For the self taught realist artist
Having some neutral values at hand is very handy. You can use them for a value scale or to mix with higher chroma colors (of the same value) to make them more neutral. If you have problems judging the value of a high chroma color squint your eyes. I’ve got the Munsell student book*, and … Read more
In 2006 I was happy to find an artist near where I live who has attended a classical atelier in Florence. Born in Jugoslavia, artist Michael Milosevic, who lived in Canada for a long period of time and then moved to Florence to study at the Angel Academy of Art now lives in Bad Homburg … Read more
Squinting helps us to seperate the lights from the darks and allows us to see larger relationships. You’ll need that for judging composition, values and shapes. If you want to judge the value of a given color you’ll sometimes have a hard time doing so because color distracts us from the value. But when you … Read more
As you know cast drawing is a very good way to learn to draw a three dimensional object. It’s the second step in learning classical painting techniques as it is taught in many ateliers. The ateliers have many plaster casts from which the students can choose. But what about someone learning at home? There are … Read more
I recently received an oil paint set with 12 different colors as a gift. This set of tubes was sold at a very low price for around 3€ so I was curious about the paint’s quality and as I expected, the quality is very low. Although this blog is also about saving money with your … Read more
There are hundreds of instructional videos and painting demonstrations for purchase on the web and I don’t want to question their use. They are mostly narrated and good ones also show the palette and the colors that are used throughout the painting process. For example Cesar Santos’ video (LINK) is a very good one with … Read more
A mistake a lot of beginners make is to draw or paint the image that they have in their mind instead of replicating what’s in front of them. But painting a realistic image means to replicate reality and not a stereotype image. Look closely and learn to transfer it to the canvas. Here is a … Read more
Eyeballing is a very usefull and necessary technique to be able to spot differences between the reference and your artwork. As a child I loved to make these ‘spot the differences’ games that were printed in magazines. The more difficult the better. And so it is with your art training at home. I guess I … Read more
In order to paint a figure correctly you need to know about anatomy – where the muscles are originated, how they work and which bones they move. To just look at what you see is not enough – you’ll need a thorough understanding of anatomy. It is not necessary to be able to name every … Read more
Students at an atelier see the art of their classmates every day. Seeing what others do and to what level they do it is a great factor for motivation. Normally one wants to surpass what others have accomplished and with a Master you have someone who has seen A LOT of student’s art and he … Read more