What are the steps to mixing a color that seems to be just out of reach? An ardent follower of my blog asked me to explain how to go about mixing sage green. Sagebrush is frequently seen in the American southwest and west. She sent me this photo that sports a variety of sage greens. Other parts of the US and world also feature these sage greens. It’s a color that can appear to be difficult to mix. 
When challenged with matching a color you want to mix, there are four steps. In this example, I am wanting to match the sage green in the back of the photo indicated by the black arrow. [Read more…]
Ever Considered Starting an Art Book Club?
How many color theory and painting technique books do you have in your artist library? When I first started painting, I soon realized that many of us are art instruction book junkies. We are fortunate to have so many artists willing to share their knowledge and skills with us in print and video.
One of the final pages for me to write for my forthcoming book, I Just Want to Paint: Mixing the Colors You Want! is the Resources page. This is a list of various art instruction books I have collected over the years and have continued to reference throughout my art career.
Before I share some of these with you, writing the Resources page spurred me to reminisce as I looked upon my large stack — I think I have over thirty books just related to the subject of color — and reflect upon the important role these books have played. Because I am a self-taught artist, I was highly disciplined and would pour through each book when it was new to my library. I continue to do this today whenever I purchase a new book.
Then I remembered an art book club that I participated in. What is an art book club?
It was about six painters meeting monthly in one of our homes or studios to discuss a particular book. We would speand about three to four meetings per book. Often we would bring paintings or sample exercises from the book to share. These meetings deepened the understanding of the book’s content, plus they served as a meaningful catalyst to furthering our respective skills and knowledge. The benefits were significant. [Read more…]
5 Tips for Your Art Studio
Creatives are wonderful problem solvers, which is one reason why we create because it is what we love to do. When presented with a ‘problem,’ we are not likely to turn away. We use our curiosity to come up with possible solutions. My art studio is one such place where I have had to be a creative problem solver. Since we all work differently, we need different things to support our passion and our working rhythms. Often storage is the most challenging. In this post, I want to share some of the everyday items used in kitchen and bathrooms that I use in my studio.
What are Some Tips for Your Art Studio?
Here is a swing arm mirror attached on the other side of my art studio across from my painting area. I use it to look at a painting I might have on my easel. The mirror image helps to see the painting from another perspective and perhaps find areas that need to be altered. [Read more…]
What Background Color Do I Paint?
During my many years of teaching, I have often heard students ask, “What background color do I choose for my painting?” They have spent valuable time painting a subject or portrait and now they need a background.
As a follow-up to my last blog post where I wrote “3 Steps to Painting a Subject Round,” I thought I would take this same apple and play around with a few background color options. [Read more…]
3 Steps to Painting a Subject Round
How do you make a subject or a shape look three-dimensional? What is the effective strategy to painting a subject round? How many colors do you need to accomplish this? Have you ever thought about how many different colors you need to create a convincing sense of volume?
We painters work on a two dimensional surface, yet many of us like to make a subject look three-dimensional.
Perhaps, you have a ripe red apple you want to paint or a billowing storm cloud? Or you want a boulder to convey its mass and that nose to bend.
Our flat surfaces – canvas, board, paper – present a challenge and many of us love this technical challenge of creating a sense of three-dimension. I know this is something I like to project in my paintings. It is our job to persuade the viewer that we are painting a subject round. [Read more…]