About Brian Oliver

Living in Orange County has been a joy for me. The hills, the ocean, and everything in between begging to be painted. I strive to give my paintings emotions which are generally happy and uplifting although nature can have a terrifying side. Nature’s beauty and power is one of the best subjects an artist has.

I believe that art comes in many varieties, but feel that true art is made to trigger a feeling from inside the viewer, and is not true art if that feeling must be described to the viewer by anything other than the artwork.

A strong sense of light and color are the aspects I most often try to capture in my paintings. In the end, I paint because it is a true joy, and a unique experience for other people to be involved with.

To learn more about Brian and to see more of his artwork, please visit his Website by following the link below:

===> http://www.brianoliverfineart.com/

Seascape Painting Demonstration By Brian Oliver

This demonstration will be about creating a warm glowing scene at the beach. Using what you have already learned about color and value, we’ll create a complex scene with simplified shapes and color/value relationships.

The relationships of color are very important, you must gauge everything off the major color in a scene. In this case, the major color is brown, and everything will be in relation to it. The light of the scene influences the color of every object. Greens you will mix might look tan when compared to pure blue, purples and blues may appear gray. When these colors are put together, they form the relationships that we subconsciously understand.

Above is a generalization of how this color scheme will work with the lighting of the scene. To the left are the colors of cool shadows and reflected highlights. To the right are the colors of the warmest, most brightly lit areas. Reflected highlights are a great way to add interest and variation to the lighting in a painting.

The palette foundation is cadmium yellow light, cadmium red, maganese blue, burnt sienna, and titanium white. The colors mixes are (1) white+blue (2) white+yellow+blue+red (3)red+yellow
(4) blue+red+white (5) yellow+white+red (6) burnt sienna+blue (7) yellow+burnt sienna.

I sketch in the main outlines to plan the painting using a light color. This step is important to keep very basic proportions correct from the beginning rather than at the end.

Paint the foreground sand with (4) in the areas near the water and to the back, and (7) near the left. Mix (3) + (4) and white to get a nice gray and include that color as well. Cover most of the area with the gray color.

Blend the sand colors together somewhat where the edges meet. Then add streaks of white in front of any place where the foam might stick out some. These will be reflections on the wet sand.

Use a soft brush, a nylon filbert works well, to blend the sandy colors together. Use very little pressure and sweep back and forth horizontally. This will imitate blurred reflected colors.

Fill in the sea areas with a purple gray (4). The middleground sea can be slightly lighter in value.

Use the purple gray (4) and mix with green (2) to get a nice gray for the background peninsula. Keep the diagonal near the edge of the painting. At the base, use short vertical strokes. Some strokes should be of the purpl (4), and others should be of orange (7) as seen in the next step. Also add the orange to the line of rocks.

Next, place small amounts of the orange at the upper edge of the distant penisula, and along the base. Use a gray green (2) in some of the peninsular and on the top of the middleground headland.

Fill in the middleground headland with a tan color (5). Add stroke of other browns and grays,

(7) at the base, and (3) near the center. The rock casts a light gray shadow on the headland. Mix the shadow color with (7+6). It should be lighter than the darkest area of the rock. Add the same shadow color to the edge of the headland where it creates its own shadow.

Use a brown color (7 + burnt sienna) to fill in the background rocks and the foreground rock areas. Also put the brown color in small strokes in the middle of the foreground wave. Don’t create one solid mass.

Add the distant sea with a light blue (1). Then add white to the same color to paint in the sky. The beach color should be a light tan (7+5+white). Some white strokes in the distant hills adds depth and interest.

Finish the foreground rocks with darker browns. The closest rock should have the darkest shadow. The next furthest should have more burnt sienna in the mixture to lighten the color. Put short, choppy strokes with the same color at the base of the wave as it recedes.

The shady areas of foam should be light gray, so use a mix of purple (4) and white. Add to the foam on areas of the rocks and also mix in with the brown color in the wave. Now this middle area of the wave can become more massed.

