Drawing the Human Eye Tutorial

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I found a great tutorial today on Only Pencil by artist Lisandro Pena on drawing the human eye. The human eye can be a very difficult thing for many beginners to draw. Lisandro explains in the tutorial the importance of studying the eye, or any object you want to draw for that matter, so that you really understand what it is you are drawing.

He provides the tools he uses as well as a step by step lesson with pictures. He has a lot of other great drawing tutorials on his website as well. This is definitely a great resource for drawing enthusiasts.

Click here to reach this tutorial on drawing the human eye.

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Creating Equine Art By Donna Ridgway

The following articles are by the very talented Equine Artist Donna Ridgway.

Even if you are not interested in producing Equine Art, you will still find this series of articles interesting and informative.

If you enjoy this information, please do take a moment to drop Donna an email and let her know. Be sure to also visit her website and check out her awesome artwork.

Click here to email Donna
Click here to visit the Montana Horse Art Gallery

Thanks!

Creating Equine Art By Donna Ridgway

The first things you need to know about becoming an equine artist are some basic rules about image use. As an artist you must learn to work using live subjects, capturing your scenes, or using a camera to take your own photos. Your unique way of seeing the world of the horse shines through when you use your own reference materials. Another way to create an image, is to call upon your imagination. Let it flow and see what appears on the canvas or paper.

Artist’s also find images, by purchasing the rights to photos or pictures that belong to someone else. It’s perfectly acceptable and legal to use images if you purchase rights. You may also ask permission when you find a photo you like, some people will allow you to use their photos for free. Becoming a member of certain organizations and contributing to their member reference libraries gives you the right to use other members reference photos. Two such art related organizations are the Equine Art Guild and Wet Canvas.

There are other sites on the web, where you can receive help in your quest for learning to paint, these two above, happen to be the two I belong to at this time. At both organizations, you’ll have help with any problem that arises. Artists there are happy to assist you with information about supplies, mediums, techniques and encouragement. There’s a fee to join the Equine Art Guild, Wet Canvas is free at this time. Both organizations accept you at the skill level with which you paint at this time. You don’t have to be famous or skilled to join.

If you choose to paint human subjects with famous horses, be sure to obtain a model release. Images of some people and horses are legally protected against use. It’s wise to ask permission before you begin to paint these subjects.

Copyright law might seem complicated. It becomes very simple if you remember this basic rule. Don’t copy another person’s work. Use your own reference materials! You’ll hear from some sources it’s permissible to copy a work if you “change it 10%”. Don’t do it. It isn’t legal. Use your own materials! I can’t stress this enough. Think of it this way, would you want someone else copying your work? You won’t be considered a serious artist, if you don’t gather your own sources for your work.

You don’t have to own a horse to become a great equine artist. Perhaps you work with horses and have endless ideas coming your way for your art. Many artists I know go to the track, parades, rodeos or other equine events to gather material for creating their paintings. Perhaps you have a friend or neighbor who’s willing to allow you to photograph their horses. I like to drive around the countryside taking photos of horses I find along the way. I’m careful not to disturb the horses or try to get close to them, I take the photos from a distance. This method gives me natural looking poses of horses in their environment.

Many factors enter into becoming an equine artist. First and foremost, is the image you create and how you come upon it. In the following articles, I’ll post lessons, with examples, on how to draw and paint horses.

What is a support?

The support is what you actually paint upon. Some artists use prepared canvases. You can purchase them in online stores, craft stores in your town, and from art supply catalogs. If you want longevity in your work, use the good, stretched canvases. They come on wooden stretcher bars. For practice, the canvas boards are fine. Gallery wrapped canvases are wonderful as they don’t require framing! As soon as your painting is finished, it’s ready to hang on the wall.

Other artists prefer to use mdf board or masonite boards. Unless you’re planning on doing very large paintings, 1/4 inch board will work for you. Lumber yards will cut 4X8 sheets of this board into sizes you require. They usually charge a small fee for this. You can also cut your own boards if you have the tools.

If you want to get extremely creative and find your board at the best possible price, (which is free) find a friend who has a cabinet shop, a contractor, or woodworker who throws the scraps away. They’ll be happy to have you pick the scraps up so they don’t have to haul them off. You’ll also find this material in dumpsters where general contractors have thrown excess materials away. Choose only the good fresh boards that are clean.

Once you’ve acquired your board and cut it to size, it needs to have a coat of gesso. Gesso is a special kind of paint that covers boards, sticking to them and giving you a safe surface to apply your paints. I use several coats of gesso on my boards. (4-6 coats) I paint both sides so the boards don’t warp. Some artists like to sand between the coats of gesso to get a smooth surface. (Let it dry thoroughly between coats.) I like the texture of my lines and lumps to show through, so I tend to slap the gesso on with abandon. Many artists use house paint or primer for this application. There are pros and cons to this line of thought. You might want to do more research on this method and decide for yourself which way to go. I’ve done it both ways and it hasn’t seemed to make much difference.

