is oil painting hard for beginners?

It is more forgiving than watercolor because oils stay workable for days, so you can blend and correct. The hard parts are drying times and layering rules such as fat over lean, which a structured course teaches early.

Is oil paint toxic to use at home?

Some pigments and most solvents need care. Ventilate your space, read each paint’s label and safety data sheet, and consider solvent-free painting or water-mixable oils if fumes are a concern. Keep paints away from food and pets.

Should I learn drawing before oil painting?

It helps, especially for portraits and figures. Many teachers start students on value and simple shapes, and a basic drawing course alongside oil painting makes proportion problems much easier to fix.

Related guides: Best watercolor painting classes · Best figure drawing classes · Best anatomy courses for artists · Best jewelry making classes · Best woodworking courses.