When a painting dries, the color tends to go flat. The lights and darks get duller and flatter. So when you want to paint back into a dry painting you have to do something to bring the colors back to their original state and value. There are several options you can use. Retouch Varnish can [...]
Archive for the ‘Tips & Techniques’ Category
June 2nd, 2011
“Expressive Brushwork in a Landscape” DVD
My full length feature DVD, “Expressive Brushwork in a Landscape” focuses on the use of brushwork to give your painting more life and energy and teaches how to use brushstrokes to give your painting dimension and direction of form. I’m please to be able to have the “picture-in-picture” effect so you can watch me as [...]
May 27th, 2011
Create Depth in an Overall “Green” Painting
Last November I went out to Petroglyph Canyon to paint. It’s not really called that but it is near some Indian petroglyphs and I can’t find an official name so I gave it one. It’s in a long meandering wash near Saguaro Park West with canyon walls that get higher the further back you go. [...]
May 25th, 2011
New Videos Page on Starke Studio Website
I’ve setup a new Videos Page at my teaching website, StarkeStudio.com. Now, with my videos on one page, it’s easier to play them without a lot of back and forth . Easy video players are all lined up to allow you to see, at a glance, which video you’d like to play. Visit StarkeStudio.com and [...]
May 23rd, 2011
Using A Palette Knife Plein Air
One of the many problems with painting outside is time, there’s not enough of it to finish our painting and get it all down before the light moves. One solution is to limit your scope of the subject, just paint what the light is doing to stuff. But another solution is to find a way [...]
May 21st, 2011
Touching Up A Field Sketch in the Studio
Obviously there are no rules to what you do to a plein air painting in the studio. My plein air work is primarily practice and gathering material for larger paintings (along with photographic references). I like to keep most of these pieces to judge progress in my work over the years and as a file [...]
May 16th, 2011
Using Canvas Boards
Students ask me often if canvas boards are worth messing with, do they get in the way of improving their painting skills, or prevent them from moving ahead. I think canvas boards are great. If you’re starting your painting career you need to cover as much canvas as possible. Buy them by the box and [...]
September 17th, 2010
New Topical Lessons on Starke Studio Web Site
In my newsletter I’ve been talking about changes coming to my teaching materials and this month the first of those new materials have become available. So if you get my newsletter, you know what I’m talking about. I’ve put together topical lessons to address individual challenges artists face. The lessons come with a video demonstration, [...]
August 24th, 2010
Composing Your Painting with Abstract Patterns
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 [...]
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 [...]
