Artist Daily : Drawing Basics

Go For Awesome

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 24 May 2013 04:38:00 GMT


Looks Like Heaven by John Budicin, 2002, oil painting, 32 x 40.

Almost any artist will tell you that there's a certain appeal to working outdoors that can't be found anywhere else. With spring in full swing, many of us have left our studios for our porches, backyards, and beyond. To celebrate the season and all of the landscape art being made, here are 10 ways you can make the most of your next outdoor painting session.

Start with a good, long look. Painting landscapes lets you create work that can take the viewer on a journey into a new environment. To create a truly expressive work of art, it helps to take more than a cursory look around and quickly set up shop. Walk around, sit a spell, and really soak in the landscape around you.

Focus your eye. Whether's it a rocky cliff or a busy urban street, outdoor settings can offer a myriad of potential subjects. Sometimes, however, it can be too much to take in, leading to a painting that feels busy, cluttered, and lacking a center of interest. Massachusetts-based artist Nancy Colella starts every composition based on what she's visually drawn to. She makes those elements the focal point of her painting, and tones down everything else so that they come to the fore.

It's all about the light. Light changes throughout the day, which makes accurately capturing it one of the biggest challenges of painting outdoors. The flip side, of course, is that when one is able to do this correctly, a painting is instantly elevated. Observe the quality of light, aiming for a spontaneous interpretation that still takes observation skills into consideration.


	Birds Wading by Stephanie Sanchez, 1989, oil on panel, 32 x 46, private collection.


	Marble Cascades by Jane Bertram Miluski, 2003, watercolor, 14 x 21.

Don't paint a blue sky. They rarely exist! California watercolorist Dick Cole acknowledges that landscape painting has enhanced his skills as a colorist and helped him to realize that the sky, along with many elements in nature, are made up of a variety of colors and not just one pure hue.

Strike a balance. Spend as much time observing as you do painting. For artist Glenn Rudderow, this is a crucial part of his plein air practice. "Nothing can take the place of direct observation—of being there, seeing, communicating, and expressing the spirit of one's subject," he says.

Go for awesome. Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran of the Hudson River School produced paintings of the American landscape that were technically masterful, but most of all they were awe-inspiring. They created luminous paintings that seemed too bright to be true. They amplified the elements of the landscape that inspired them most, leaving the viewer with the same sentiments.

Don't bring your studio outdoors. The thrill of working en plein air is that you can shake up your routine and work differently than you might usually. Use the change in location to try new techniques, such as working on a smaller scale or focusing predominantly on light and other atmospheric qualities.

Colors contribute to a sense of space. When creating her landscape paintings, Kansas artist Kim Casebeer adjusts her palette in order to accurately render atmospheric changes and a sense of space. For example, there is usually more red, orange, and yellow running through objects in the foreground, and blue, indigo, and violet for shapes that recede in the distance.

Go with the flow—of air. Air moves objects. It ripples water, curls leaves, and sways limbs of trees. Use brush strokes and shading to create movement in your work.

Perfection isn't everything. You can spend all day looking for a "perfect" composition that just doesn't exist. Embrace the reality around you—smog, power lines, even debris—and open yourself up to telling interesting stories with new subjects.

How have you been taking advantage of spring in your work? Leave a comment and let us know. If you want to learn more about painting landscapes—including how to paint mountainous vistas accurately, avoid compositions that lack cohesion, and more—Donna Dewberry's Essential Guide to Flower and Landscape Painting gives you all the one-on-one instruction you'll want to successfully paint landscapes and all the elements you'll find there. Enjoy!

Paint Every Figure With the Power of a Portrait

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:26:00 GMT


First Bite, 17 x 16, 2009, oil painting. All works by Michael de Brito. Courtesy Eleanor Ettinger Gallery.

Painting the people and places one sees every day can be either a mind-numbing trial or an impetus for creativity that just happens to be homeward bound. For New Jersey-based artist Michael de Brito—who has spent the last several years painting family members and friends in familiar surroundings, such as his grandmother's kitchen—it is the latter.

In De Brito's work, domesticity is not the stuff of clichéd gender roles or snapshot tedium. Instead, his scenes show the family matriarch caught in moments of arrested action or sitters sinking into introspection in the midst of a chattering group. Meals are readied or consumed, and conversations meander over a bottle of wine. The occasions are simple, but De Brito's portrayals linger in the viewer's mind as if they are our own memories, producing a rapport between us and the figures.

