For the self taught realist artist
“Thank you for making this product available,it’s very useful!” Florent Farges – www.florentfarges.com Color references are often very pricey. In my blog post “Save hundreds on studio equipment!” I showed you how I made my own color charts. In the end this can literally save you hundreds of (insert your currency here). And in “Mixing Neutrals” I … Read more
I find portraits the most challenging subjects since you need to capture the likeness of the person whereas a tree is always a tree. To paint a particular person you need to take extra care. On business fairs I drew many many portraits using smartphones or tablets with a pressure sensitive stylus pen. With modern … Read more
Save 781.50€ on studio equipment!…..What? Recently I talked about the Munsell color system which in brief is a system based on the three qualities of color – hue, value and chroma which helps you in judging color. As an artist you will need to know what colors to mix for your subject and which paints to … Read more
I recently wrote about Scott Waddell’s new instructional video “Drawing & Painting” and considered it as very valuable since it is packed with lots of information. Two days later I found Douglas Flynt’s instructional video which somehow went under my radar since it is available for over 2 months now. With $39.95 (~29€) for 74 … Read more
Color theory – a little physics for the artist For me color theory was always a boring topic. With my background as a lab technician I knew about the wavelengths of light and how the eye perceives color. But this did not help me learning to see and mix color. But here are the basics: … Read more
So you have not enough money to attend a portrait painting class or hire someone to pose for you? But you’d really like to learn to paint skin tones? Well, I guess you have enough money to buy some bread. Bread is a very good alternative to painting skin tones. See these Google search results … Read more
I’ve written about Scott Waddell before (see here). On December 17th he has published another video for purchase. The price of 37$ (~27€) is very generous! You’ll get over 70 minutes of video material plus an additional PDF which serves as a glossary, materials list and time code table. Normally I post free stuff that … Read more
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