Learn & Master Painting is quite easily the best home instruction course available in teaching you how to paint with oils.

Unlike most of the people reviewing this course online, I am an artist and actually own this course, so rest assured you are getting an honest review..

I like to refer to Learn and Master Painting as an “Art School in a Box”, because it is quite literally like attending a professional Art School within the comfort of your own home,without the huge price tag associated with professional instruction.

Not only is the course professional and affordable, but unlike attending an art school, you have the ability to watch these lessons over and over again. So if something does not sink in right away, you can play the DVD’s again and practice something until it does.

The Learn and Master Painting home study course was designed by Master Artist, Gayle Levee. It can be quite difficult to find a teacher that is not only talented, but one that is also a good teacher and communicator. Gaylee Levee is all three. You can learn more about Gayle by visiting her website.

I know how unbelievably frustrating it is when you are just starting out. You have an enormous amount of creativity within you that is just screaming to be poured out onto the canvas, but you just can’t seem to get over those beginner hurdles. The Learn & Master Painting course is your solution.

The Learn and Master Painting course comes jam packed with 20 professionally produced DVD’s, 3 Music CD’s (you can listen to these while you are painting), a detailed lesson book with extra information, and a free support website that will provide you with access to an entire community of artists who have also purchased the Learn and Master Painting Course. There you will find support and encouragement from instructor Gaylee Levee as well as from other students from all over the world.

So, if you have the desire and the patience that is necessary to become an accomplished artist and to start producing your own masterpieces, then I highly recommend you take the next step and invest in the Learn and Master Painting Course.

Gaylee Levee will take you step by step through the process of becoming an accomplished painter. You will learn about perspective, how to organize your studio, how to care for your art materials, how to develop compositions….all of the foundational skills needed to become the artist you have always aspired to be.

My favorite part of this course is that you will be able to complete several paintings along with Gayle from start to finish! It doesn’t get much better than this.

Feel like you may be too experienced for this course? Think again—I bet this course has something to teach you as well. This course has advanced training like perspective and color theory that aren’t available in most training courses.

Whatever difficulties and problems you are experiencing right now, Learn & Master Painting is the solution. This course is surprisingly affordable for what it contains and there are flexible payment options to fit most budgets.

I recommend this course wholeheartedly to anyone wishing to learn how to become an accomplished artist. There is no other home study course in existence today of this caliber.

So are you ready to become a master painter? Head on over and order the world’s most complete video instruction course for painting now! I know you are going to enjoy this course.

One of the biggest challenges for artists just starting out with oil painting is mixing colors. Color is a powerful tool. If handled improperly, things can become quite messy. Improperly mixed colors lead to muddy or unbalanced paintings. The good news is, with practice, you will become more skilled at mastering color in your oil paintings. I have collected a number of color mixing tutorials below including links to articles, videos and books. I hope you find these oil painting color mixing resources helpful.

VIDEOS:

How to Mix Colors for Oil Paints

All About Color

How to Mix Oil Paint -- Video Lessons with Hall Groat II

ARTICLES:

How to Make Better Oil Paintings: Tips & Techniques for Correctly Mixing Color

This is a great post from EmptyEasel.com that talks about correctly mixing colors from a limited palette of only 8 colors. Read the rest of this color mixing tutorial here.

Oil Painting Tips Part 2: Mixing Colors to get Brown and Black

Here is another great post from EmptyEasel.com and is a continuation of the post above that demonstrates mixing oil colors to get browns and blacks. Read this lesson here.

Bill Martins’ Guide to Oil Painting -- Mixing Colors

In this post, Bill Martin talks about his full spectrum of oil colors and how he mixes tints of these colors using titanium white. Read this tutorial here.

Color Theory & Mixing -- 16 Lessons in Colour Theory

This is a very thorough 16 part lesson from Wet Canvas covering color theory and color mixing. It covers everything from the history of color to the Psychology of Color. View these lessons here.

Notes on Colour Mixing by Andrew Newland

On the following page, artist Andrew Newland has provided an introduction to the theory of colour mixing.
He has intended this tutorial as a practical guide to the art of mixing oil paints. Also included is a related color mixing excercise to give yousome It is intended as a practical guide to the mixing of paints and has a related Colour mixing exercise. View this lesson and excercise here.

BOOKS:

About Connie Nelson

I have always liked to draw and paint. In elementary school I was known as the “school artist”. Drawing and painting was a blissful and ‘easy’ activity for me.

I was also inspired by my father, who was a sumi painter. Still, I did not see myself an artist until after taking a job as a registered nurse. The toll exacted by the job on my body and soul made me question my purpose in life.

One fateful day, while I was still working as a nurse, I stepped into an art teacher’s studio and took my very first formal art lesson, and I have never looked back. I soon quit my nursing job and began seriously pursuing painting through continuing art lessons, supplemented by various workshops.