Next, add a light blue (1) at the foam’s base near the front rock. Use the same color and small, shallow, “U” shaped strokes to the ocean to create wavelets.

Add the light color (3) to the rocks to complete them. Also add some of the orange color to the brown parts of the wave.

Use a rigger brush to add warm, light color (7 + white) to the edges of the foam, all around the white area edges. This will keep the white in the center more pure and warmer at the edges.

Now, use a small round brush to smooth clean white paint over all the foam areas.

The final touches are straight forward. Add purple
(4) or light blue (1) to the shady areas of foam. Touch up the rock color with varying shades of orange. With pure burnt sienna, dab at the lower left corner to create a felling of broken reflections. Lastly, paint in another layer of very thin water in front of the foam with light blue (1), blend it back towards the wave and foam.

This is Part 2 of Sierra Splendor, a Landscape Painting Demonstration by Mike Callahan.

Please click here to view Part 1 of this Demonstration.

Sierra Splendor Landscape Painting Demonstration Continued

31.) With my thin underpainting in place, I can now begin to paint the trees that cover it

32.) And so it looked when I was about half-way done with the trees…

33.) The trees too, I paint alternatively employing knife and brush…this a great technique for anything that has a lot of texture…

34.) Here it is, about 6 a.m. as I leave my studio once again to get ready for the day job…

35.) Coffee is a great ally for these early morning painting sessions…those of you on my email newsletter probably remember this shot that I sent out when the painting was still in progress. I’m roughly a little past half done at this stage…

36.) A shot showing the tree covered area mostly done…

37.) I now begin to concentrate on the manzanita-covered, sun-bathed area to the right of the painting. The values on this side of the “bowl” are much brighter because one, it’s in the full sun, and two, manzanita is much lighter in color than the pine trees that are to the left…it is also a much lower-growing plant and will receive more top-lighting from the Sun as well adding to it’s lighter appearance in the painting…

38.) I now begin to work on the shoreline of Lower Sardine Lake…

39.) As I begin to paint the reflections in the water, I must keep mindful of several things. First, the viewer’s eye is pretty high in this composition and as such will see a steep reflection in the water meaning that from this perspective one wouldn’t see the entire mountain reflected, only a very small portion of the nearest ridge as the mountian recedes fairly rapidly even though it’s so incredibly steep…Secondly, I have to be careful with my values, lights will be darker than the areas they reflect, and darks will be lighter than the areas they reflect in general. the closer an object to its reflection, the more closely in value that reflection will be to the object’s values…I know, that’s a lot to wrap your mind around…let’s move on…

40.) Here’s the the progress with the lake mostly done…

41.) I’m now going to move on to the “foreground” section of the painting…I paint in the tree tops that are peeking up behind the near ridge using a two value block-in process as well…I paint in the “darks” first…

42.) …and then come back and paint in the “lights”…

43.) I continue with that process untill I have not only the tree tips peeking up from behind the ridge, but also the larger trees that are growing near the top of the ridge…I now begin to concentrate on the manzanita covered ridge itself…

44.) The large, foreground rock has a lot of texture, so once again, I’ll alternate between brush and knife…

45.) As I begin to paint the rest of the ridge, I start by scumbling in a thin but darker burnt orange to bring that part of my underpainting a little more contrast giving the illusion of closer proximity to the viewer…

46.) I follow with my two-value approach, laying in the darker green value…

47.) …then the lighter green values and a few grey bushes and rocks…

48.) …following that with some warm and cool tones in the outcropping of rocks that border the trail…

49.) Once I finish with my initial two-values, I can then go back and put in highlights and accents to finish things up…

50.) I then lay in a couple of values for the path using mostly my knife…

51.) And here’s the painting as it nears completion…I’m probably about a week away from being totally done now…

52.) I’m sure you are probably tired of the phrase “two-value” by now, but that’s exactly the approach I use to paint in the remaining trees, dark under paint first,…

53.) …and then lighter values on top…

54.) I paint a darker value for my underpainting in the foreground bushes to allow for more contrast once I apply the lights…things in the foreground most always have more contrast than things in the background…

55.) And here I begin with a middle value…I’ll come back with highlights later…

56.) I’ve one last rock to paint, the one in the bottom corner, so I block it in and then texture it with knife, etc. as you’ve already seen…

57.) I then paint in the foreground foliage and am just about done…

Click the Image Below For a Larger Version of the Final Painting!

