-
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...
-
When I paint figures the work seems to matter more--I find that I'm more focused on the process than when I am just drawing fancifully from my head or creating a still life. And by "matter" I mean that the intensity is ratcheted up just a bit and I just feel really invested in what I am...
-
I am writing this as things have never looked better for me financially, as an artist. I have had a few huge sales and wildly successful shows over the years, but I feel as if I have tapped into a new realm of possibilities in recent months. And this in a time of financial hardship for many across the...
-
I'm not telling you anything you don't already know when I say that successful portraiture is successful when the portrait artist, foremost, captures a likeness. Yes, I ardently believe that there has to be something more to the story—a sense of the subject's spirit or personality,...
-
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
-
I love Masterpiece Theater on PBS. Recently the movie Birdsong aired--a love story about a soldier on the battlefield of World War I and the lover he left behind. Claude Renoir Writing by Pierre Auguste Renoir, lithograph, 1902/3. There was a scene from the movie that has stuck in my mind. The main character...
-
As an artist, I often feel that I am more sensitive than others, or perhaps I am more in touch because I need to be so that my work will flow genuinely from my heart and allow me to respond from a deeper place. That is one of the reasons that I faced my fear and started painting in front of large crowds...
-
I've come to realize that that old saying "It's not always what you know, but who you know," is spot on. Even at American Artist magazine . Luckily, "we" know a lot of people, and as a result we have remarkable access to some of the greatest artists and works of art out there...
-
Patricia Watwood is a skilled oil painter and incredibly deserving of a lot of praise for the art career she has built for herself. She's also quite willing to share her approach to building a network for her art, as she attests below. Enjoy! The Honorable Clarence Harmon, Mayor of St. Louis by Patricia...
-
Drawing magazine and Artist Daily are proud to announce that Beñat Iglesias Lopez is the winner of Drawing magazine's self-portrait cover competition. Autoteatro No. 2 (Homage to A. Ametzka and G. Martinikorena) by Beñat Iglesias Lopez, 2009, graphite, 24 x 18. The contest received...
-
I am not a finicky person, so getting my hands dirty to get a job done is totally fine with me. But with painting, I can get so uptight and hesitant that the physical joy of it all goes right out the window. I'm trying to be better about what I'm calling my straightjacket tendency, and one way...
-
Portraiture is, in my humble opinion, the domain of artistic masters. All the greats, such as Velazquez, Rembrandt, Goya, and Sargent, can be counted as incredibly skilled and innovative portrait artists in addition to being pretty brilliant at everything else they chose to paint. The Milkmaid of Bordeaux...
-
Cirque Tents by Terri Ford, pastel painting. It's what I thought to myself when I started to look into how to get layers of pastel to build up. It just didn't seem possible, or easily possible. But I did my research, and that dog will hunt! Here are a few tips on how to get the layered effects...
-
Eva Mullarky by Kristin Künc, oil on linen, 9 x 13, 2011. I can be a really hard sell when it comes to portraiture because from a beginner painter's perspective, I'm not always sure how to get the most out of a portrait painting session. So I wanted to talk to a close friend and amazing...
-
Don't give up your plein air focus over the winter months. Try to paint from life indoors and keep sketching. ( Melting Snow by Ben Fenske, 60 x 75, oil on canvas.) For some of us, winter weather is just a bit too unpredictable and chilly to spend much time outdoor painting. But if you're like...