The painting doesn’t have to be perfect in the beginning of your art journey. At first it won’t be, for me, this was one of the biggest barriers to begin painting. What I didn’t realize is, after one thousand paintings, while it will be much better, and should be, it still won’t be perfect. What I didn’t realize is, as simple as it may sound, if you paint a crooked line which is supposed to be straight, it can be fixed once you know how. In acrylics and oils, it’s as simple as covering up the wrong parts with another color, and filling in the areas that need fixed. X-rays…

I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve saved Orange and Purple as the last in my color series for a very good reason. They are probably my least favorite colors to use in painting. As a Tennessee football fan most of the Orange I have is tied to that team. Yes in bad years as well as good, we are Tennessee fans. For me Purple is the last on the spectrum, but like Orange I do have a few Purples I enjoy. As a color I enjoy Orange, it can be bright and vibrant, but as a paint I seldom use it beyond sunrise or sunset. Typically a yellow…

Three artists walk into a field, one is smiling, one is angry, and the other is sad. They were all seeing the same thing, they’re it affected each differently. They were all seeing green, and if you’re an artist you understand I’m not just trying to be funny. Seeing and painting green is among the most difficult challenges an artist faces. Capturing light, balancing your darks, painting green accurately, capturing a likeness in a portrait, and achieving a realistic landscape are at least in the top ten great technical challenges in art. You’ll notice, while all the subjects are affected by color, only one focuses on a specific color. The…

Even in art, especially with color, appearances are deceiving. When I first looked at a tube of Van Dyke Brown and placed some of it on my palette, I was not impressed. It resembled an amalgamation of a gray and a brown to me, and I didn’t appreciate all this color could do. I was very wrong about it. The strength of Van Dyke Brown isn’t only on what it can do alone, but how it can be used together with other colors. One of my favorite things about Van Dyke Brown is that I can mix it with a black to make Sepia. Now that I am more familiar…

Versatile colors are my favorite, I used the term versatile rather than vibrant because they do not always have to be bright to intrigue me. While I love Prussian Blue, I also love Payne’s Gray. Both are intense, one is vibrant, the other is not. Much like them, Yellow Ochre has a richness about it I enjoy. The color is so rich that it’s been supposed that it may be the inspiration for the fictional story of King Midas’ golden touch. A body was found in a royal tomb, believed to be the father of the historical King Midas, which was wrapped in a shroud died from Goethite, the material…

I remember watching an episode of a British show about art and seeing a painting with a distinctive red. This same red can be used both vividly and also very subdued, it’s a very versatile color. The color Venetian Red has been used by many famous artists including the Renaissance painters. They say it was named because it was mined for years in a quarry near Venice though the name was applied to it much later. This same red is famous for paintings, classic toy soldiers, and the uniforms of the British army during the American Revolution. This would explain why it’s also known as English Red, Indian Red, Scarlet…

I have been fascinated by the different colors on an artist’s palette for along time. Many artists limit their colors to a certain range of colors, or use only three colors to mix all of their different combinations. I use more colors than most. I am a fan of what are called convenience colors (colors that can be mixed but you buy already mixed to save time or for convenience). Yet there are a few colors I try to always keep on my palette, at the top is Prussian Blue. The first painting which used Prussian Blue is said to be the entombment of Christ by Pieter van der Werff…

We’ve talked about the pencil, the ballpoint, fountain pens, and the brush, now let’s talk about the eye of the artist. First let me say that this terminology can be an unnecessary barrier when someone tries to understand art, and it doesn’t have to be. When referring to art, the eye falls into two primary categories. When viewing art, you’ve probably heard they have a good eye. This refers to an eye for a painting’s composition, what may gain or retain its value over time, and purchasing paintings which work well together to form an art collection. This term is usually applied to non artists when talking about either a…

When I was younger I wanted to use a paintbrush, but was frustrated when trying to do so. This was because I wanted it to function as a pencil or pen. I was hoping to simply draw what I was trying to with it easily, but there were some factors about the brush that I didn’t realize at the time. I’m still learning absolutely, but I understand a few things now that I missed before. First, I didn’t just start out using a pencil or an ink pen and get it to draw what I wanted either. I had to learn about the instrument. The way to hold it, and…