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Being able to analyze an artwork is essential for developing as an artist and to fully appreciate what the great artists create. If you don’t understand what is going on in a master artwork, how could you expect to learn how to paint it for yourself? In this post I discuss how to analyze art…
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Painting is all about taking an idea and communicating that idea to other people using paint and brush. Most people only talk about the physical process of how to apply paint to the canvas. But it is also important to consider what happens before you pick up your brush – the process of taking that…
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Contrast is everything in painting. Without it, you may as well leave the canvas blank. It is one of the principles of art which refers to the striking difference between two elements in art. For example, there is a strong contrast when you place a vivid red next to a dull green, or a rough…
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If you are just starting out in painting, one of the first areas I suggest you learn is how light and shadow work. It influences almost everything we do as artists – the colors we use, our compositions, our brushwork, how we render form and so on. It is also one of the few aspects of art…
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Texture in art is a visual element which refers to the surface quality of a painting (i.e. smooth, rough, matte, glossy, etc). Many artists seem to overlook the importance of texture, but I find it to be one of the most versatile tools at our disposal. In this post I discuss what texture is and…
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Notan is a Japanese term which literally means “light dark harmony”. Artists use “notan studies” to explore different arrangements of light and dark elements in a painting, without having the distraction of other elements like color, texture and finer details. In practice, this involves painting the darks with black and the lights with white (known…
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I recently put the finishing touches on this painting which features a secluded red house amongst the beautiful New Zealand landscape. I will walk you through how I painted it and what went on behind the strokes of my brush. New Zealand, Red House, Oil, 12×16 Inches Supplies Used I recently invested in some Rosemary…
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If you want to improve your drawing skills, then I believe it is important that you put in regular practice (daily if possible). In a previous post I wrote about how I was doing daily gesture drawings. I have continued with this practice and it has greatly improved my instinctive drawing skills and understanding of the…
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Black is a very polarizing color in the art world. Some people swear by using black, and others avoid it all together. In this post I want to try and clear up some of the confusion around black and provide you with some information on how to use it in your paintings and how to mix…
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When you sell a painting, it is important that you are able to get it to the buyer in a safe condition. So much effort goes into creating a painting that it would be a shame for it to be damaged in transit. I recently had to say goodbye to one of my paintings and…
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