I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest of the United States, surrounded by water and mountains. It’s an enchanting place to live out an artistic life.

The world is more colorful and interesting since I became an artist; every morning I wake up and wonder what to explore next. It is a wonderful way of life. What a blessing!

Please visit Connie’s Websites to learn more about her and to view her work:

Her Art Instruction Site:

http://www.explore-drawing-and-painting.com

Her Portfolio Site:

http://www.connienelsonart.com

You Can Learn How to Paint Like Monet: His Techniques and Color Mixing Approach

Have you ever wondered how to paint like Monet or wanted to paint like he does?

When you see his works, like the huge water lily paintings in the Orangerie Museum in Paris, you know that he was truly a master colorist.

Those paintings made such an impression on me that to this day I’m still inspired to follow in his footsteps. I want to venture outdoors, see the natural world around me, and paint it the way that he did. It is an invigorating change from the studio painting approach I normally use.

Learning how to paint like Monet is easy. There are three aspects to keep in mind: how he mixed his colors, his technique of applying the paint, and his process for creating paintings.

First–How to paint like Monet? Learn what’s on his color palette.

Monet started out as a tonalist. He later chose the impressionist approach because he wanted to study the effects of light on the objects around him.

Take a look at his choice of colors to get an idea of what he used for his landscape and still life paintings:

Lead white, chrome yellow, cadmium yellow, viridian green, emerald green, French ultramarine, cobalt blue, madder red, and vermilion.

An impressionist palette to begin with…

You will see some ivory black in his paintings before 1886, but he abandoned it for his later work and used more vibrant colors to mix his grays.

Be aware that lead white is toxic, so use titanium white as a safe alternative.

You can also replace chrome yellow with cadmium yellow light, and use alizarin crimson instead of madder red.

Whatever you do, make sure you have two intense yellows and reds, a vibrant blue, and a green. Once you are familiar with a limited palette, you can gradually add to it.

Many colors have been developed since Monet’s time. You should definitely experiment with them (it’s fun!) but only after you are proficient with a limited palette. You can start with as few as three colors plus white as a reduced palette.

How to Paint like Monet- Use Broken Colors: Visual Color Mixing

To learn how to paint like Monet, you will need to adopt a technique called “visual mixing.”

Monet did this by, for example, putting a stroke of pure red right next to a stroke of pure yellow. Side by side, the two spots of color produce a rich and vibrant orange.

He also laid in large masses of vibrant color first. Then he would apply strokes of pure colors over them to enrich the original color masses.

As an example, see the chart below for mixing orange.

The first spot on the far left is orange color straight from the tube. The second is a juxtaposition of pure yellow and pure red side by side. The middle spot uses the same yellow laid on top of a wet spot of red.

The fourth is the result of yellow mixed into red using a wet into dry technique (scumbling—painting opaque or semi-opaque colors over dried darker colors). It is almost the same as the third, but more vibrant. The last patch on the far right is the result of directly mixing the red and yellow paint.

You can see that the second, the fourth and the fifth spots are more vibrant and interesting. The colors are not only mixed but seem to vibrate.

Monet mixed his colors using either a wet into wet technique or scumbling (wet color spots on dried layers). Monet would mix a series of secondary colors on the palette, and placed them side by side or, dabbed them all over keeping the color spots separate.

How to paint like Monet’s- the process.

Although he painted outdoors, Monet did not finish paintings in one session. In fact, many of the canvases were so large he had to hire an assistant to haul them in and out. He said that he brought many canvases outdoors and worked on each one for a short time at the same time of day over several days.

You can imagine how he had very little time to work on a painting each day before the “moment” was gone and he moved on to the next. This approach allowed the paintings to dry a day or two between sessions, which makes scumbling easier.

So if you want to learn how to paint like Monet, keep in mind that you don’t have to finish everything in one session.

A Demo of how to paint like Monet

To demonstrate all of this, why don’t we take a painting of Monet’s, the “Haystack in Winter,” and recreate it?

“Haystack in Winter” is a charming, simple, and unmistakably Monet painting because of both the subject matter and the brushstrokes. No complicated drawing is needed, which makes it perfect for this demo.

First, I draw the large shapes with a brush, and then cover the large masses to create an underpainting on the white canvas. (I am partial to toning canvases for oil painting, but this is the exception).

I use slightly diluted paint (diluted with some water since I use water soluble oil paints). I use a blue tone for the mountain in the background, and a warm green and yellow in the foreground and on the haystack. I mix some white into the sky to match the value in Monet’s original painting. I then let the layer dry completely.

Once the first layer is dried, I begin to scumble colors all over. Starting from the top, I scumble pale yellow into the lower sky. I mix a pale grayed green into the lower part of the mountain. I  scumble blue into the cast shadow of the haystack. I mix a brown using orange, yellow, and burnt sienna with a bit of blue for the hay stack and the village on the right. I also dab the same warm brown in the foreground.