The artist's ability to invest his paintings with such immediacy comes from his deep-seated connection to the figures he depicts. "The paintings are almost like a diary," he says. "Each day is different—people age, and the place ages, too. I'm capturing them in the moment, so I won't forget how they are. In some ways this allows me to know them better." This personal connection also dovetails with the artist's relish for the technical aspects of painting—drawing, composition, and the materiality of oil paint.


	Sunday Guests, 17 x 21, 2009, oil painting.


	The Gathering, 29 x 39, 2006, oil painting.

"I have my sketchbook with me all the time," De Brito explains. "A good painting comes from a good drawing, so I make a small drawing to get a grasp of the composition before I do the actual painting." From there, the artist creates a full-size charcoal sketch of the painting directly on the canvas. Once he's satisfied with it, he sprays it with fixative. "Then I can focus on applying the paint as opposed to dealing with a figure's hand that doesn't look quite right," he says.

Delving into the feel and look of the paint is an integral part of the painting process for De Brito. "The application of the paint and the way it feels is a major part of my process-and definitely the most appealing part," he says. "I just love the lusciousness of the paint on the canvas." The artist works wet-in-wet and doesn't use glazes: "With wet-in-wet, you can create soft edges almost by accident, and subtle mistakes can still be used to create what you want. For me, glazing takes too long. I want to see it done quickly, and working wet-in-wet helps get me there."


Conversation After Lunch, 12 x 16, 2005, oil painting.

The immediacy and "in the moment" atmosphere of De Brito's works can also be attributed to the fact that each figure is depicted with a level of detail that is usually reserved for a painted portrait. A grimace, searching glance, or slouching stance individualizes each figure and gives the viewer an inkling of who these people are. The depictions are not idealized, but they are honest, and there's a dignity to them that makes the viewer feel like another guest instead of an intruder or voyeur.

De Brito doesn't describe himself as a portraitist, but the figures in his paintings possess the poise and individuality that mark successfully painted portraits. To enhance your ability to capture a likeness and better understand the nuances of painting figures realistically, consider any and all art resources on sale now at the North Light Shop. Enjoy!

An All-Or-Nothing Proposition?

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:15:00 GMT

One of the best conversations I’ve had about art wasn’t with an artist. It wasn’t with an art historian, curator, or gallery owner, either. It was with a mechanical engineer. We went from discussing his latest design project to the artfulness of historical blueprints to Leonardo’s notebooks—and I think we may have even touched on Umberto Boccioni and Futurism.

The City Rises by Umberto Boccioni, oil painting, 1910.

Looking back on it, I’m not too surprised that someone with a scientific mind would be so knowledgeable about art. It’s become quite clear that art and technology share quite a few commonalities. Both are driven by innovation, experimentation, and observation. Trial-and-error is a cornerstone in both fields. Neither stands still for long; they are both ever-changing frontiers. So it seems natural that technology can lead artists in interesting directions, whether by making what they already do a little easier or by introducing new tools that help transform their process.


Artist Jove Wang uses a source photo to transfer his composition to canvas.

For example, digital photography means no more lugging around film, having the ability to see photos as they are shot, and being able to make adjustments in the moment. Computer programs of 3-D human poses allow artists to practice the fundamentals of rendering even if they don’t have a mannequin or aren’t yet ready to work from a live model. Software such as Photoshop allows one to manipulate photos, make color corrections, and play around with compositions.

It seems that technology, from the first metal oil painting tubes to climate-controlled studios, has a useful place in the art world, regardless of your medium or style. Allowing technology to play a part in your process is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Regardless of the source, artistic innovation always comes back to the artist—after all, a tool is only as useful as the hand that wields it. Taking advantage of technological innovations doesn’t elevate or delegitimize an artist, or make his or her execution more or less skillful. It is just another example of how an artist chooses how to paint or draw, and that choice is a deeply individual and creative right.

Building on solid technique allows artists to take their work in any direction they choose. Capturing the gesture and form of the human body is one such essential technique and if you are looking for resources in acrylic painting, drawing and sketching, or colored pencil, Lee Hammond's DVDs can help you, whether you are just starting out or want to enhance your skills.

Discover the Enduring Appeal of Sketching

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:33:00 GMT


Attitude by Patricia Hannaway, 2006, pastel sketch drawing, 21 x 12.