You can also gesso mat board and other surfaces before you paint on them. Don’t be afraid to try new things. If you watch House and Garden television, you’ll see how any surface can be painted! A word of caution. To create fine art, use only the best methods, materials and preparations. For other painting, you can get as creative as you wish.

Drawing Your Image

This is the easiest, fastest way to begin painting. Place your primed or gessoed support flat on a table. Dip a large round oil painting brush in your turpentine or odorless thinner. Dip your brush into any color of paint on your palette. I like to use colors that will be complimentary to major colors in the painting. This gives the painting a glow you don’t achieve otherwise. Smear the paint and turpentine around the canvas. Your goal is to cover the support with some color. You want this color to be loose and what a painter will call “washy”. The color doesn’t need to be dark.

While I’m finding my image on the board, I’m constantly thinking. How far away from the edge should this line be? How does this shape curve? Where does it meet the next shape? Is this line half way across the painting horizontally? Where does it cross this vertical line? You can see in the image above, you might call this a complicated painting. It really isn’t. While you’re drawing, never think about horses. Don’t say to yourself, is this horse’s neck long enough? Is his head big enough? Gosh, I don’t know how to draw horses. I can never get the eyes right. Toss all of those thoughts out of your head and think about your lines and shapes and where they need to be on the painting. You’ll be surprised at how easily your drawing will appear.

This method of drawing the image right onto the support will save so much time and energy for you. You don’t have to bother with drawing an image on paper or transferring it to canvas. It’s there on the painting as you go along. When you make a mistake on your drawing, dip your brush in some more paint and turpentine, and smear paint over the area you wish to correct. Dip your brush back into the turpentine and begin to find your image again. Keep the drawing light in color and you can paint over it and redraw it over and over until it looks right. When you grow used to this method, you’ll find it easier and easier to create each painting.

I read many books on how to draw before I found one that made perfect sense to me. I didn’t like methods where I learned to draw circles, put the circles together and try to make them form the shape of a horse. I didn’t like other methods I found. Nothing seemed to work for me. Then I took a drawing class put on by an artist friend of mine. She used the Betty Edwards book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. It was like a light came on in my head! After I studied this method of learning to see, I could draw anything!

Use value to your best advantage.

Do you see the painting in the first white square below? It’s of a grazing horse. She has her head down, her tail is flying in the breeze. She’s a beautiful little horse! I suppose you think I’m crazy!? There’s no horse there? How do you know she isn’t white, in a blizzard, or covered with toilet paper? There are no clues to tell you what’s going on in this painting! All you can see are the edges. To give your audience a clue as to what’s happening in a painting, use the values of light and dark. If you want something to stand out, you have to put a darker or lighter value behind it or around it. Value is one of the most important tools an artist has for conveying a message.

Now, when you look below this text, you can see a horse. I used a light background behind her. On the horse, you can see her muscles and her shape from the values I used. She has light highlights, medium tones and very dark tones to give her shape and let you see her form.

We use value to show where the light is striking an object. Light rays come from a light source in straight lines. Lines in direct approach to an object create a highlight, the lightest point on your painting. In places where the light doesn’t reach an object, you have very dark shadows. As the surface of an object turns away from the light, you’ll have your medium tones.

Another trick for creating a good painting, is to save your lightest color in a painting and place it next to your darkest color to create what’s called, the “center of interest”. The human eye will be drawn to that place as that is where the highest contrast is to be found. Choose which part of your painting will be most important, and place this center of interest there.

Colors have value. But these values are relative to the strength of the color. Blue can have a full range of value, it can be so light, it’s almost white, it can be so dark, it’s almost black. Yellow has a relatively light value. It’s hard to make yellow become terribly dark. If you’re painting happily away, and stand back to look at your work, only to see nothing showing up…you know you have to change values around or on your object. A good way to see the values in your paintings is to stand back and squint at the work. If nothing there stands out at you, your values are weak. This is also one time when it’s good to be near sighted. Take off your glasses and stand back. If you see an image, you’ve done a good job of choosing values!

To make an object stand out from it’s surroundings, there are two ways you can go. Either make your object lighter than the surroundings, or make it darker. Say you have a horse against a background of trees. Where ever your horse has a dark value, place a light value in the trees where it touches the dark value of the horse. Reverse this process when you have a light place on the horse. Place the darker value in the trees there. You’ll learn to do this instinctively the more paintings you create.

Harmonious Color

Color plays a large part in how you want your paintings to look. Carpenter’s have hammers nails and boards. Mechanics have wrenches. Artists have their own little tool box. Color is my favorite tool. Value was my most important tool, for making my images stand out on the page, but it’s color that makes them sing. Color gives you the mood of your painting and sets the tone for how you want a viewer to feel when they view it. That’s right, as an artist, you have power, the power to make people feel emotions. Harmonious color is peaceful and calming.

