10 Mental Keys to Make an Extraordinary Painting
Plein air painter Bill Davidson takes us through his process of creating a powerful landscape painting.
Painting Techniques: Glazing Basics
Have you heard of the glazing technique, but aren’t sure when or why you’d apply it to your painting? In this guest blog post, Hebe Brooks, a NOAPS Master Artist, explains glazing for beginners.
Is Ultramarine a Cool Blue?
Particularly in plein air painting, where carrying a lot of paint tubes around and having a complex palette is often avoided, artists go for a split-primary palette, with a warm and cool for each primary color. So what is your warm blue?
Understanding Value Keys for Painting Landscapes
The key of a painting refers to its overall appearance in value or, more specifically, to the position of its foundation values on the value scale. John MacDonald explains.
How to Sell Your Art in 2020
Why isn’t your art selling? More importantly, how do you make it sell in 2020? Find out in this letter from Eric Rhoads.
Working Out the Kinks of Water-Mixable Oils
Christine Lashley gets a wide variety of responses — everything from rude negativity to nods from those in the know — when people discover that she paints with both traditional and water-mixable oils. Here are the benefits and the drawbacks as she has experienced them.
The Visual Tools You Need to Create Atmospheric Perspective
Master these elements to give your paintings a powerful sense of atmospheric depth.
Painting Landscapes: Why Draw? Let’s Just Paint.
You don’t actually have to learn drawing techniques if you’re painting landscapes, right? John Pototschnik shares his insights.
Understanding Your Subject as an Abstract Design
Before laying paint to canvas, it’s a good idea to assess your subject in terms of pure abstraction. John Hughes explains.
10 Drawing Principles That’ll Improve Your Paintings
Improve your drawing skills to achieve accurate placement and proportions in your paintings. The good news is that you don’t have to stop painting in order to improve your drawing; it’s not an either–or situation. Read on to shine a light on this challenge!
A Plein Air Painting Step-by-Step: Passing Fancy
Pastel artist Nancie King Mertz shares how she created a recent landscape with a unique composition in this step-by-step demonstration.
Three Quick Tips on How to Paint Dog Portraits
This advice from Johanne Mangi, one of the world’s top painters of dog portraits, will get you going in the right direction toward painting our canine counterparts.
Painting Landscapes: Paint Exactly What You See
In recent years, top plein air painters have been using painting procedures associated with academic studio painting. Painters like Marc Dalessio, Joseph McGurl, and Matt Chinian all frame their landscape subjects inside a rigid viewer, then paint exactly what they see inside that rectangle. Find out why.
A Great Painting Always Comes Down to This
Quite frankly, these elements are the glue that holds every good painting together and, conversely, is the reason some paintings fall apart!
What Is a Proportional Wheel?
For artists, a proportional wheel is (or should be) an indispensable tool. See why in this guest blog post from John Pototschnik.
Plein Air Painting in Yosemite: Joys and Challenges
Artists from the California Art Club share their experiences from — and advice for — painting in Yosemite.
9 Suggestions for the Beginning Artist
If you’re still in the early phases of your art journey, you’ll appreciate these practical nuts and bolts of getting started as an artist.
Advice for Artists: 10 Ways to Take New Risks
Why is taking risks so important for our growth as artists, especially when it comes to confidence? Jed Dorsey explains in this excerpt from “The Confident Artist.”
Fresh Off the Easel of Lori Putnam
See a landscape painting come to life step-by-step in this behind-the-scenes look into Lori Putnam’s recent painting, “Downtown Charlotte.”
Oil Painting Demo: Irises by Lynn Dunbar
To help market her artwork, Lynn Dunbar summarized her approach to plein air and studio painting and emphasized her response to the spirit, vitality, and beauty of her home state.
