-
It feels right to talk about color and art during this time of the year, when flowers are blooming, trees are budding, and skies are (mostly) blue. After months of dull-colored scenery, everything seems to be flourishing wherever I look, which makes me want to do whatever I can to capture that beauty...
-
Especially since the mid-1800s, many artists have stressed color over other elements in painting. The Impressionists are notable examples. Monet, for instance, explored how to paint light and its effects on the colorful scenes he saw in his mind's eye. Although many think of Monet as a painter of...
-
Looking at Mark Messersmith's artwork is like being sucked into a kaleidoscope. The colors are bold, varied, and everywhere. It seems odd to say this. I mean, of course, there is color everywhere--it's a painting. But what stands out about Messersmith's work is that the colors, more than...
-
I was always taught that effective color mixing starts with discovering the tinting strength of each color on your palette. For me, that is the basis of understanding how to mix colors, because it tells me how they will react when combined. A Breath Away by Joseph McGurl, oil on canvas, 24 x 36. I'm...
-
Going "no holds barred" sounds tough, and slightly scary, but I'm feeling particularly intense about not wasting time learning how to paint like I want to paint. The clock is ticking, but that really doesn't mean much. The clock is going to tick no matter if we spend the time working...
-
It's a brand new year and I want to start it off with a bang! And the one thing that I can't get enough of is color. The color wheel holds such simple beauty and complex mysteries, from saturated primary colors to more involved color mixes, that I don't see how I could ever feel like I've...
-
Around this time of year we are inundated with wintry scenes and beautiful snowy landscapes--on greeting cards, products, advertisements, calendars and more. But these winter landscapes aren't necessarily all created equal, and the same goes for the fine art paintings of the same subject. One of...
-
Perhaps the toughest skill that the artist painting outside must learn is the ability to judge values accurately, and then mix them in paint. The reason that this skill requires so much practice to get right is because our eyes and brains are constantly adjusting to the light, kind of like a video camera...
-
In plein air we attempt a form of direct translation. In the studio, we may recall our observations of nature, but are freer to be inventive with color. Night Passage by Mitchell Albala, 2006, oil painting on panel, 20 x 20. It's September and the plein air painting season is drawing to a close ...
-
The winners of our Self-Portrait Cover Competition are featured in the September issue of American Artist, and they share advice about how to paint the figure and how to maintain a successful painting practice. When we asked David Tanner, the winner of the competition, to give his advice, he offered...
Posted to
The Oil Painting Blog
by
Austin R. Williams
on
12 Jul 2012
Filed under:
Filed under: color, oil painting, plein air, still life, landscape painting, portrait painting, how to paint, Figure Drawing, Drawing Basics, Photo Reference, Art, Artist Daily
-
Topics and ideas that tend to strike a chord and spark debate are often that way because they are so subjective. In art, color is definitely one of those sensitive subjects because no two people see a color in exactly the same way, nor do painters always mix colors identically to create similar end results...
-
I acknowledge that there is a lot about the color wheel and mixing colors that I don't know. But one thing I do know is that there's more to art than color schemes and memorizing a color mixing chart. Andrew by Fred Hatt, drawing with aquarelle crayons, 35 x 25. For example, artist Fred Hatt...
-
The Water Lily Pond by Claude Monet, oil painting, 1899. Mitchell Albala is an inspiring art instructor in the field of landscape painting , and it turns out he's an awesome detective as well. Recently, he did some sleuthing on a rare video clip of Monet in the act of painting—incredible!—and...
-
There are differing opinions among color theory purists whether white should be considered a color at all, since it represents the absence of hue or chroma, and cannot be made from the three primaries, as black theoretically can be. It's not usually represented on the color wheel, but white is usually...
-
Notice how Gury scratches through the paint in his oil painting Autumn Glow , reinforcing the shape and outline of the tree limbs. I'm not one to ask or judge someone by their resume or history because we all walk our own paths and get meaningful life experiences in different ways. But when I saw...