Sierra Splendor
40″ x 60″ Oil on Canvas
SOLD!

This tutorial is by Artist Mike Callahan.

Please click here to visit Mike’s website to learn more about him and to view more of his work.

About Mike

Nationally recognized, award winning artist Mike Callahan is a fourth generation Nevada native who counts himself privileged to grow up in what he believes to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains near Reno, Nevada where he still lives today. While he has been painting since childhood, he has only been painting in earnest for about the last 5 or 6 years.

Says Mike, “The topography of this area is simply phenomenal; one can go from the high desert to mountainous alpine settings in less than an hour. It is this beautiful and varied landscape that ends up being the subject for a vast majority of my paintings.”

However, if you look through the paintings on Mike’s website, you will quickly see that the Sierra landscape isn’t the only subject Mike typically paints. He also enjoys painting Western themes as well as figurative and portraits.

As you look at Mike’s work, you will notice a great color harmony throughout. While the colors in his paintings run the full spectrum of color seen in nature, harmony is maintained by Mike limiting himself to only three colors plus white on his palette. Instead of referring to this as a limited palette, Mike thinks of it as an unlimited palette as he has not found any color he desires to use that he can’t create from those primary colors.

Mike’s work has been featured in numerous solo, group, and juried shows including the 54th Juried Exhibition at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, the second 100 in PaintAmerica’s 2008 Paint the Parks competition, and in May of 2008, Mike received national honors at the Oil Painters of America’s National Juried Show of Traditional Oils winning a coveted Award of Excellence for his painting “Wild Mustangs.”

Mike’s work can currently be seen firsthand at the Artistic Viewpoints Gallery in Minden, Nevada and the Truckee River Gallery in Reno.

Please click here to visit Mike’s website to learn more about him and to view more of his work.

Click Here for a One on One Interview With This Artist

Sierra Splendor – Lanscape Painting Demonstration

1.) In the fall of 2007, I was contacted by clients who needed a large painting for their home. They weren’t sure of exactly what they wanted, but they knew they wanted something that captured the majesty and grandeur of the Sierras…I have many reference photos from hikes I’ve done in the area, so using the two photos shown above of the majestic Sierra Buttes from a ridge overlooking the Sardine lakes, I set out to paint a study…

2.) After consulting with the clients to get an understanding of what they liked, I painted the study shown above as well as another one of Long Lake (see the January 13th post on my blog) as a couple of proposals for the project. They immediately gravitated toward this one and we agreed upon it. I looked forward with great anticipation as I thought this would make a great painting…following is the chronicling of it.

3.) The painting will be 40″ x 60″, the same size as “Mt. Washington” shown hanging in my studio behind me.

I assemble the heavy stretcher bars and install a center brace for added strength before stretching the canvas…

4.) With the canvas stretched as tight as a drum (or at least as tight as I could stretch a drum), I’m now ready to begin…

5.) It’s 4:45 am and I begin to paint by mixing up a nice burnt orange color and apply it to my canvas with a large brush…this is just to tone my canvas so ultimately I’ll even it all out to the edges with a towel wetted with a little thinner…

6.) Once my canvas is toned, I use the same burnt orange color to draw in some of my major elements…shown next to it is my original study which will aid me as I progress in the painting.