In the next step, I dry brush the white colors into the ground. I tone the white down with a tiny amount of yellow or blue. I do not want to use the starchy white paint directly from the tube,  because it attracts too much attention. Even when Monet was painting the most vibrant colors, he was still very deliberate in maintaining harmony of color and value.

Here is a close up of the broken color dabs that I used. Notice that I let the underpainting show through. The white paints are thick impasto passages.

I then modify the sky and the mountain by adding more dabs of grayed green and yellow. I continue to scumble white paints over the ground. I keep the dabs separate as much as possible.

I continue using the same scumbling technique to dab more colors onto the canvas. I keep the overall value relationships correct by squinting. Every time I find that I have misjudged the value of a color, I modify it. Even if the colors are interesting and vibrant, they still need to be tied together to make a united whole.

I begin to zero in on small masses and details. I mix some grayed red color for the trees on the middle left.

Almost done….I see in Monet’s original painting that the haystack’s shadow has violet colors on top. I could have added that color immediately, but I am afraid that it might make the shadow look muddy and heavy. So I wait until the whole painting is dry and then I scumble that color over it for an airy and light effect.

I could have painted this scene in one session, but with Monet’s broken color technique, I have to wait for each layer to dry until it is tacky or semi-dry so that the colors I scumble or dry brush  over will not disturb the layer underneath.

As a plein aire painter, I know that it is out of question to create a painting the size of Monet’s outdoors in one session.

It’s nice to know that I do not have to make a painting ‘right’ on the first day; I can rework it over many days until it’s finished.

If you want to learn how to paint like Monet, it is best to copy his paintings. That will give you a better understanding of how the process works. It will make you appreciate the optical effects achieved through his techniques and his respect for faithfully catching the natural effects of light.

The revolutionary water soluble oil paints

Oil paint is an exciting medium to work with. One will never become bored while painting with oil paints. There are a variety of materials and other mediums at your fingertips and when you combine these materials and mediums with the versatility of oil paints, you have a variety of interesting ways to begin an oil painting. There are certain drawing and painting mediums that are compatible with oil paints and when utilized, will make your painting experience more interesting and enjoyable.

CHARCOAL

Charcoal works beautifully as a preliminary step to oil painting. There are three main forms of charcoal used most often by artist’s and they are compressed, willow and vine charcoal. Willow and Vine charcoal tend to be more highly favored for preliminary drawings as they leave a lighter mark and are easier to erase. Compressed charcoal, because it leaves a much darker line, is more difficult to remove and not as widely used to start an oil painting. Some helpful tools to use for working with charcoal are kneaded erasers, stiff bristle brushes, blenders and tortillions. Whatever type of charcoal drawing you create, make certain not to go overboard with your application. Charcoal is very forgiving with oil paints, but too much, and it can effect the paint in adverse ways.

PAINTING ON A TONED GROUND

Depending on the type of final picture you are working towards, sometimes the white of the canvas can be too bright or have too much contrast which makes starting a painting rather difficult. Using a uniform toned ground on your support, will make it much easier to judge the values in your painting. You are welcome to use any color you like to tone your canvas. Some of the more popular tones are warm reds, yellow and browns.

Toning your canvas is pretty straight forward and will not require that much time. Here is an example using one of my favorite tones. First create a thin wash using Yellow Ochre and Burn Umber. Apply the wash to your support generously. Use a large bristle brush to spread and cover the support entirely. Allow the wash to dry for a couple of minutes and then wipe off the excess with a cloth. You don’t have to use oils to tone your canvas. You can tone your canvas with any of the water mediums described below.

ACRYLIC PAINT

Acrylic paint is an excellent choice for starting an oil painting and one of my favorites. One of the most attractive features of acrylic paint is its fast drying time. This property of acrylic paint makes blocking in your underpainting very easy. Ideas can be worked out quickly on your canvas and instead of waiting days for your underpainting to dry, you are ready to paint in mere minutes. This really does depend on the type of acrylic paint you are using and how thickly you apply it. Not only is the fast drying time attractive, but as in other water based mediums, there is no need to thin the paint with dangerous substances like turpentine.

WATER SOLUBLE PENCILS

Water soluble pencils provide an excellent way to begin an oil painting mainly because of their versatility. The beauty of this medium is that when dry, it acts like a normal colored pencil, but when water is added, it magically mimics the properties of water color. This enables the artist to both draw detailed lines as well as create colorful washes.

