As artists, we are illusionists. We are taking raw paint and creating an effect basically. Some people might say it’s magic, but it’s not. One of the most simple things I can tell you is that you need to have a dark value in order to have the effect of light. If you don’t have dark values around your light value, it will not light up. Simple as that. If you think your painting is not popping, it’s because your values around it are either not light enough or your darks are not dark enough. It could be either of these or both. “Direct observation is the best way to get a better understanding of ..read more

I hear students talking about how they like working large. There is nothing wrong with working on a large canvas, but there are not a lot of painters that can work large and keep the energy high throughout the painting. Don’t paint large just for the sake of it being large or asking more money for it. If you can pull it off, great! But, from experience, I have seen many paintings on large canvases that should’ve been smaller and there could’ve been a lot more energy placed into it. Paintings are not measured by size, even though a larger painting might have more of a “visual” impact, that is n ..read more

In the past, I really haven’t looked at it this way, but I think it’s a good way to look at your painting before you start. You need to ask: what are you celebrating? Are you celebrating values, color, an animal, a figure, or perspective? Let’s say you are celebrating an animal in the landscape. You will want to play down all the details in the landscape so you are making the animal the star. You want to make sure you are not giving too much focus on other things. Basically, when you are looking at a scene like a landscape and think it’s beautiful, you have to focus on why you think it’s beaut ..read more

Do you detail things so much that you start to lose the poetry side of your art? I see painters sometimes take a tree, for example, and put every single leaf on that tree. Why? We know it’s a tree! You don’t need to explain that it’s a tree. What you really want to capture is the character of the tree. Get the general shape and a little detail; we will know it’s a tree by its shape alone. We know a figure by its shape. I say this jokingly, but I often tell my students that you are almost insulting the viewer with too much detail! They know what it is. What is most important to focus on is shap ..read more

Do you have alone time with your art? Everybody has different stories and life situations right now. It might be different than it was a year ago. But, the point I am making here is that it is essential to carve out the time to be alone with your work , even 30 minutes a day. It sounds selfish to some who aren’t used to it, but it gets you away from distractions and puts your focus on your work. This way, you can focus on the one thing you want (painting, sculpting, drawing, writing). Having this alone time is essential because it takes a lot of concentration to get better at painting or any t ..read more

A little back story on this. Christine, my wife, and I ran a physical workshop down in Tucson called Tucson Art Academy (that is why we named our online academy Tucson Art Academy Online). We had it for five years and in that time spent we had some great artists come through that I had invited for lectures. I can tell you that, fundamentally, they all spoke the same language. There was not anything “revolutionary” that they talked about. The difference was that each of them had their own take on subject matters like value, color, and design. “ As far as getting insight from [an instructor], it ..read more

Fall is a very special time for landscape artists because that is when we see most of the color. One thing to remember is, the way to make a painting look like it’s full of color is by having gray’s around it. This is really important. The more gray color you have around something, once you put the more pure color on top of it, will make it sing even more. This could also be because of the value of the color. Let’s say if it’s a maple, orange or yellowish maple, you want to make sure you block it in with the darker values. This means more muted, darker values underneath it. Then, start adding ..read more

This is one topic I struggled with when I was learning about painting, I just did not understand the concept. I wanted to go to the painting and have fun with it. I soon learned that, especially working outside from life, your time is limited. Especially with the sun angles changing the shadows. I had to look for a better way to get things down. The best way to work the whole painting is to look at those large shapes by blocking the canvas in with those large shapes. Also, getting rid of the white on my canvas. I don’t like to have 30 minutes go by while working outside and have huge white s ..read more

There is no right or wrong for being a fast or slow painter. I know many amazing artists who are slower painters than others. I am just trying to clarify a few things with this if you struggle with this topic. Generally, people who are more on the slow side think it’s wrong. This is not true! But, when you are painting outdoors, time does matter in the sense that light is changing and fleeting. You usually only have 1.5 to 2 hours to paint a painting outside. If you are working a large painting, it could take several days and sessions. “ Speed is not necessarily better, but in the context of w ..read more

It really is a yes and no answer. Yes it does matter if you are at a level in your paintings where you have the fundamentals down fairly well. This means getting down drawing, design, value, and color. Then, you can move into the calligraphy of paint. You should have the fundamentals down first before you worry about brushwork. This is something to think about because I have students asking me about brushwork, or asking our TAAO instructors about it. Sometimes, when I look at the students work, they really should be working on more of the foundational principles (drawing, design, value, and co ..read more