Human figure sketching, especially learning how to sketch from a model, is one of the most rewarding ways of practicing art because it can enhance your abilities in ways that are both practical and inspirational. It's practical in that creating figure sketch drawings develops skills that will serve you again and again as an artist—contour, shading, line, and the relationship of parts to a whole. It's inspirational in that the landscape of the human body contains almost every form, texture, shape, and curve that an artist could possibly want to recreate, and there is an endless array of ways to do so.

Sketch drawing figures is not just about drawing anatomy, though that knowledge certainly helps me recognize why the body looks the way it does and the reasons for its movements. But drawing figures is often about finding an emphatic action or gesture that animates and energizes the rendering. For artist and animator Patricia Hannaway, that means finding and accentuating the action line of a figure. “My thought process as I’m drawing is, The model is sort of doing this and kind of doing that," she says. "I become engaged with what the model is doing and mentally take the pose myself, feeling the movement in my own body. This is transferred to the page via an energized line; the drawing proceeds outward from an inward feeling."

Using a model as the stepping off point, Hannaway creates sketch drawings that emphasize pivotal moments of action where the figure is about to move or is in the act of doing so. Perfecting your ability to render the human form means practicing doing the same thing. As you get stronger in identifying the angles of motion in a figure, your skill in sketching that motion will likely increase as well, making for more productive and dynamic sketching sessions.

Drawing magazine is our top resource to help solidify your drawing skills with articles in every issue that give you insights on figure drawing, sketching, and so much more. You'll see in every issue how rendering well and seeing dynamically are two essentials every artist needs to have in order to capture the essence of his or her subject, so enjoy your subscription!

Step by Step to a Virtuosic Figure Drawing

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:30:00 GMT

Seeing a painting or figure drawing progress from beginning to end allows the finished artwork to be understood as a series of discrete steps leading to a virtuosic whole. During a recent tour of the Grand Central Academy (GCA), in New York City, I observed instructor Joshua LaRock developing a drawing of Michelangelo's marble sculpture Dying Slave, based on a cast bust of the master's sculpture.

LaRock approached the human figure drawing as if he were sculpting on the page, striving for a trompe-l'oeil sense of form in space. He documented his progress along the way and shared his approach with us.

		When preparing the figure sketch setup of the bust, it was critical to have one isolated light source on the cast. LaRock's rule of thumb is to position the light source at a distance from the subject that is approximately two to three times the length of the subject's largest dimension. The artist sat eye level with the bust and positioned it to emphasize strong, clean lines. He also took note of the exact placement of the bust and his position in relation to it, to prevent even the slightest change in perspective from sitting to sitting.
		The artist began his figure drawing very loosely to get the general proportions of the bust and develop points of stability-the height and width of the subject and any comparative measurements that could act as visual points of reference throughout the process. LaRock then produced the "block-in," in which every element is defined, from the thin and crisp contours, form shadows and cast shadows, to loose and lightly valued plane changes.
		Once the block-in was complete, the artist stepped back to evaluate the overall hierarchy of light and dark over the form, asking himself what the brightest and darkest regions were, the second brightest and darkest regions, and so forth. LaRock points out that assigning these demarcations while drawing figures isn't guesswork but is done in direct relation to how perpendicular a particular feature of the object is to the light source, with the brightest piece being the most perpendicular to the light.
		Once the darkest and lightest areas were established, the illusion of three-dimensionality was created, and it became possible to see the full arc of light over the face of the figure. In this stage of the figure sketch, LaRock focused on preserving the spectrum between the two extremes with minute changes made with pencil and eraser.
		In the final stage of the drawing, LaRock wanted to answer one crucial question: Does this two-dimensional drawing seem to sit in space and suggest the gesture of the figure? Are the figure drawing proportions correct? He went back to his initial rationale for the drawing-a desire to accentuate the long arc of the right side of the figure's neck as it leads to the ear and continues around where the hairline meets the forehead. To accomplish this successfully without creating unnecessary distractions, LaRock went back in and played with the left side of the face, darkening certain areas so that they seemed to sit back farther in space and lightening other areas so that the right balance of volume was created. All of this involved very minor touches of graphite and also making a point on the eraser and using it as a drawing tool, hatching as you would with a pencil.

