As I have stressed multiple times throughout this course we are not only building upon technical strengths but also your ability to synthesize and create concepts. We’ve gone into history a bit, and examined some of the more formal aspects of painting and drawing.  Now’s the time where we will delve into an area which often is ignored by many art schools, as well as working artists. The skill you will be working on here doesn’t involve paint or a pencil, but instead your mind and your ability to focus …

What is the correct color wheel for painting? It has been hotly debated for over a century, and everyone seems to have an opinion about what the “real” primary colors are. In the following post I hope to educate you about some of the theories about just which primary colors are the best to be used for painting, and why. Of course I also offer some of my own personal opinion based upon my own studies of color as well as my experience as …

Properties of Color
The three main properties of color are Hue, Intensity, and Value.
Hue refers to the color of something, meaning that when we speak of green (for instance) and it’s greeness we are referring to the Hue.
Intensity refers to the saturation or “vibrancy” of a color. In the graph below you can see how Intensity can differ in a color. Intensity of a color can be changed in a few different ways.
1: Adding white to a color will lighten it and also diminish it’s intensity. Adding white …

Color Emotions.
Before we get into what different emotions can be transmitted to a viewer/participant who is experiencing different colors, it is first important to understand that there is an entire field devoted to studying how color effects our emotions. By studying color psychology we can begin to understand the complex and mysterious world of Color Emotions.
Color Psychology is a relatively new branch of Psychology which deals with how color relates to human behavior and emotions. In the advertising world this is well known, and debated. Why are the golden arches …

Introduction to Color Theory
Before we get into exactly what color theory is, and how it works, we need to first look at a broader concern as it pertains to how people experience works of art. This is the correct place to begin an Introduction to Color Theory as we will have plenty of time to delve into all of the principles and physical properties of color later. So, what exactly happens when we look at a piece of art and experience it with our senses?  This experience can be called …

Gestalt Principles of Art and Design
These theories of painting come from a German form of psychology called Gestalt which simply states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is often used in both art as well as design to achieve the desired effect. The main points of Gestalt are summarized below the image.
1. Figure/Ground
This is the idea that speaks to the human mind’s tendency to separate figures from their backgrounds. These differences can be furthered by utilizing a number of different techniques which can include …

Oil Painting Step by Step
In this painting tutorial I go through a common step by step procedure on how to paint with oils. From the drawing, to the underpainting,  glazing, and final details.
Step 1: Find your source imagery and prepare it for painting. This could include photoshopping various elements in photoshop, collaging images from magazines, taking your own photos to paint from, etc.Then create a grid on your source imagery. This can be done in photoshop, or you can print the photo out and grid it out with a ruler …

Local Color
Painters often refer to something known as Local Color. So what is it exactly? Well, there is a very simple explanation. Local Color refers to the color of an object if it is unhindered by shadows and highlights. Still don’t get it? Basically it is what the actual color of an object is. Take for instance a Tomato, now most people would agree that tomatoes are red, however that’s just part of the story and the way that our eye perceives colors. In reality if we really examine a …

In this painting tutorial I go through how to set up a very basic palette, and how to use a palette knife to create value scales with various colors. By setting up these simple piles of color before you start a painting you can be assured that all of your colors stay within the desired range of values.

Color Matching Values
Matching colors to values (the darkness or lightness of a color) is the most important skill to learn when learning to oil paint.  For further information on the topic of color …

How To Paint Landscapes
During this lesson you will be learning how to construct and paint a landscape painting. I’ve chosen to begin with painting landscapes because they allow us to utilize all the different skills we’ve been working on so far.  Instead of using “Plein Air” techniques which are very popular today among painters wishing to capture “light” I will be teaching about the structure of the landscape and letting you know about how it works. There are a lot of varying principles which should be taken into consideration. This …