7.) Here you can see the extent of the detail I give myself…not too much at this stage…

8.) My sky is broken up with clouds, so using a light blue color I define the area of clouds and sky…

9.) Once I’ve defined the areas roughly where I want the sky and clouds to be, I can begin painting that area…

10.) I start with the lighter area of the sky (generally the area nearer the horizon) and work toward the darker…

11.) I pretty much complete the sky before beginning the clouds…

12.) I usually paint dark to light, but both sky and clouds are typically exceptions for me, especially clouds because of their nature…usually the dark part of the cloud is nearer the viewer as it represents the shadow area and is often times somewhat back or top lit by the Sun…

13.) To finish the clouds, I paint the “dark” areas into the light, blending to various degrees depending on the shape and texture of the clouds…

14.) Here’s a view of the right side of the painting with the sky mostly done.

15.) Once I’m satisfied with the sky, I move on to the main focal point of the painting, the buttes. I start by thinly laying-in the dark area of the mountains. In this photo, the darks look quite dark, but in actuality, the dark areas aren’t super dark. I want these mountains to recede a bit and as such I must be careful not to go too dark in the shadows in this part of the painting.

16.) I come back into these shadow areas and work in a little texture with an even lighter “dark” color before moving on to the light side of the rugged buttes. I alternate between knife and brush in the mountains to give them just the amount of texture I want.

17.) I begin to paint the lit side of the mountains using the same general approach, I block-in using essentially only two values…

18.) I like to keep my palette very simple…at this stage of the painting you can see I only have my three basic primary colors, yellow, magenta and blue, one secondary, red (used mostly to mix the brown) and a very dark color I call “blackenough”. Through combinations of these and Titanium white I’m able to mix the few warm and cool earthtones that I use on the mountains.

19.) And so, essentially I procede in this manner across the mountains alternating between knife and brush…

20.) The difference in progress shown between this photo and the one above is about one painting session’s progress…I have a long way to go!

21.) The detail in mountains like this can be overwhelming to the painter, but to keep myself from being overwhelmed, I work in sections paying attention to the values and colors in each area as they relate to each other and the whole…

22.) Here’s an “up close” shot showing the degree of brush and knife work that make up the mountains…

23.) And here it is standing back a bit…

24.) I’m nearly done with the rugged buttes and will soon be moving on to the mid-ground part of the painting…

25.) To finish off the mountains, I have to paint in a bit of the remaining snow that usually stays on them year round…I begin with the snow in the shadow areas – though shaded, still quite light value-wise…

26.) And the light part, though quite bright isn’t really close to pure white (even though it looks so in this photo) I usually paint both clouds and snow with a fair degree of yellow mixed in…

27.) Ah, that snow is just the thing to really give some depth to these rugged peaks…

28.) Here’s a shot of the main part of the buttes in their near finished state…

29.) The tree covered mountainside in the middle ground is barely beginning to receive light as the Sun moves east to west across the sky. Being still in shadow quite a bit, I underpaint a fairly dark area before painting any of the trees that cover it. Mind you, this is still quite a bit lighter than black though it’s hard to tell that in the photo without anything to compare it to…

30.) This photo shows the actual value of that dark area a bit better than the one above…

Continue on to Part 2 of this Landscape Painting Demonstration >>

This landscape painting lesson is courtesy of Barry Waldman of Interactive Art School.

A Revolutionary Way to Learn to Draw & Paint

Student uses a Digital Camera (supplied in your Student Sign Up Kit along with Textbooks & Supplies) to take digital photos of their completed assigned Lesson Artwork for each lesson. The student sends those photos as email attachments to the teacher who draws, paints & comments on the work & posts a critique of each lesson on our WEB site, a personalized How-To-Do-It-Better Critique for the student to view 24/7/365.

Follow this link to visit the Interactive Art School!

