Tag: painting tips
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The Thin Line Between Portraiture and Caricature
So you’ve just finished that portrait and something doesn’t seem quite right, or worse still it was a commission and the subject is viewing the finished piece ashen faced. What could have gone wrong? Most people expect a portrait to be an accurate picture of the sitter, a snap shot made in paint. But this […]
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How to Work With Models For Figure Painting
By Marion Boddy-Evans Here’s How: Be clear about your expectations. Do you want a nude pose or the model to dress up? Will it be a series of short poses or a long pose? Don’t always work from the same angle, move around the model considering different viewpoints and angles of light. Poses for quick, gesture […]
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Tips on How to Straighten Hairs on an Art Paint Brush
By Marion Boddy-Evans If a brush seems totally ruined and the hairs out of shape, wash the brush again, then dip the bristles in some linseed oil and reshape it. Now dip the oiled and shaped brush into water-soluble glue (I use Elmers glue) and let it dry for a couple of weeks (bristles facing up!). […]
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Start with Mid-Tones Not Highlights
By Marion Boddy-Evans Proportional wheels are used for calculating copy reductions and enlargements. 1. You set the longest dimension of the original on the inner wheel. The scale varies so take your time to get the correct setting if you do not have an even number to start with. 2. Move the outer wheel around to […]
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Making Tubes for Leftover Paint
By Marion Boddy-Evans When I mix a special color and want to save it to use tomorrow or on another painting, I use heavy duty aluminum foil to make my own tube to store it. This is how I make it: 1. Wrap a piece of foil around a broom handle. (Heavy-duty grade foil works best.) […]
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Organizing Your Brushes While Painting
By Marion Boddy-Evans I have a small utility cart on wheels with three shelves (measuring 15×9″). I have tightly fitted the top section completely with blocks of Oasis (foam used for floral arrangements). Neatly insert your brushes (handle down of course) according to size and/or the brushes you use most often. You can easily fit about […]
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Painting Tips: Painting Wet-on-Wet
By Marion Boddy-Evans When working wet-on-wet pull the brush along its length with the handle close to the surface. You get two strokes with a flat bristle brush, one side then the other, look at the brush for any paint it picked up and wipe it. Think of the brush hairs as if they were the fingers on […]
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Brushes for Painting Grass or Trees
By Marion Boddy-Evans For painting grass, I have five different sizes/hair variations of fan brush. I add just a bit of paint to the brush (‘rocking’ the tip of the brush gently through thinned paint), then start at the bottom of the grass/reeds and push upwards with the brush held at a 90 degree angle to the […]
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Tips: Ways to Approach Painting Abstracts
Abstract Painting Tip 1: I like to use the world around me to compose good abstracts. It is often hard for us as humans to come up with good shapes and compositions just “out of thin air”. So here’s my tip: make yourself a viewfinder from a piece of stiff white paper or matboard. Make the […]
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Advantage of Brown Wooden Palette
The ‘brown’ of the wooden palette and the ‘brown’ of the imprimatura [brown underpainting] go hand in hand in oil painting. Mixing on a wooden palette gives you a good idea how the color will look on the canvas. As for cleaning a wooden palette, you’ve got to do it after each painting session. I’ve […]