WATER SOLUBLE OIL PAINT

Many artists are not that familiar with this last medium as its a relative newcomer to the world of painting. Enter, water soluble oil paint. With normal oil paints, a traditional method for starting a painting is by diluting the oil paint with turpentine to apply washes. The problem with turpentine is its a very dangerous substance. Many artists develop allergic reactions to this substance and are unable to use it. The beauty of water soluble oil paints is that no turpentine or other harmful substances are needed. They can be thinned with plain old water. Water soluble oil paints behave just like normal oil paints and your brushes can be cleaned with soap and water, again, avoiding the need to use harsh chemicals.

By Barry Waldman

Edgar Degas painted from photos:

Photos were a tool in his paintings, drawings and sculpture. Degas’ photographs had the look of his paintings. His paintings were based on his photographs.

Students ask me if it is proper to use photos:

I have a classmate from the art school from which I graduated. He has had a very distinguished career painting all his life. He said that anything you do to help you develop a painting is a correct method.

Seven Ways to Project or Transfer Photos or Drawings onto Your Canvas:

1. Tack them up on your easel as reference: There is a famous Norman Rockwell self-portrait (Google it). The painting shows Rockwell painting himself at an easel covered with photos of portraits by Rembrandt and Van Gogh and a drawing of himself. Rockwell is also looking in a mirror as he paints.

2. Opaque Projectors: The opaque projector is a machine that projects photos, book pages or drawings by shining a bright light onto the photo from above. A series of mirrors, prisms and lenses project the image onto a canvas. The artist then draws the outlines of the photo on the canvas using the projected image as a guide. Opaque projectors are available from Dick Blick, Jerry’s Artorama or Mister Art online or at some art stores.

3. Camera Lucida: A camera lucida is a lens on a metal arm that clamps onto the artist’s drawing board. The camera lucida superimposes an image on the artist’s drawing surface. One sees a scene or the reference photo on the drawing surface. You can then trace the outlines of objects.

4. Mirrors: David Hockney, a well-known contemporary artist, was interviewed on “60 Minutes” on CBS-TV. Hockney had Lesley Stahl stand outside his studio window, in full sunlight, facing a mirror set up inside the window. Her image was reflected in the mirror and it was projected inside Hockney’s dark studio onto Hockney’s canvas. That projected image can then be copied. Hockney had written a book called “Secret Knowledge” about which Stahl did the interview. In the book Hockney theorizes that artists in the 1400’s learned how to use lenses and mirrors to project images onto their canvases.

5. Print the photo or drawing on your canvas: You can print your photograph directly onto your canvas and then paint over them in oil paints. Ink jet printer paper suppliers offer ink jet printable canvas. You need to ask your ink jet/canvas supplier how long their inks last according to scientific testing.

There are printing services that offer Giclee fine art reproductions for painters, photographers, galleries and museums on fine art canvas. Some artists use these services to make reproductions of their paintings for sale in addition to selling the original oil painting. Giclee (French for “a spurt”) is an inkjet process for making super high quality and long lasting prints. A good supplier uses fade-resistant inks or dyes that some claim last as long as 100 years.

Other artists print photos on canvas at Giclee printers and then paint over them in oil paints. Giclee prints are not only long lasting but also have no visible dots as do most ink jet printers. Google “giclee printers” to find giclee printing suppliers on the web.

6. Camera Obscura: In his book “Vermeer’s Camera” Philip Steadman poses the theory that VerMeer used the early version of the photographic camera: the camera obscura. Camera obscura are the Latin words for dark room.

How the camera obscura works:

• A box (or room) with a pinhole in the front end is placed in a well-lit room.
• The room in front of the hole will then be projected onto the inside back end of the box.
• Later, the camera obscura evolved into what we now call a camera. In a photographic camera, film is placed on the inside back end of the box where the image is projected from the lens in the front end of the box.
• Using the camera obscura principle with additional lenses and mirror, one can project an accurate image onto a painting surface and trace over the projected lines. Some suggest one can paint onto the canvas directly guided by the projected image. People still make camera obscuras … Google “camera obscura” on the web.

7. Tracing: Some artists trace and transfer the outlines of photos onto their canvas or other drawing surface. They staple together a “sandwich” of the traced photo, a transfer sheet and the canvas. Drawing over the traced photo drawing on the top of the sandwich with a ballpoint pen causes the transfer sheet color to be transferred to the canvas. They then paint using the transferred line drawing as a guide on their canvas with the original photo(s) tacked alongside their canvas as reference.

Is Using Photographs OK? Like Edgar Degas and Norman Rockwell and countless other great painters and illustrators, I think so.

The author has painted and taught for 50 years and has had over 30 art exhibits of his paintings. My USA based online art school has students in 19 countries. I have taught art classes at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and Manhattan, USA, Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, Famous Artists Schools in Westport, Connecticut, USA. I have also lectured on various art subjects all over the USA and in Holland, Belgium, France, South Africa and Australia.

My online interactive art school is at:

http://www.interactiveartschool.com

Links to people, images mentioned in article are at:

http://www.interactiveartschool.com/linksEzine.html

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