I’m using photos for this demonstration on harmonious color, along with some paintings I’ve done. You can see in this photo of deer, the colors are basically all the same. Variations of light and dark, all different colors of brown. Artists will use a color scheme like this when they want to create something with a peaceful feel to it. Everything about this color scheme whispers to you. It’s beautiful in it’s simplicity and you love it for the serene, comfortable feel you get when you look at it.

In this painting, The Beauty of Brown, I used harmonious colors. I created some drama with the addition of the backlight shining on the horses and by adding the black horse. In my original photo, that horse was a palomino. We can take artistic liberty with our reference photos. We don’t have to paint them exactly like we see them! If I’d left that horse his original color, I could have found a way to pull that painting off, but it would have felt differently than what I was wanting here.

Complimentary Color

There’s a color theory that states, if your eye looks at certain colors together, your mind will form the color grey. Isn’t that weird? As weird as it may be, there’s something to it. Here are some examples, stare at blue and orange. There’s something about these two colors that you like. It’s because your mind is forming a sort of grey made from these colors. Blue and orange are complimentary to each other. They’re also directly across from each other on a color wheel. Purple and yellow, the same thing. Green and red, once again, complimentary colors.

If I were to do a painting of this cow, using complimentary color, I first have to decide which color is going to be the compliment for brown. You could say this painting would call for blue as the cow might be more of an orangy brown than a yellow brown. But there are other factors in determining the over all process for complimentary color. The grass is a large part of this scene and it’s mostly yellow. As it happens, in this picture, purple is my chosen compliment to the painting. Notice the shadows under the cattle. Cameras create black shadows. The human eye sees color in shadows. You can make black shadows if you wish, or you can throw some color in them and make them sing. Just like the purple color does for this entire color scheme.

In this painting, The Good Bay Mare, I used complimentary colors. For this painting, I chose green and red. You have to go by what you like, and how you want the painting to look. There are many variations on these color schemes. You can choose which greens and reds look best to you as you paint. Some artists like to plan their paintings out by doing tiny paintings ahead of time to see if the painting works. These are called thumbnail sketches. If you want to see how your painting will look ahead of time, do some of these, trying different color schemes as you go. Photoshop is a great tool for this also as you can see in the example above with the cow. If I start a painting and the color isn’t right, I adjust it as I go.

Complimentary colors add zing to what can be a boring painting. You can get away with using them because God does it all the time! Our eye is used to seeing the glory of His complimentary colors. Look at the sun setting in a blue sky. Look at the red berries on a bush full of green leaves. I love complimentary colors because they are His colors.

The Magical Joy of Creation

You are more used to dealing with rejection than you know. Every day life is full of it. You shrug it off and go on. But….all of a sudden you’ve done this painting. You poured your heart and soul into it. You agonized over the colors, the design and the subject matter. You spent hours getting it just right. Now you get brave enough to show it to someone. They say, “Oh, that’s nice.” And there’s kind of a funny look in their eyes as they walk off.

You feel like the race horse who just got pulled from the race!

Let’s take all these feelings you have and analyze them a bit. You did the painting because way down inside of you, there’s an artist. The artist in you, won’t let you live your life without creating paintings. You do it because this artist is there and he or she won’t be denied. This artist in you is feeling euphoric over what you’ve just done. So far so good, but there’s more to it. What I don’t think most of us realize is how much we paint for other people! The process of creating our paintings brings us such joy, we want to share those feelings with someone else! We don’t want them to choose our subject matter or how we want to portray it, we want them share the joy we feel in the creation of our work.

I feel almost high when I first finish a painting. I could celebrate! I could dance! I could sing! I want someone else to feel as good as I do right now! So I show the painting to another person! It doesn’t make them feel good, it doesn’t make them want to sing and dance, it isn’t their creation…. That is the secret.

So don’t be disappointed when you show someone your painting and they don’t feel the excitement you feel. Perhaps they have a child at home who’s sick. Maybe they just smashed their big toe and it hurts. They might be in a hurry to get to the bathroom. Who knows what’s going through the mind of this person you chose to be your audience. You just chose the wrong audience. You didn’t make a bad, worthless painting. For example, take a dollar bill and smash it up in your hands. Throw it on the floor and stomp on it. Rub it around until it’s dirty. Now take it to the store and buy a package of gum with it. It’s still worth what it was before you rejected it! You are the same euphoric artist you were before someone rejected your painting!

I’ve found if you want someone who can honestly share these wonderful feelings you have when you first complete a painting, you almost have to share with another artist. Share that first glow of a completed painting with someone who goes through the same emotions, they’ll understand. I’m not talking marketing here, I’m talking about the magical joy of creation and the fun of spreading it around.

Criticism vs Critique

My dad is a good art critic. He can look at one of my paintings and say, the ears are to short. The legs are to long. You used the wrong color in that mountain. He matter of factly looks at one of my paintings and immediately sees what I can do to make it better. He doesn’t say much, he doesn’t elaborate. He gets the job done. Any artist is glad for that kind of helpful critique of their work. My Robert is good at helping me with my artwork. He has ideas. He shares them with me. He doesn’t feel bad if I don’t use them all, he doesn’t stop helping me. He’s a good art critic.