LaRock's expert drawing is based on sound understanding of light and form and skilled execution of those principles. His willingness to break down his approach to every eye-deceiving "curve" is similar to the "real life" exploration and instruction you can receive with a copy of Life Drawing: How to Portray the Figure with Accuracy and Expression. You'll gain access to thoughtful instruction on the basics of figure anatomy, proportion, and design that puts you on the road to being your artistic best. Enjoy!

Watercolor Painting Pencils? Sure, Tell Me Another One!

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:38:00 GMT

For just a few seconds, I thought that watercolor pencils were some kind of April Fool's come lately prank. I mean, everything I think of and know about watercolor painting is that it is fluid and kind of uncontrollable. In a pencil, how can watercolor art still have that same looseness? But then I thought about the reverse of this-watercolor pencils might mean no more watercolor paintings going off the rails. With a pencil, I would be able to guide the forms more and give them the overall shape that I want, right? Well, I was a little right and a little wrong. Watercolor painting pencils can give you a bit more control, but the fluidity of the medium is still there.

Farmers' Market Peonies by Kristy Ann Kutch,
watercolor painting, 2002, 15 x 20.


Step 1-2. Adapted from Drawing and Painting With Colored Pencils: Basic Techniques for Mastering Traditional and Watersoluble Colored Pencils (Watson-Guptill, New York, New York).

Here's a step-by-step watercolor tutorial on using the wet-in-wet watercolor-pencil technique to create a lovely peony painting from watercolor artist Kristy Ann Kutch, so you can see for yourself!

Step 1 & 2: Prepare a line drawing of a peony blossom using either a light blue, lavender, or HB pencil on hot-pressed watercolor paper. Save the central light-colored stamen area of the peony with masking fluid, and allow it to dry.

Step 3 & 4: Stroke on dry layers of these watercolor pencils, beginning with the lightest values and ending with the darkest: light magenta, pink madder lake, light purple pink, and mauve. Dissolve these layers by stroking from the lightest to the darkest areas with a damp, size 6 round brush. Wet only one petal at a time. The top petal in this illustration has been wetted and the pigment dissolved into a wash.


		Step 3-4.

Step 5: Touch a wet, size 2 rigger brush directly to the lead of a violet or pink carmine watercolor pencil so the entire brush is saturated with pigment. Lightly dab the brush's tip with a tissue. Touch this brush directly to the wet petal area, and drag it through the length of the petal in one continuous stroke. Only brush in one direction. The wetter the petal, the more the color will spread and flow. Repeat this process for each petal, but be sure to wait until adjacent petals are dry to keep each petal distinct.

Step 6: When the entire blossom is dry, peel away the making fluid, and apply strokes of cadmium yellow and cadmium orange to the stamens. Wet them with either the fine tip of a colorless blender marker or a wet size 2 round brush. If desired, enhance the colors with either traditional or watercolor pencils in the appropriate color. Use a Tuscan red Verithin pencil on the stamens and along the petal edges to refine these details.


Step 5-6.

Did this open your mind to the possibilities of how to paint with watercolor pencils? It certainly did with me! For more watercolor painting tips and watercolor lessons from professional artists and skilled watercolor instructors, consider a subscription to Watercolor Artist magazine. It will have all the inspiration and methods you need to keep your art going strong! Enjoy your subscription!

I Think I Pulled a Muscle...Artistically Speaking

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:06:00 GMT

Sustain Your Art Business With a Sound Studio Practice, Starting with Warm-Ups

When I think of a warm-up, it is usually a sweaty business in which you raise your heart rate, get your muscles loosened up, and stretch a bit. Warm-up exercises for artists are a little different but not that different, and they can really help us artistic "athletes" get the most of our time in front of the easel, focusing our attention and making sure our hands and eyes are in sync. Warm-ups for artists can last a few minutes or go for lengthier spans of exercises that continue for an hour or so.


Warm-ups for artists often involve being spontaneous, loosening up your muscles, and letting go. But jogging might work too! Adapted from an article by Daniel Grant.

For example, in some workshops where students are not professional artists, instructors find it helpful to conduct one-day, seven-hour portraiture and figure-painting sessions that start with two hours of quick drawings on paper before students tackle the canvas. With students who work in a field that has nothing to do with art, this gives them the opportunity to narrow their focus, warm up the eye to what's in front of them, and get the clutter out of their minds.

The process of getting grounded, or being present, involves warming up both the artists' senses (of tone, texture, composition) and their ability to translate what they see to the paper or canvas. Simply making the first mark can be a struggle. But all students need to remember is that there's not a lot invested in these quick studies and that can help us free up our minds and let go.

