Painting: Glazing Over

Glazing is the process of optically mixing colors in an oil painting.  It is one of the oldest and most traditional oil painting techniques.  Conceptually it is quite simple and logical.  But never has something so easy been so difficult to do!

Johannes Vermeer, Girl With a Pearl Earring, c. 1665

Perspective: The Dreaded Ellipse, Part I

Ellipses are simply circles turned on their sides.  However, they are among the most difficult things to draw realistically.  Getting the curves just right is a task so tricky that the most common solution is to avoid them all together.  But since ellipses turn up so frequently in every day objects, eliminating them greatly limits your choice of subjects.  However, once you’ve learned the tricks to drawing ellipses, they will no longer present such challenges.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup, 1968

Watercolor: Mixing Colors

The opacity of watercolor provides opportunities available in no other type of paint.  Because watercolor is meant to be put down in transparent layers (or washes), there are multiple methods for creating and mixing colors.  And, of course, each method will give you slightly different results.

Painting: Toning the Canvas

Toning paper is a frequent practice when beginning a charcoal drawing.  It gives the artist a middle value to work with instead of the blinding white of the paper which can affect the values of the drawing.  The same holds true in oil painting.  Only now we have to contend with not only value, but also color.

Color: Analogous Color Plans

When combined, the colors you select for your painting will create a color scheme.  However, the word scheme has negative connotations, so I prefer to think of it as a color plan.  Here we’ll take a look at some analogous color schemes (or plans) and their impact on mood.

David Wiesner, Tuesday