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By Courtney Jordan, editor of Artist Daily, May 2012 Short of lobotomy, we will always have the equivalent of mental trails that our brains follow when we are painting. Artists develop these based on painting techniques that they’ve learned along the way, or they can be expressions of inherent ideas that each of us has…

By Diane Overmyer I have paintings propped up at various key places where I know I will be able to see them as I am doing my normal day to day living. I know some paintings are finished and don’t need another thing done with them… those I prop up and enjoy while they are…

By Marion Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide A not-too-serious list of 5 things every artist who plans to be famous must do. To be remembered down the centuries, for your work to be admired and studied, your name to be in every art reference book … who hasn’t dreamed about being that famous a painter? If you’re…

By Jane Jones This article is based on an excerpt from the Brushing Up column in the October 2012 issue of The Artist’s Magazine. (Picture on right: “Peals & Gold” Oil, 26 X 18 by Jane Jones) Pearls & Gold (oil, 26×18) by Jane Jones achieves color harmony by means of a limited palette of…

Landscape Painting Tips October 15, 2012 by Richard McKinley When we view a painting, we are perceptively transported into a scene of the artist’s design. The encapsulating of the painting on all sides heightens this magical phenomenon, making the most important edges in a painting the perimeter. This is why most artwork is presented with…

By Becky Joy There are three ways to create depth in a painting: Linear Perspective. Aerial Perspective. Separation of Planes. Linear perspective: Linear perspective Is the use of intersecting lines drawn vertically and horizontally that radiate from one point (one-point perspective, two points (two-point perspective) or several points on a horizon line from a viewer’s…

By Carolyn Henderson. In any painting, the biggest expenditure for the artist is the frame that goes around the finished piece. If it is a watercolor painting, there’s the matting, the glazing, and the frame holding it all together; for the oil on canvas or acrylic work, it’s “just” the frame, but depending upon the…

By Richard McKinley When we talk about right brain, left brain, we refer to the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, which process information in very different ways. The left side tends to be more linear, sequential, symbolic, logical, verbal and reality-based, while the right side tends to be holistic, random, concrete, intuitive,…

By Richard Mckinley Visually, we are closer to the portion of the ozone layer, which is the blue of the sky, directly above our heads. The farther we look into the distance, toward the horizon, the lighter it appears. Landscape artists often embellish this effect by darkening the sky at the top of a painting…

SIMPLIFY YOUR PALETTE BY MIXING YOUR GREENS By Doug Swinton A lot of artists have trouble with green because there are so many shades to mix and so many types to buy. What I’ve come to understand about green is that less is more. Removing most of the greens off of my palette made a…

By Marion Boddy-Evans Norwegian artist Edward Munch painted four versions of his famous “Scream”, which has a strong focus but also encourages the viewer’s eye around the composition. At its most basic, the focus or focal point in a painting is the thing that’s the most important or interesting. But for the artist it is…

By Carolyn Henderson. The Norwegian Artist and I have a friend who specializes in painting small pet animals…that is, when he paints. Most of the time, our friend is thinking about painting, or castigating himself for not painting enough, or remodeling the garage studio so that it’s easier for him to paint, or reading about…