The more you paint, the more people who are exposed to your art, the more rank comments you will hear. There’s a design flaw in some brains. It’s called, “I might not have been able to create that, but I can sure tear it apart!” As an artist, you must develop a thick skin. When you hear a critique, recognize it. When you hear criticism, ignore it.

Let’s say you’re sitting at an art show. You were juried in by 7 experts in your field of expertise. 20 artists were chosen to show their art at this show, and 500 were turned down by these 7 jurors. A person who’s attending the art show walks up to your booth and gives a cursory glance at your work. With a barely hidden sneer in their voice, they begin to tell you all about the paintings their dear old grandmother produces and how they’re far superior to your paintings. Don’t get mad, get even. Ask them in your very nicest voice, “Where are her paintings showing in this show, I’ll go visit them when I take a break.” They’ll probably be to dumb to know they’ve just been smeared, but you’ll have satisfaction!

Turn downs from jurors. As you progress as an artist, you might wish to enter some juried shows. Don’t take the judges decisions personally. Jurors have many things to look at when selecting artwork for a show. They’re trying to present art as a whole that will show well together. You might have done a beautiful painting that doesn’t fit the exact theme of the show as well as some other painting does. These judges have tough decisions to make. If your painting doesn’t get into one show, and you believe it’s show quality, don’t hesitate to send slides of it off to other competitions. When a show juror sends you a critique, which a few of them do, take the comments to heart and use what the juror said to improve upon later paintings. Good honest critique will help you improve your skills. Recognize this tool and use it, you’ll become a better artist!

Your Basic Reference Photo

If you don’t have a camera, find a way to get one! Once you have your basic camera, you’re ready to go forth and find pictures for your paintings. You don’t have to get the latest, fanciest, fastest camera there is. I’ve got great reference photos with a $40 digital camera from Shopko. What I want from a reference photo, is the idea for the painting. I like to do my composition with my camera.

Nowadays, you’re ahead to get a digital camera. I paint directly from the image I see on my computer. I like the way the screen shines giving the image a light source that’s almost like natural light. I have a g4 mac, powerbook. I take it everywhere with me. I did a quick draw at an art show and used it there also.

You’ve gone out with your camera and you took photos of every horse you could find. You bring them back to your computer and download them, and you’ve chosen the one you’re going to work from. There are two ways you can go. 1. Choose to do a piece of photo realistic art and copy everything from the photo to your painting. I watched a show on television, where an artist projected large images onto canvas. The paintings were identical to the photos. There’s a style of art where artists create paintings exactly like photos. The style is popular and people love these paintings. They say, “Wow, it looks just like a photograph!”

2. Another way to use a reference photo. Extract the idea out of the photo. Use the basic information that’s in the photo, to create the best painting you can. I’m not saying you have to create a fantastic piece of art here. Just do the painting the best you can, using the skill level you’re in. Remove houses, take out unnecessary fences, edit the color information, put color into black camera caused shadows. Turn the horses around if you wish!

This is my reference photo.

This is the painting that came from it. I pulled the idea I saw in the photo out and painted it onto a support. I turned the Appaloosa white, I took the blaze off the sorrel. I think I liked the shape the white horse and the snow created. I also liked the shape of the darker horse as he connected the darker areas of the painting.

There are two styles in these methods of using a reference photo. 1. Tight. Artist’s call this detailed way of painting tight. Some artists love to be captured in the details, they delight in painting each item they see and including everything. 2. Loose. Some artists love to paint loose. They let paint do what it wants, they let the image do what it wants. There is no right way to do this. Let your own style shine through in your work. If you love painting “tight”, paint that way. You’ll naturally shoot the photos you need for working in the method you choose. Same thing if you love to paint “loose”. You’ll find what you need in your reference shots.

You might have noticed, my style is fairly “loose”. I like to lose every detail I can and still make a painting. I don’t want to have to paint every blade of grass if a squiggle can make you think there’s grass under a horse’s hooves. If I try to paint detail, I get so frustrated I want to scream. As you paint, your style will develop. The quality of your reference photos will grow along with your ability to paint what you see in your mind. The truer you stay to yourself and your vision, the better you will become.

Beginning Design

My design skills are so basic as to be nearly non existent. I’ll freely admit it. I think it’s one of my weakest points. Nevertheless, I’ll share what I think I know with you. You can tune up your skills as you go from other teachers, artists and trial and error.

Now this is a weird, weird picture? Wouldn’t you say so? I know you say so! But there’s a name for what this is, it’s called grouping. Group your lights and darks. Take your reference photo, and find a way to tie all the darks to each other and all the lights to each other. Think about putting a puzzle together. It latches together so all the pieces fit tightly against each other and if you pick it up, it locks and hangs together. That’s what you want your paintings to do…hang together! You also want to create some large exciting and weird shapes in your paintings. If someone is across a room from your painting, their eyes will pick up these shapes. The shape might draw them closer to have a better look at your painting!

