Today’s post is about composing with abstract patterns. We all have the urge to fall in love with detail when we see a subject we want to paint. It’s natural, something were born with, (or cursed with). But detail is the death knell to composition. There is no pattern in detail, it doesn’t hang [...]
Archive for the ‘Tips & Techniques’ Category
August 19th, 2010
Sparking The Creative Process
I think most of us have ideas for paintings floating around in our heads but because we’re used to painting from a photograph or having the subject in front of us all the time we don’t feel confident enough to pull off a painting from memory or ideas for a painting that we think will [...]
March 7th, 2010
Discussing Color Schemes – Part 2
Paintings with a complementary color scheme use complements as the overall predominant color in the painting. Like orange and blue, green and red, violet andyellow. This also includes the in-between colors on the color wheel, like red-orange and blue-green or blue-violet and yellow-orange. It’s not a calming or peaceful scheme like the analogous colors which [...]
March 2nd, 2010
Discussing Color Schemes – Part 1
The trouble with painting from color photoraphs is the color in the photographs. It’s usually not very good even though with digial technology it’s certainly better but not as good as seeing the real thing. A good way of dealing with photographic color is to work in color schemes. Picking a scheme that best represents the mood [...]
February 24th, 2010
Pushing The Limits of What you Can Do
In painting or any kind of discipline, you’re either moving forward or slipping backwards, there’s no standing still. Staying in a comfort zone in your painting or subject matter is a good way to become stagnet. Pushing yourself beyond what you think you can do is important. Even if your attempts fail most of the [...]
January 22nd, 2010
The Value of Color Sketches
When I’m getting ready to paint a larger painting I sometimes get too anxious to get started and forgo doing a series of color sketches to explore other possibilities in lighting and color and I end up regretting it. Even if I have a sketch that I’ve done outside I still try to find different [...]
January 19th, 2010
When Oil Paint Doesn’t Dry Fast Enough
Usually, if I’m trying to alter the drying time of oils, it’s to speed it up to meet a deadline or to make changes over dry paint. But once in a while, like in portraiture or figure painting, it’s nice to flow down the drying time to achieve subtle changes over a longer period of [...]
January 6th, 2010
A Page Full of Videos
Check out my new Video Page on this blog. Take a look when you’ve got time.
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January 5th, 2010
Using Brushstrokes to Show Form
Since painting is done on a flat surface and the goal is to make your subject look three dimensional, it’s important how your brushstrokes lay on the canvas. Using value changes gives flat objects form and so does temperature change — warm colors come forward and cool colors recede. Hard and soft edges do the [...]
December 31st, 2009
Painting Over Old Paintings
There have been times, especially in art school when I’ve been tempted to paint over an old painting and the results have almost always been regrettable. The impasto lines or passages of the old painting always show up in
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