Landscape Painting Lesson – Simplify Trees

A sculptor student asked about how one does images of trees and further how to simplify them as the complexity of painting a million leaves can make an artist batty. Some painters and sculptors want to paint every leaf…bless them…for the rest of us this mini-lesson is about:

A. Making realistic trees

B. Simplifying those trees in our images (paintings, drawings, sculpture)

First there are countless kinds of trees and then millions of variations within those– two shown here, they couldn’t be more different

(above left: photo of wide tree…….above right bare trees from my painting “Snow Gardens” below:)

We could go on and on with many other tree shapes, sizes and variations, but let’s focus on one tree, analyze it in the following steps:

I. Let’s figure out how to make the tree real

II. Let’s explore how to simplify the real tree we create in various degrees of simplicity

As a reference for a painting…lets analyze one tree:

1. The original photo

2. That photo made more contrasty to start to see the form better revealed (this is done here with photo manipulation in sketching in nature you would squint your eyes to achieve this effect)

3. I did a 3d model of the tree to show its basic underlying form

A tree – like everything we see, has a basic form or a series of basic forms as its understructure. Students often get lost, particularly with trees, in painting each leaf …while to make it real its underlying structure needs to be communicated.

To make an object seem solid, one needs to understand the following:

Study the above and also the mini-Lessons on Form (click on the blue links below):

Lesson 2 Basic Form and

Lesson 3 Advanced Form

One needs to mass the tones in groups based on the above — the darkest tones on the shadow sides of objects, middle tones in the transitions from light to dark and the lighted tones in the most light stuck areas of an object.

Just below is a painting of a group of leaves from the tree photographed above (you can paint the rest of the tree in this level of detail – I’m just not going to do it …it would take almost forever)

Now lets explore how to paint the tree simpler, then still simpler: on the left is the original photo, then a simpler painted version, then an even simpler version on the extreme right:

Left is a reprise of the source photo from above……then, the tree painted to be round in lots of colors and values…. then the another interpretation SIMPLIFIED—into three tonal masses

In my paintings above, I eliminated the sky and simplified the outer shape of the tree to better demonstrate the principals of form and the simplification.

In the right hand most simplified tree, I used only THREE color mixtures to paint the tree On the left hand side is the transitional middles tone Up through the middle is the light struck tone…then some middle tones again to step down from the high tones of the light struck leaf masses…. and…on the right side I have massed the darks…the resulting tree is simple but solid…no details, not painted leaf by leaf

POSTERIZED: Simpler still– areas are divided into a few colors – tree leaf area into just light stuck side and shadow side

(See Wikipedia definition of “POSTERIZATION” at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterization

Then – silhouetted “forest” in color:

The trees in the foreground are darker and more vibrant (more intense color green… while the taller “forest” behind is a lighter and bluer, less intense color blue-green— this is a reflection of the concept of “atmospheric perspective”…as things get further from the viewer’s eye… they get light in tone, less chromatic (color intensive) and have less contrast (see
mini Online Lesson 4) for a fuller exploration of atmospheric perspective.

To see examples of simplified trees -see the work of these painters and photographers:

Edward Hopper*

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MCG/FH536~Gas -1940-Posters.jpg

http://ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/images/uploads_img/hopper_2.jpg

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/06autumn/images/jenkins_fig2large.jpg

_______________________________________________ and

Fairfield Porter

http://www.tfaoi.com/am/10am/10am132.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ec/Fairfield_Porter’s

_painting_’Under_the_Elms’,_1971_-_1972.jpg/300px-Fairfield_Porter’s_painting_’Under_the_Elms’,_1971_-_1972.jpg

http://www.tfaoi.com/cm/3cm/3cm617.jpg

also:

Fairfield Porter on Mark Harden’s “Artchive” Painting titled “Amherst Campus“:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/porter/porter_amherst.jpg.html

Fairfield Porter on:

The Bridgeman Art Library:

http://www.bridgeman.co.uk/search/s_results.asp?search=fairfield+porter&stype=all&order=5&page=&view=2

_______________________________________________

and

Ansel Adams

http://www.blognow.com.au/uploads/l/Llennodo/19959.jpg

http://doors.stanford.edu/ansel-adams/iceberg-panorama.jpg

_______________________________________________

and

Edward Hopper

* A note about Edward Hopper, the great American Illustrator and Painter – he was a master of “leaving out”, or simplifying… you can see it in his trees, his people, his houses and interiors…he leaves out detail…one fact few observers notice is that there is no glass in any windows Hopper ever painted. Study his most famous paining “Nighthawks” a picture of people seen in a late night diner in Manhattan, NYC through windows – NO GLASS.(Yes, there is a hint of it at the far left where the window curves around the corner – but not in the large part of the diner window and also, look across the street at the shop windows “Nighthawks” can be seen on the Artchive website at:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper/nighthwk.jpg.html

Look at the other Hoppers on the Artchive site like “Chop Suey”

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html

Once you get to the Hopper bio at the page above, click on the “VIEW IMAGE LIST“

To sign up for the course, click here.