Along with this same idea, when you group your lights and darks, or middle values, try to give more weight to one or the other of these elements. This is called “dominance”. Let either the darks, lights, or middle values boss the painting. Choose one group and use it sparingly. This technique will give more excitement to your paintings. Use one of these elements more than the others. Give your viewers eye a nice big hefty shape to see the second their eyes light on one of your paintings.

Look closely at this painting. You’ll see the shape from above in it’s design. The pieces of light and dark lock together. Now technically, you could say they don’t all lock, what I’m trying to explain here, is the concept that they do, and what that will do for your paintings.

Another note about design. Don’t place two objects so their edges are close together or barely touching. This forms what is called a tangent. Overlap your objects so one appears to be firmly in place in front of the other object. This also helps give your painting a feeling of depth and space.

Using a reference photo more than once.

Just as you can take a comment from another person in many different ways, you can also use a reference photo in many ways! What you see in your reference photo can depend upon your mood or what’s happening in your day.

For some reason, I see many things in this reference photo. I’ve begun to paint from it several times, each time, I had chosen to paint the relationship between these two horses! I’ll show you below here, the paintings resulting from my efforts.

All three of these paintings are completely different. In fact, I’ve done one other painting from this photo, but I don’t think I scanned it before I sold it. If you’re short on reference photos, don’t be afraid to find different works of art in the same photo! I’ve turned to this photo so many times when I’m looking to start a new painting. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get both of these horses in my painting!

In posting these lessons, I’m not suggesting I know everything about painting. My purpose here, is to perhaps help someone to become a better artist, or to lose their fear of trying to become a better artist. If you can learn anything that helps you on your journey, I’m happy with the work I’ve done in creating these lessons. I will be posting more as more ideas come my way. Click here to email me if these lessons have helped you, if you want me to cover a different subject, or if you’d like to ask me a question…Donna.

If you enjoyed this information, please do take a moment to drop Donna an email and let her know. Be sure to also visit her website and check out her awesome artwork.

Click here to email Donna
Click here to visit the Montana Horse Art Gallery

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Form and Features in Portrait Painting Explained

By Jimmy Cox

In portrait painting there is the matter of representing the human features: notably the eye, ear, nose and mouth. Of these, the easiest to do are usually the ear and the nose. The ear is a complicated thing in appearance to be sure, but excepting for its size and general set and shape there is nothing very individual about it; normally we pay little attention to the ears of even our closest friends unless there is something radically distinctive about them.

For that matter, the ear is often wholly or partially hidden by the hair, or viewed in shadow or in a greatly foreshortened position. So the usual rule is to suppress the ear’s complexity of parts, merging them in the simplest possible indication so that the spectator’s eye will scarcely be aware that the sitter even has an ear.

While the nose is a more distinctive and distinguishing feature, prominently located as it is at the front center of the face, it is relatively easy to do, for, though capable of some movement, it is quite immobile when compared with the ever-shifting eyes or the changeable and highly expressive mouth. An important point in doing the nose is to avoid the all-too-common effect (in work of the beginner) that it is plastered on to the face and has little relationship to it. Make it look like part of the head, for it is.

Artists differ in their feeling toward the eye. Many - perhaps a majority - speak of it as the most expressive of all the features.

Some, however, point out that although the eyeball itself has a quality of mobility and animation which the painter should strive to catch, the individuality and expressiveness of the eye come less from the eyeball - for eyeballs look much alike - than from the flexible muscles of the forehead and eyebrows, the type and position of the lid, and the surrounding network of wrinkles, in particular those at the outer eye corner and across the bridge of the nose.

But don’t overdo these details - one can paint a perfect likeness with the eyes almost lost in the general tone of the eye socket.

It is the mouth which is the truly sensitive thing. It is seldom twice alike, for under normal conditions it records instantly every change of inward thought or feeling. There are times when the shifting of the lines of the mouth by scarcely more than a hairbreadth will alter one’s entire appearance. Therefore, the painter must observe his sitter’s mouth keenly, recording with fidelity what he thinks to be its most significant expression.

But it is pointless to write much of such features. The main thing is to paint them all with restraint, remembering that they are but parts of a whole. Yet they are not separate parts, each complete in itself, but they form, together with the cheeks, the chin - the whole head, in fact - a homogeneous mass which must be painted as a unit. Only in this way can all the features be of consistent shape, size, light and shade and coloring.

The best way to get these features right is by practice, so begin now!

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How to Understand Color in Painting

By Jimmy Cox

Unlike some teachers of watercolor, I advise students to start painting as soon as a satisfactory drawing is completed. So let’s start right in with a simple explanation of value and color. Value, according to Webster, is “the relation of one part or detail in a picture to another with respect to lightness and darkness.” The primary colors of the painter’s palette are red, yellow, and blue. When these three are mixed in pairs, we get orange, green, and purple.

