Painting Demonstrations & Art Tips

Learn how to add realistic perspective and depth to a landscape using Carla Bosch’s shape-first approach. Includes guidance on sketching, toned canvas, and leading the eye for an atmospheric Yosemite mountain scene.

How to Paint Landscapes > Learn how to quickly accomplish a glowing, magical atmosphere in paintings with this free step-by-step demo from Bill Davidson ("How to Paint Glowing Landscapes" on PaintTube.TV).

The following landscape painting demonstration is by Trey Finney, whose work stresses high contrast and a high key. 

Discover a practical idea to improve your landscape painting composition and design skills. If you can do this, you stand a good chance of winding up with a strong painting that reads as a design from across the room.

Plein air painter Peggy Immel takes us through a step-by-step landscape painting tutorial on how she created "Spring Willows."

Artists Mike Hernandez and Tiffanie Mang share tips on how digital painting tools can enhance your plein air practice — making you faster, bolder, and more inventive in the field.

Learn how warming up or cooling down areas of your painting can provide unity and balance in your work. Bonus: Includes a step-by-step demo!

"More than anything, I enjoy the sense of connectedness that painting on location brings,” says Kathleen Hudson. “My own sense of wonder in the landscape comes from my immersion in reading history. A place isn’t just scenery when you come to know its story, when you think of people from generations past who stood upon the same ground, taking in their surroundings just as you are.”

Landscape painter Richard McKinley shares his "7 Tips for Greater Creative Expression," especially for those painting en plein air with pastel.

Addressing connectivity from the outset of the design plan means setting aside the notion that the only way to make impact is through use of color.

With a keen interest in plein air painting, Hema Gupta's goal is to paint in a loose and impressionistic style. Here, she shares her advice for effectively including figures in your next landscape.

"As a contemporary impressionist painter, I'm obsessed with capturing light," says Jill Stefani Wagner. "Plein air painting is my passion, but during the colder months I work on larger pieces in my studio. I paint in both pastel and oil, two mediums which complement each other nicely." Here, Wagner shares her step-by-step in a pastel landscape painting demo of "Mill Creek Glimmer," which she created en plein air.

Deborah Tilby takes us through her process for the landscape painting “Prairie Snow.” She says, "Even at a very young age, I would notice light and shadow, texture, and color, but almost without realizing I was doing it."

In this excerpt from "Beautiful Landscape Painting Outdoors: Mastering Plein Air," Michael Chesley Johnson explains how to finish a painting, and three tricks to help you decide if it's complete.

This week, we've been learning how to paint landscapes and more from this year's esteemed Acrylic Live line-up of teachers. Here's one of our favorite tips so far, coming from Ann Larsen, who says, "I strive to create a feeling of time and place in each painting."

Right now we're seeing up-close-and-personal presentations during Acrylic Live, an online art conference unlike any other.

In this demonstration from PleinAir Magazine, we see how Beth Bathe uses water-mixable oils to create the tonal landscape painting, "Pipkas Cottage."

Combining gouache and oil might sound unlikely, but the two can form a powerful partnership when handled correctly. Raymond Bonilla treats gouache like a painter’s utility knife: a fast, forgiving tool to build a value and temperature map. The result is a workflow that speeds decision making, reduces solvent use, and gives the finished piece both vibrancy and painterly texture.

On Making the Switch From Watercolor to Pastel Painting > Jill Stefani Wagner, who is on the faculty of the 2026 Plein Air Convention ...

The 6th Annual Watercolor Live came to an end recently, wrapping up with even more of today’s best watercolor artists sharing all of their...