About Julie

I am a self taught artist who has been painting and interested in art all my life. My favorite medium is acrylic due to its versatility. One of my favorite things to do is teach painting to other people. I currently teach classes and we couldn’t have more fun if we tried. It’s just so gratifying to see the excitement on student’s faces when they see what they can accomplish with a little instruction and effort. When your ready to forget the theory and produce the art, visit http://www.IamPainting.org. Learn Painting Techniques and create your own remarkable portraits or landscapes.

Tuscan Landscape – Acrylic Painting Tutorial By Julie Shoemaker

Use whichever brush you feel comfortable with. I usually use a flat bristle brush for most of my work. And remember there is no right or wrong way to paint! If your painting doesn’t turn out like mine – then congratulations! You created a unique one of a kind painting.

Sky – First wet the sky area or top half of canvas with white gesso.

Then with a little yellow and a touch of orange added to the same brush, start at bottom of the sky area and work your way up. Use long horizontal strokes. Take the strokes right off the canvas while blending the yellows and orange into the white gesso as you work upward. Gently blend right up towards the top of canvas. Wipe the brush off with a paper towel.

Now add a touch of ultramarine blue and purple to the brush and start at the top of the canvas and work your way downward in the same fashion as you did the yellows.

The bottom part of the painting is under painted with any earth tone colors. Nothing fancy here!

Use sky colors (a mixture of white blue and purple) and paint in furthest hills – mountains. Notice how these hills show very little detail and are very soft looking.

Darken the mountain (sky) color and paint in next layer of hills. You want to make sure that you let some of the previous mountains show. Keep the tops interesting with some variations.

Add some earth tone to the very distant hills. You can use browns, tan, etc. Keep it dull though. Just add white to dull paint color. These are in the center of painting.

Add some hunter green and start dabbing or scrubbing in the bushes. This should be a dull green.

Landscapes typically get darker and more vivid as you work forward.

Lay in the foreground hills. (you will do the one the left first) Make this one lighter to look like sunlight is hitting it.

To do this start on the left of the painting and pull the paint brush into the center of the painting. Notice the slope of this hill. If you want you could add some rows of green for a field of crops look. (see next picture)

Now darken the mixture and add the hill on the right. Darken it with browns or tans. Too much green will make your picture look unnatural. This hill will be painted the same way but starting on the right side of the painting pulling the paint into the painting and overlapping the previous hill. Continue painting until the entire canvas is covered.

Don’t over blend! Let variations of color show.

Now start adding the tall trees.
If you are using a flat bristle brush, hold it on the side and dab on the paint in the shape of the tree.

In the background they will be duller – or lighter. The ones in the foreground are hunter green. Add purple to the paint to darken the side that will be in shadow.

Add some tree shadows to the ground.

Add one more foreground hill in the very front. The more layers – the more depth your painting will have

Add touches of reds or oranges for flowers, and some tiny shadows if you want to. Highlight the trees. (use yellow or light green and dab in brightness on the sun side of the trees)

You could easily be finished with your painting now, and let the dramatic tall tree shadows be the focus.

Or…Add some houses. Just draw in simple house shapes paint in the shapes with “dirty white “ and red for roofs. For shadows on the house, darken the roof color under the eaves. Dry brush in some white for highlights on the roof. Add a touch of orange for lights in the houses.

Add birds – Birds are just little v’s – Practice first and keep then dainty! and sign your painting….