To learn as much as possible about color, take each color in turn and play with it. See how alizarin becomes pink when water is added and how it becomes dusty rose when you add various shades of gray. Then experiment with various mixtures. You’ll want to make copious notes as you go along with these experiments. They will be invaluable references later on, and unless the notes are on paper they may be forgotten.

Perhaps the easiest way to think of color is to divide your pigments into two general classifications - warm and cool. The intermediate, borderline group between warm and cool can be slanted either way by the addition of a warm or cool color; this group is useful for such elusive color effects as weather-beaten barns, dirt roads, etc. However, do not concern yourself with these until you have assimilated the essentials, the elementary principles of color.

To fix the warm and cool divisions in your mind, think of the hot, sultry colors of the tropics - the dazzling reds, magentas, yellows, oranges, purples - and compare them with the austere, cool, almost bleak colors of such northern regions as New England; think of the brooding grays, glacial blues, icy greens, and of the effect that these colors have even upon the personalities and temperaments of the inhabitants of those climes.

Think also of the emotional impact of color: how color determines the mood of a picture, how color can denote joyousness, gayety, and laughter, or how it can be stark, ominous, and foreboding. A wide, almost limitless range of effects can be achieved with the colors I use.

Once you have grasped the fundamentals, strike out on your own because every individual can develop his own sense of color. For example, a group of well-known painters worked simultaneously from the same model. When the paintings were finished, each artist showed a different color concept in his work, but each painting, viewed individually, was a true portrayal of the sitter. Despite the variations in each artist’s color, all of the values in the paintings were properly related.

Another matter I would like to impress on your mind is that there can be happy, almost providential, accidents of color. If you make an unintentional brush stroke or drop some color where it doesn’t belong, the effect may be well worth while keeping in the picture. Don’t be in a hurry to delete such a mistake unless it actually harms the work.

There are really no set formulas to restrict or inhibit your creative urge. So let yourself go!

Fog and Rain

In painting fog, you will note that objects very near you - because of the softness of the fog and mist - have a tendency to appear quite sharp. Remember, too, that because you are painting fog, you will have, at times, a strong, penetrating light which will give the picture intensity totally unlike that of sunlight.

To paint the fuzzy background, keep the paper wet. Keep working down, leaving un-painted only really white areas. Work from light to dark and keep the paper wet while at the same time establishing your values. The reflections should not be added until the paper is almost dry. In translating this tonal sketch into color, always remember that fog leans toward the cool side.

Above all have fun with your painting!

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Oil Painting Lessons - Tips on Color Mixing and Theory

When I first began painting some 10 years ago, I recall how intimidating it all seemed. With all of the various colors, mediums, brushes and other tools available, it was enough to make my head spin.

While learning about the various brushes and mediums was a bit confusing, the biggest challenge for me was how to accurately depict nature and other real life objects on canvas using color.

How do I make a color lighter or darker? What about making realistic shadows or highlights? This article will shed some colorful light on the situation, and with practice, working with color in your oil paintings will become easier and more enjoyable.

Thank God for the beautiful Sun, for without it, we would not see color. Everything would appear dark and colorless.

Thankfully, the light from the Sun also travels in a straight line. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have the wonderful variety of light and shadow that makes everything so enjoyable to paint.

If you take an apple for instance, and put it outside in the grass in the sunlight, you will notice several different values that the light creates when shining on the apple.

You have the main overall tone of the apple, the shadow on the apple, the cast shadow, reflection from nearby objects like the green grass and the sky, and highlights. Our job as painters is to accurately depict these values on canvas using color.

There are so many different oil colors on the market today. All of these different colors come from the six colors that make up the spectrum - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.

Colors have four main properties - value, intensity, temperature and hue. The value of a color refers to how light or dark a color is. The intensity of a color refers to how bright or dull it is - also known as a colors saturation or purity. If you used yellow straight from the tube, it would have a higher intensity then if you mixed it with white. The temperature refers to how warm or cool a color is. Colors range in temperature from warm yellows and oranges to cool blues and violets. Finally, the hue is just another word for color. An apple and a cherry are both hues of red.

Color mixing is not an exact science. Artists have different formulas and methods for mixing and applying paint, so the following tips are general guidelines and not necessarily rules that must be followed.

When mixing colors don’t over mix. Over mixing a color will take the life out of it.

To create highlights in your paintings, use white with a touch of the objects complimentary color. There are some exceptions however. When painting highlights on certain objects like brass for instance, which can be depicted on canvas using yellow, making a lighter yellow tinted with white can create a convincing highlight.

Cast shadows of objects are complimentary to the color that the shadow is cast upon. For instance, the cast shadow of a red apple on a blue tablecloth would be orange.

To get any desired color, try to mix as few colors as possible.

Try to keep the theme of your painting either all warm or all cool in temperature.

Again, color mixing is not an exact science. If you survey 10 artists and ask them various questions about mixing oil paint, you will likely get many different answers. My advice is to keep painting and practicing until you develop your own formulas and techniques that you are comfortable with. Happy Painting and God Bless!

