Oil Painting Video Lesson – Alla Prima Oil Painting Technique

Alla Prima Oil Painting Technique – A Video Tutorial by Larry Seiler

Here is a wonderful oil painting video lesson for beginners by artist Larry Seiler that demonstrates the All Prima Oil Painting Technique.

Alla Prima is an Italian word that literally means “At Once”.  Its a painting that is completed in one session.  This is a direct painting method that produces a fresh and spontaneous look to your work.  I love this style of painting because it allows me to get loose and just let go and have fun, which is exactly what Larry does in the following video tutorial.

He begins his Alla Prima painting session by mixing his colors ahead of time on his palette. He says this eliminates a lot of his decisions in advance and allows him to establish a color harmony that will work for his painting.  Another advantage of pre-mixing his colors is that his focus is on the subject that he is painting and not on color mixing.

After his colors are prepared, he then creates a basic sketch using some vine charcoal.

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Portrait Painting Demonstration in Oils – Brittany

Biography

picture of Scott 248x300Scott Burdick was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1967 where his mother and father early on encouraged his interest in Art. “I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child and remember my mother showing me how to transform simple shapes like circles, triangles, and squares into objects like planes, helicopters, and fish. It seemed such a magical thing and made spending so much time in casts and on crutches much more bearable.”

In high school, Scott began taking life-drawing classes at the American Academy of Art under the legendary Bill Parks. “Though I’d always loved drawing, it was Mr. Parks who filled me with the enthusiasm and discipline necessary to improve my skills. His love of painting and creative expression infected us all.” After finishing the Academy, Scott continued his study at the Palette and Chisel Art club, where he met his wife, painter Susan Lyon. “It’s a wonderful thing being able to paint together all the time and grow as artists together,” Scott says.

His ideas for paintings come from everywhere. “What makes a subject attractive to me are the same things that attract us all. The beauty of a young girl, the character of a weathered face, the solitude of a farm at sunset, or even the story itself behind someone or something that makes it interesting.” Scott believes it is the job of the artist to recognize this when it happens, analyze why, and use his technical skills to convey the feeling to someone else. He notes that some paintings are as simple as stopping at the sight of something interesting, while others may take more time to research than to actually paint.

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Oil Painting Demonstration – Florida Landscape

Below is an excellent step by step oil painting video lesson by the very talented Debra Bryant.  I found the following oil painting demonstration on the video sharing site Ustream.tv.  This is a very long demo with over 3 hours of footage. So grab your favorite beverage or snack, sit back relax and be prepared to learn something new.

In this oil painting lesson, Debra shares her oil painting techniques for creating a beautiful landscape painting from a photo.  She begins her painting by first toning her canvas with purple so that this color will show through the final painting in spots.

She demonstrates her techniques for creating a convincing sky and clouds. One key technique that she points out in the video for doing this is to make the sky more green near the horizon. To make realistic looking clouds, she mixes reds and yellows into white.  Also, when clouds near the horizon, they become narrower and  more gray.  These are just some of the awesome techniques you will learn in this video.  Enjoy!

Follow this link to visit Debra’s Ustream Profile for more awesome Painting Demonstrations.

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Portrait Painting Demonstration in Oils

In this step by step portrait painting demonstration, David R. Darrow, aka “Dave The Painting Guy” talks about how he paints a portrait with oil paint.  He talks about how he sets up his canvas, the paints on his palette, special medium that he uses, how he sketches out the portrait and more. I learned a great deal about portrait painting by watching this video.  One of the key points that I learned from this video is to keep the cheek and nose area redder than the rest of the face, while keeping the forehead and chin a bit more yellow. Check out the video below to learn more…

David is a really talented artist. I visited his website to check out some of his painting and was quite impressed with his work and I know you will be too.  You can visit his site by following this link.

David also hosts live painting session on a site called Ustream.   If you have time, you should definitely set aside some time  to attend one of his live workshops.  Don’t worry if you miss one though.  You can watch some of the recorded workshops there as well.  Follow this link to visit David’s Ustream Page.

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Oil Painting Technique – How To Tone a Canvas

Toning Your Canvas For Oil Painting

Learn the proper way to tone your canvas in preparation for oil paints with this free video demonstration.  Toning your canvas before beginning a painting is a very popular oil painting technique, but there is definitely a right and a wrong way to do it.  In the following video, artist Don Stewart demonstrates his method for toning his canvas before he completes a painting.  Don combines a mixture of medium and solvent to his oil paint to get it nice and thin before applying it to his canvas.  After allowing that to dry for several minutes, he then wipes away the excess with a clean rag.  The result is a nicely toned canvas with a luminous quality to it. Enjoy this oil painting demonstration!

Sierra Splendor – Landscape Oil Painting Demonstration Part 2

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

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

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Sierra Splendor – Landscape Oil Painting Demonstration

About Mike

mikecallahanNationally 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.

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Oil Painting Tutorial – Learn to Paint Like Monet

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.

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Oil Painting Tips – Different Methods For Starting an Oil Painting

oil paint tubes 300x180Oil 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 . 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. Read more

Oil Painting Tips – How To Keep Your Colors Pure

One of the biggest hurdles for beginner oil painters is learning how to keep colors pure. How many times have you started an oil painting only to quit from frustration because things just didn’t look right. Your colors were muddy or they just lacked brilliance. This is a very common problem for artists just starting out with oil paints. Hopefully the oil painting tips in this article will help relieve some of your frustration and enable you to finally enjoy painting.

BE CLEAN AND ORGANIZED

I know for some of us, it can be very difficult to maintain a clean and organized painting environment. Sometimes we can get very caught up in our work and things can get sloppy. The last thing you want is to become a sloppy painter as your work will suffer. Break the habit early and try your hardest to develop clean and organized painting habits. Read more

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