5 Most Common Mistakes for Beginners When you are starting out with anything there is a learning curve. There are common mistakes that all beginners make that can slow down your progress with drawing. Don’t worry everyone makes these mistakes the important thing is to break these tendencies so your drawings will improve. 1. Too Much Pressure on Your Pencil When you are using your pencils be careful not to use too much pressure. If you push too hard you will destroy the…
Watercolor using Distilled water and Mediums So with watercolor painting for some reason there is a lot of misinformation out there and other information that is completely lacking. Three of the most misunderstood subjects is using watercolor mediums and the use of distilled water vs. tap water. Let’s start with using distilled water to thin your paints. I have heard the rumors that using distilled water is superior to using tap water since I began watercolor painting back in high school. I have…
Why is Buying Oil Paints So Confusing If you have ever had a to buy paints, gone to the art store and found yourself staring at the paints wondering why so few have the same names for their paint colors. It’s a problem that has plagued the art world since they began manufacturing oil paint over 150 years ago. Companies are more interested in great sounding color names than accurate color descriptions. So let’s demystify some of the ambiguity. Here are some ways…
The Angle of the Brush is Key to Learning to Paint When painting no matter how long you have done it it’s always best to remember the basics. Sometimes this doesn’t happen either because you are just learning and still figuring out exactly what to do or you have experience painting aren’t giving it much thought. It’s the most basic of concepts and yet it has one of the greatest impacts on the look of your painting, it’s the angle you hold your…
Painting the Landscape Outdoors There is no better way to learn to paint the landscape than to get outside and paint it live and on location. People did this for hundreds of years. To learn to paint the landscape an artist went out into nature to learn to understand depth, perspective and most importantly color. This was an important part of the training of any artist so they could paint landscapes that felt natural and believable. Entering the 20th century photography became more affordable. Many…
How to Paint the Landscape, It’s a Process There are hundreds of books that describe how to paint landscapes. I usually can’t stand most of these so called instructional books because there isn’t enough information on the process used to create a finished landscape. Before I start I will assume the reader has a basic understanding of color, color mixing and working with oil paint. If not you may not get as much out of this article. The good news is I have…
Mixing Colors: Tinting Strength of Colors All colors have a different tinting strength. For instance on our palette yellow have the least tinting strength you will need more yellow(about 2/3 more than red to get an orange mixture . Now I don’t want to start getting into recipes just note you will generally need more yellow. Blue is higher in tinting strength than red in general. A word of caution our green blue has the highest tinting strength of any color the palette …
How to Use Black and White in Oil Painting One thing that happens with mixing paint is people reach for white or black too quickly when they are mixing colors. The biggest thing to remember is white or black will desaturate your color mixtures very quickly. When mixing your colors mix your hue first remember the colors your mix together will affect the value and chroma of the final color mixture. Get as close to the color you need before you add white.…
Is That Color Warm or Cold You hear a lot about the terms warm or cool colors. There is a broad definition and a more detailed explanation for warm and cool colors. The basic definition for your primary colors are red is warm and blue is cold some refer to yellow as warm but I consider it a neutral color meaning it can lean either warm or cool. Next you have your secondary colors Orange is warm and Violet is cool but once…