Ralph Serpe is Webmaster and founder of Creative Spotlite - http://www.creativespotlite.com a free educational art and craft community. Visit Creative Spotlite today for more free art lessons. This article may be reprinted on your website or newsletter as long as nothing is changed and this resource box remains.

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Figuring Drawing: Practice Makes Perfect

The best way to hone your figuring drawing skills is to practice. Even if you are primarily interested in landscape painting, you should be able to depict incidental figures to give a feeling of life to the subject. The figure is a foil to a landscape, and if it is not executed convincingly it can destroy the effect of an otherwise good canvas.

Life drawing should be a part of your training, and, if possible, should be acquired in an art school. However, you can learn to draw the figure well by sketching people at every opportunity. Sketch people in the subway, in the park, at home, at play. Draw at all times.

Observe how people walk, sit, and stand; notice their gestures. You will discover that you can often identify someone you know at a distance by the way his head rests on his shoulders, and you will see the different postures of the old and the young. Make notes on how clothes are draped on a person, and how wrinkles form in a sleeve when the arm is bent, raised, and hanging at the side.

The drawings do not have to be large - from 2 to 6 inches will do. They will probably have to be small if you are trying to capture any action. Indicate the line of action first and then draw the figure around it. Some of your early attempts may resemble scribbling, but get the action.

Obtain a small sketchpad that can fit into your pocket or purse and carry it with you at all times. Fill the pages with sketches, using a pencil, a fountain pen, or the newer felt-tip pen. If you use a pencil, don’t use an eraser. You are not out to collect neat pads of figure drawings. If the line is not right redraw a corrected heavier line over it.

The advantage of using a pen is that it leads to a more direct handling. But do not be concerned about technical handling of the pen. Put the lines down as you feel them. Observe how the shape of a suit or a dress is affected by the figure.

In time your pads will contain a collection of both action sketches and studies of form. As these pads are filled you will develop your figure drawing and acquire enough knowledge to place a single figure or a group of figures convincingly in your composition.

While constant sketching will increase your powers of observation and general facility in handling incidental figures, some time should be spent learning at least the rudiments of anatomy. Study bone and muscle structure, so that you acquire knowledge of how it affects the figure. It is not essential to know all of the anatomical designations, but you should be able to identify and know the function of the main bones and muscles. You should know the relative proportions of the male and female figure. Most important is to know the working of the movable masses, that is, the head, the rib cage (chest), and the pelvis.

There is no substitute for drawing the figure from life, but you can get a great deal of help from wooden or plastic manikins, which are for sale at most art shops. They can be studied to advantage by checking with an anatomy book in arranging the various positions.

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Art Lesson: Learn About Color Schemes for Your Next Painting

Much research and experimentation has been done on color and how it can effect a persons mood and behavior. Certain colors can calm a person, while others can stimulate excitement or cheerfulness. That being said, you may want to think carefully on the type of color scheme you choose for your next painting. This article will talk about five different color schemes you can use to plan out your next painting. The tips in this article can be applied to any painting medium.

Painting is all about harmony. Harmony in a painting is when the arrangement of colors and objects are pleasing to the viewers eyes. As a painter you can either put too much into a painting or not enough. If your painting is too chaotic you may scare the viewer away. On the other hand, if your painting lacks something, it may be perceived as boring, and your viewer will not be engaged, so it’s important to have balance in your color arrangements.

ANALOGOUS COLOR SCHEME

This color scheme uses colors that are next to one another on the color wheel. With an analogous color scheme, one color is usually the dominant one, while the others serve as an accent to the dominant color. You are limited in colors when using this scheme but that does not mean your paintings have to be boring. Just vary the intensity (how dull or bright a color is) and value (how light or dark a color is) to make your painting more interesting and pleasing to the eye. An example of three colors next to each other on the color wheel, that can be used in an analogous color scheme are orange, yellow and yellow-orange. Use only a few different colors with the analogous color scheme. If you add too many, you may destroy the harmony in your painting.

COMPLEMENTARY COLOR SCHEME

The complimentary color scheme is a good choice if you want strong contrast in your painting. Complimentary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Examples of complementary color schemes are reds with greens, oranges with blues and violets with yellows. You shouldn’t feel limited when using this color scheme. For instance, instead of using plain orange, you could use colors on either side like red-orange and yellow orange. Instead of using plain blue, you could use combinations like blue-violet or blue green. You could also vary the intensity and values as well. It can be difficult to create balance with this color scheme. To avoid ruining harmony, choose one dominant color and use the complimentary color as accents. For instance in a yellow and violet complementary color scheme, you could make the main subject and background violets and accent remaining parts of the painting in yellows.

TRIADIC COLOR SCHEME

The triadic color scheme uses three colors that are evenly spaced or equidistant from one another on the color wheel. This scheme produces strong contrast but still retains harmony. This color combination is more challenging for beginners. You can get carried away by making all three colors too intense thereby destroying the balance in your painting. You should allow one color to dominate and use the two other colors to accent the rest of the painting.