Debbie Cannatella, a Texas painter and art teacher, tries to break through students' worries about making mistakes and maintaining control with warm-up exercises that treat ordinary household objects (such as a fork or a wrench) as abstract images. "I find that people get hung up if they draw something and it doesn't come out looking like the object," she notes. "If they're not worried about making a carbon copy of that object on the paper, they can let go of their fear of drawing."

According to Robert Burridge, a California painter who teaches numerous workshops, many students are overly focused on the final product. "I tell people that it doesn't have to look like something and be ready to sell," Burridge says. "You can just have fun." He says he hands out 6"-x-9" pieces of paper—"so they don't feel they've wasted a good piece of watercolor paper"—and asks students to paint action words taken from a thesaurus. There may be five or six words, and for each word they get one minute to communicate the concept visually in a painterly or graphic way. Between each one the students show what they did and talk about it. "There's a lot of laughing. I'll be ready to move on, and they'll say, 'Give us more of these,'" the artist points out. He also says his workshop participants cherish these little drawings, and that the exercise adds to the camaraderie of the class.

For Burridge, the warm-ups are an opportunity to be spontaneous and noncerebral. "It quickly gets students into the creative side of their brains," he explains. On the occasions when he hasn't done these exercises, he has found that students are scared of doing something wrong. "I just have a harder time getting them into the painting mode," he says.

Proper warm-up exercises are just one aspect of a healthy, productive studio session. For more guidance on how to hone your skills toward displaying art you are proud of and selling art to a wider audience, zero-in on Workshop for Professional Practices, which is full of resources that will show you where art and business meet and where you stand in relation to both. Enjoy!

350 Ways of Drawing Faces

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:24:00 GMT

Can you imagine figuring out how to draw a face—the same face—350 times or more, and making each portrait drawing different and as compositionally sound and interesting as if you had made only one? Quite a task, yet Italian designer, sculptor, and painter Piero Fornasetti did just that.


Fornasetti in front of a wall filled with his plates.

Fornasetti took as his muse the Italian opera singer Lina Cavalieri, and he created a plate series with over 350 variations of the soprano's face. Looking through several images from the series, you see certain commonalities in the body of work, such as the exclusive use of black and white and the frontal presentation of Cavalieri's face. But the lasting impression the plates made on me was how significant small changes can be when drawing faces. Fornasetti's work shows that simple changes within a consistent framework (in his case, the portrait drawing of one woman) can lead to an amazing number of works that did not require him to go to square one each time he began again.

So when drawing portraits, I always try to remember that small changes count as much as big ones do. You can keep the figure's position and expression relatively the same and change something outward or add an accessory, and the entire piece takes on a new life. Each work stands alone, but there is also a common tie that connects all the pieces in a much larger context.

Fornasetti's template of Cavalieri's face gave birth to hundreds of variations.

This understanding can be applied to all the thematic explorations that we do as well. Sometimes, I feel like I have to come up with a new, bombastic idea for every artwork, but that can leave you mentally exhausted and exasperated, and what's more, it isn't even true. My experience talking to artists about their practices, researching great artists of the past, and pursuing my own work has shown me that you arrive at a strong theme by tweaking it, not in one fell swoop. Taking an idea in different directions and teasing out its essence until you find what you really want to say is the way to go. For Fornasetti, one face was inspiration enough to make a considerable number of portrait drawings. Even if we are half as inspired or relentless, we'd have an impressive number of drawings or paintings to show for it. Not bad at all!

If you are seeking the inspiration you need or the unique fine-art resources that will goad your creativity in new directions, explore the North Light Shop. There is a store-wide sale going on right now, with plenty of books, magazines, DVDs, and video downloads to send you off in whatever artistic direction you choose. Enjoy!

6 Tips on How to Draw Anything Accurately

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:56:00 GMT

Drawing is a fundamental skill for artists, emphasis on "skill." That means there are basic drawing rules and approaches that work, including these six tips on how to draw anything accurately.


Delmonico Building by Charles Sheeler, 1926, lithograph drawing. Adapted from an article by M. Stephen Doherty.