MONOCHROMATIC COLOR SCHEME

This color scheme is probably the easiest for beginners to work with. The monochromatic color scheme uses variations in value and intensity of only one color. Beginners like this color scheme because they only need to create a value plan using one color, which makes things a lot easier. Your painting will not be as exciting as other schemes that utilize more than one color, but your painting will produce a peaceful and soothing effect.

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY COLOR SCHEME

The split-complimentary color scheme uses three colors and is a twist on the complimentary color scheme. Instead of using the colors compliment, you will use the two colors adjacent to its compliment on the color wheel. For instance, Red, Yellow-Green and Blue-Green could be a split complimentary color scheme.

Don’t let color theory intimidate or discourage you. Working with color in your paintings takes some getting used to. With time and practice you will begin to develop the eye of a good painter. A great way to learn more about the use of color in paintings is to view the art of experienced painters. Make some plans to head out to a museum or visit an online gallery. God Bless and Happy painting!

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Drawing The Human Figure - Tips For Beginners

Figure drawing is challenging. The act of rendering the human form accurately on paper can be intimidating and frustrating if you try to tackle everything all at once. It is for this reason that you should take things one-step at a time and most importantly, practice! The following article will provide you with some of the basics for understanding how to approach your next figure drawing project.

The very first thing you will need obviously is your drawing supplies. Drawing does not have to be a very expensive art form. You can get started with a pencil and paper if you so desire, but there are certain supplies that will produce better results. It is quite difficult to recommend the perfect materials as every artist is different and therefore will have different preferences. Only time and experience will tell you what materials work best for your particular style. Your choice of materials will also depend on the chosen subject matter.

The best advice would be to get a variety of different pencils and papers and simply experiment. You will eventually come to like certain materials over others. Get your self a pad of newsprint paper. Newsprint paper is fairly inexpensive and excellent for practice drawings, although you should not expect these drawing to last very long. They will more than likely yellow over time. For your permanent drawings, a good quality paper is recommended. Strathmore is a good brand to look into. You may want to start with a medium textured paper as it has enough “tooth” to hold a fair amount of medium, but smooth enough to allow for detailed work. You will also need a good size drawing board that is smooth and flat for your drawing surface.

Before you even lift a pencil, you should have a basic understanding of human anatomy. When you study anatomy, you will learn more about the construction of the human body and its proportions. You will also have a basic understanding of the muscles and tendons and how they direct and control the body. There is no need to get carried away and memorize every muscle, bone, and tendon in the human body; just a fundamental understanding should suffice.

Getting the proportions correct in your figure drawing is one of the biggest challenges you will face as a beginner. It is for this reason that a unit of measurement was established using the models head. This is the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin. 7 ½ to 8 heads is the standard measurement that has been developed for the height of an erect figure. This measurement can vary depending on the subject so you may have to make adjustments to your figure drawing. You should realize that the measurement of 7 ½ heads corresponds to the figure when it is standing erect. If the pose of your figure changes, adjustments will obviously have to be made.

Artists will often use a pencil to take the head measurement. Stand a reasonable distance from your subject. Grab your pencil from the bottom as if you were holding a hammer and extend your arm out fully in front of you toward the subject. Try and keep your head as still as possible. Make certain that you are standing in the same spot each time you take measurements. Now closing one eye match the tip of the pencil with the top of the subjects head. Place your thumb on the pencil and slide it down until it matches with the bottom of the subjects chin. You now have taken the “head” measurement of your subject, which will now serve as a reference for measuring the rest of your subject.

When deciding on the type of pose for your figure drawing make sure you choose one that looks natural. Your model will be holding his or her pose for a long period of time and should be comfortable and relaxed. Give your model adequate time to move around and get settled. The more relaxed and natural the pose, the more believable the final drawing or painting will be. If your model looks uncomfortable or awkward, your painting or drawing will reflect that as well.

There are number of different lighting situations that you can create for your figure drawing or painting. Will you be working indoors or outdoors? If indoors, will you be working in a room that has natural sunlight or will you be using artificial light? What direction will the light source come from? Will there be multiple light sources? If you are a beginner, you may want to create a lighting effect that strikes your model from only one direction and illuminates your figure only partially, thereby creating more shadow. This will make for a much easier figure drawing. As you gain more experience, you can then move on to more complex lighting effects.

When you begin your drawing, you should not be overly concerned with getting every detail correct in your figure or other objects that make up your drawing. Many beginners fall into this trap and ultimately wind up with a drawing that is out of proportion or that just looks wrong. Study your subject, squint your eyes and try to locate the basic shapes that make up your subject.

Figure drawing and painting is a vast subject and this article only touches on some of the basics. You should definitely take classes or workshops and practice your figure drawing with live models. Purchase a few good books on figure drawing and anatomy. Join discussion groups and ask questions. Most importantly though, keep practicing and never give up.

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