1. Start by drawing shapes, not identifiable objects. You'll hear this advice over and over again in art classes and workshops. To understand what it really means, think about the way children draw faces. They know that a face has two eyes, two ears, a centered nose, and two lips. No matter how the person facing them is posed, children will insist on including all the features, even if they can only see one eye, one ear, and a protruding nose. They draw what they know, not what they see. To some extent, adults do exactly the same thing.

2. Consider the negative shapes as much as you do the positive shapes. Students often find it difficult to determine how to draw an arm that extends away from a model's body or the distance between two objects sitting on a table. The way to do that is to imagine that the "negative space," or the open space between the model's body and her arm, is a solid object with a height, width, and length. The same technique can be used when trying to determine how far one building is from another or how high a head is above a model's shoulders. It helps to deal with the negative space in the same way you deal with the positive shapes.

3. Visualize and draw the lines you can't see in order to draw the visible lines accurately. Sometimes the best way to draw something that is partially concealed from your view is to continue the lines as if you could actually see it. For example, if you want to determine the curvature of a bowl filled with fruit, draw the complete circular top as if the bowl were empty, and then erase the sections that are obstructed. And if you want to know how far a leg extends beyond a person's waistline, drop an imaginary plumb line from the waist to the floor, and then evaluate the shape of the triangle formed by the leg, floor, and plumb line.

4. Draw connected shapes, not disconnected shapes. It's very difficult to calculate how far a person's head is from the bottom of his or her feet, the distance from one ear to the other, or the distance from a far tree to one in the foreground unless you draw all the shapes in between. That is, after guessing at the total height of a standing figure and establishing a scale for the drawing so that it fits on the sheet of paper, work your way down from the head to the shoulders, from there to the waist, on to the knees, etc, so that you can judge each shape in relationship to the others.


	Boxer by Charles Demuth, drawing.

5. Draw light guidelines between shapes to better judge the distances between them. Artist Robert Liberace recommends to start by making very light, straight lines between all the component parts of the figure or still life objects to guide your hand as you begin to refine a drawing. Then gradually add more lines using Conté crayons, graphite, charcoal, or colored pencils to darken the edges of the shapes and the shadow patterns in between.

6. Start by drawing the lightest values and build to the darkest. Most artists find that it makes sense to gradually build from the lightest areas of their drawings to the darkest so they have an opportunity to make adjustments along the way without damaging the surface of the paper or creating ugly smudges where they have erased inaccurate lines.

For more drawing ideas and tips, think about adding one of Daniel Greene's DVDs, including Portrait Drawing, to your art-resource library. You'll discover this artist's unique methods on viewing your subject and creating drawings that resonate with the portrait drawings done by the Old Masters and Impressionists alike. Enjoy!

Our Newest Free eBook on How to Draw a Rose & More!

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:55:00 GMT

I'm a people pleaser. I innately want to make those around me happy and satisfied. So when an Artist Daily reader came to me wanting to know more about how to draw flowers, I wanted to come back to them with a resource that could really get to the heart of the matter.

Our latest free eBook, How to Draw Flowers: How to Draw a Rose, Azalea, or Any Flower Drawing You'd Like, fits the bill. It really gives you all the art instruction you could want on how to draw flowers, from what medium you can use and the benefits of them all, to what surface to choose and why, to the tools you'll want on hand to pull off your flower drawing with realism and loveliness--it's all here.

There is instruction on drawing flowers like azaleas, daisies, hydrangeas, magnolia blossoms, water lilies, and, of course, detailed instruction on producing a rose drawing that may not smell as sweet as its name, but it will sure look as lovely and vibrant as the real thing! Each flower drawing mini-chapter has a step-by-step component so you see how each flower drawing comes together. So learn how to draw flowers with How to Draw Flowers: How to Draw a Rose, Azalea, or Any Flower Drawing You'd Like. I hope you like it as much as I do. Enjoy!

And if you know of an artist friend or family member who loves drawing flowers, please feel free to forward this email to them so that they can download their free copy of How to Draw Flowers: How to Draw a Rose, Azalea, or Any Flower Drawing You'd Like.

Love Them Extra Because They're Weird

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 03:12:00 GMT

I own up to the fact that I am drawn to the portraits artist Jenny Morgan creates because they are unconventional. Yet they capture qualities of the human face and our other human qualities in ways that read very true and lifelike. I like them because they are different, but not just because they are different.


	Merging the Phantom by Jenny Morgan, oil on canvas, 42 x 32, 2012.

When learning how to draw faces, there is a lot of rote visual information to take care of--two eyes, one nose, one mouth. Yes, each face is different, but the nuts and bolts of the work are the same. This can sometimes standardize the way we work. Maybe you've seen this. Taking a portrait class, everyone's works can look the same. And this makes absolute sense in a class setting. But individual artists need to discover their own way of drawing faces and painting the human figure that is theirs and theirs alone. Morgan has, and she doesn't let the baseline of similarity implicit in all portraits (two eyes, one nose, one mouth) prevent her from articulating things through the human face in new ways.


Bunny by Jenny Morgan, oil on canvas, 37 x 32, 2012.

She uses color, shadows, angles and a collage effect of images (a profile versus a frontal portrait, for example) to create moments that are psychologically intense and visually stunning. To do this in a genre of painting that has been around for centuries, such as portrait drawing, I consider to be even more impressive.

If you've found the person or model who makes you want to start drawing faces but you want to make sure you do your subject justice with strong skills and sensitivity, Expressive Portraits: Watercolor and Mixed Media Techniques will give you the instruction you need with demonstrations in watercolor, pencil, pastel, and more, including information on using brushwork techniques and layering to give each face you draw liveliness and spirit. Enjoy!

With Instincts Like Vermeer & Vuillard

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:15:00 GMT

Continuing the long line of intimists from Vermeer to Vuillard, Mark Karnes makes an alluring world out of the quietest aspects of his domestic life. Like all great painters of the near-at-hand, Karnes' work reminds us that beauty is to be found everywhere, at both expected and unexpected moments, and with every turn of the head.

Interior With Sailboat by Mark Karnes, oil painting, 2005. 24 x 36.
Adapted from an article by Ephraim Rubenstein.

Karnes' acrylic-painting sketches are generally painted alla prima, in one sitting, whereas his more finished paintings develop slower. For those, he usually starts out with a surface toned with a neutral raw-umber wash. Even with the most complicated pieces, such as Interior With Sailboat, the artist starts out with almost no preparatory drawing. What is of interest to him at the beginning is the large division of light and dark. He then starts to introduce temperature changes, thinking about what parts of the light are warm and what parts cool.

At any given point, he does only as much drawing as he needs to help him place the color. Only toward the end does he pin down the specifics of the drawing. This ensures that his paintings are primarily about tone, color, and light, rather than their ostensible subject.

The particular voyage of Interior With Sailboat is taken in midwinter, when the toy sailboat generally sits in dry dock on the table. The cold winter light, rendered so beautifully in the painting, bathes the attic room that Karnes uses as a studio. The model sailboat--the subtle centerpiece of the whole painting--suggests that all is quiet, while the beam of direct light, momentarily hitting the far wall, reminds us that time is passing and that the winds will change.

For more insights on the power and mutability of acrylic painting, consider Acrylic Solutions. You'll find new and challenging acrylic-painting lessons and tips on how to create art pieces that look and feel contemporary. Enjoy!

When a Photo Can Do It Right

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:43:00 GMT

Certainly, there are pitfalls to making paintings from photos. One problem occurs when an artist thinks that a photo is magic and that he or she can turn a photo into a painting with a snap of the fingers. It isn't that easy, of course. And even if it were possible to easily reproduce photos as paintings, we wouldn't be too happy with the results, because in most cases the things we love about paintings are not the qualities photos can provide, and vice versa.


A pastel painting by Marie-Elise Larene.

But going from photos to paintings can be useful. When drawing portraits from photos, even if you only look at a reference photo occasionally, it helps to remind you of your sitter's facial features and bearing. That's useful. Also, when looking at photos of constantly changing subjects--like oceans or sunsets--you are able to hold in your hand something that is finite and temporary. Yes, it is only a photographed image of the phenomenon, but such images can, again, be useful as sources of reference about color, shape, and perspective.


		A pastel painting by Marie-Elise Larene.

I've recently discovered the work of pastelist Marie-Elise Larene, which has made me realize that when I'm looking at a finished painting, I don't really care if the artist is painting from photographs. Her colors are so bold and right-on, and the texture of the pastels gives such an atmospheric appearance to her flat surface. The results are as if she put me in front of a fiery sunset or glowing day on the water and froze time. I could care less about whether she is working from photo to painting or not. So when you are deciding your working method, don't be dismissive of the tools you have at your disposal. Think of how to use them to paint something inspiring and lovely that achieves your vision. That is the only thing that matters and the highest standard you can hold yourself to.

If you want to paint seascapes and visions of the sea but you are nowhere near a coast or large body of water, you can still capture the beauty and inspiration that comes with the right combination of light, sea, and sky. The downloadable Photo Reference for Artists: Nautical Scenes with Gary Greene provides almost 500 images to ignite your seafaring imagination and puts you in the right mindset to paint the convincing nautical scenes that may not be as close as your backyard but are within your grasp. Enjoy!

No Two Shadows Are Alike

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:21:00 GMT

I am usually heartened when I hear disagreements about matters of art and technique. Maybe I'm just combative that way, but more likely, I think I take such debates as a sign that there are more artists coming to the table, that the field is growing and evolving, and that there's no end in sight. This can only mean good things for someone like me, who spends her whole day looking at art.

One area in which artistic schools of thought differ is how to approach the matter of shading. Classically inclined artists tend to standardize levels of shading. Drawing light and shadow is codified and controlled. On one hand, this allows an artist to get a handle on shading shapes relatively quickly. On the other hand, this gives the appearance of those shadows a level of sameness from artist to artist. You can often recognize how someone was taught shading techniques because they employ them in a certain way.


A still life painting by Renee Foulks.

Other schools of thought approach shading differently and allow for more variation and less segmentation in shadow areas. An artist who typifies this approach is artist Renee Foulks, who has a great deal of depth and little systematic transitioning in her shadows. The artist works a lot slower as a result of this, because she deals with shadow areas on a case-by-case basis.

A work by Yasuyo Tanaka demonstrating suminagashi.

And sometimes "shading" is nothing of the sort. For example, suminagashi is an ancient Japanese technique that produces swirling marble patterns by mixing water and oil. The results trick the eye with their subtle gradations, and I know several artists who are exploring this technique as a way to better understand the abstract qualities of shading.

Knowing these differing approaches exist gives artists a great deal of options in the area of shading. Drawing shadows in perspective correctly, learning how to use types of shading appropriately, and exploring the nuances of crosshatching are some additional steps to take in order to begin to achieve artistic mastery in drawing. For more on advanced drawing skills and how you can leverage those skills through painting, consider learning from the greatest artists of all time in the special edition: 75 Greatest Artists of All Time. It and many other CD and print resources are 50% off right now. Enjoy!

The Perfect Blend of Literal and Abstract

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 03:53:00 GMT

When I say "the perfect blend," I feel a little bit like I am describing a gourmet coffee flavor, but there really is a perfect blend that exists in pastel painting. For me, the crème de la crème of pastel drawings combines a certain level of literal representation with a modern sense of the abstract.

The Curmudgeon by John Philbin Dolan, pastel painting, 12 x 16.

What I mean by literal

When I say a great pastel painting should be "literal," I mean, in part, that when you look at the painting you should know what or who is being depicted. But the idea doesn't stop there. I also mean that such works put the vibrant colors of pastels to good use describing forms, atmosphere, and light. They use line and texture thoughtfully to give a sense of an object's surface quality and shape.

What I mean by abstract

An artist who can couple the literal in his or her pastel drawing with abstraction visually pushes the versatility of the medium, emphasizing with each stroke the way that the painting comes together as much as the narrative that is being visually shown. The two should be dealt with as one. For example, working the side and the tip of the pastel as well as blending and scumbling are basic techniques of pastel painting. But when you start to link subject matter with these formal techniques--that's where the magic happens.

Coup de Foudre by Marie-Elise Larène, pastel painting.

It can be a difficult idea for me to wrap my head around. It has been described to me as looking at a Monet painting and seeing separate dabs of color while simultaneously seeing the flower grove or the lily pad. You see what the artist is painting as well as the way he paints it. This also means that you don't have to just paint what you see--you can push your visuals further for the sake of the feeling you want to evoke.

I'm nowhere near an expert in pastel painting, which is why I seek out insightful and established artists to take pastel lessons from in order to learn more about how to get my own "perfect blend." Claudia Seymour is one such artist, an expert when it comes to the bright, glowing, vivid quality of pastels. Her DVD, Pastel Painting Techniques: Still Life Flowers makes her time-honored subject matter accessible and invigorating. She shares compositional strategies, tips on capturing delicate features of your subject, and pastel-drawing instruction on dimension so that your objects can really have the look of three-dimensionality. Enjoy!