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Professional artist, Anne Olwin, brings you some of her best art lessons, tricks of the trade and tips.
 Article List
Fantastic Palette Tip
Tips for Colorblind
Shadow Shapes
The Artists' Eye
Resources and Reference Sites
Professional Associations
This is me in my messy paint shirt explaining composition to a class.
The Color of Your Light Source -- Anne shows the difference your light source can have on your subject matter.
To Black or Not to Black --Is black paint a good thing or a bad thing and why all the fuss?
Painting of Two Grey Wolves (The Sentinel) -- Anne's progress journal of her painting process.
Watercolor on Textured Clayboard --If you are interested in working on a different and interesting surface, try this.
Regaining Our Bearings--A Challenge for Art Judges. This article, originally appearing in 2005, looks at the sorry state of art judging and calls for a change.
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Here is a solution for all of those paints in the tubes that don’t fit on your regular palette. Instead of wondering what you have in that box full of paint tubes, you can see and use what you have!
I squeeze a generous amount into bead cups that can be purchased at Michaels or elsewhere. The bead cups come screwed together 6 in a stack with a lid. (If I want to slip a stack into my pocket for a plein aire adventure or take a few on a flight, I just screw the selection together with a lid.)
The bead cups fit neatly in a Masterson Palette from which I’ve clipped the pokey-down parts on the lid. Since I prefer to work with dry paint instead of fighting the sticky gum arabic, I allow the cups to dry out before use.
I’ve made a cheat sheet of the paints on my normal watercolor paper with info about manufacturer, transparency and name and the same info is taped onto the side of each cup. [Special note: that strip of color along the bottom of the cheat sheet demonstrates the coverage quality of titanium white compared with permanent white gouache.]
It’s easy now to choose that special color for the client whose color choice differs from my usual palette or to pull out a cup of my own choice and add it in temporarily.
Many of my students have begun to use this approach or Daniel Smith’s possum palette cups to keep their colors in view.
January 18, 2008
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I had a colorblind student some years back who was helped by the following suggestions:
1. Limit your palette. (Instead of many colors, I had him use a smaller number of mostly transparents.)
2. Understand the working qualities of your pigments... Mixing too many opaques creates a muddy painting.
3. Always place colors in the same place on your palette and keep your palette facing the same direction. (This is a great tip for everyone as it increases working speed!)
4. Study color theory and know what happens when you mix complementary colors as opposed to working with pure colors. (The same set of colors can create a clear, sparkling, happy end product, a greyed-down, sophisticated look, or mud.
5. Ask someone with good communication skills to describe what they are seeing in the color of your end product.
January 17, 2008
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Shadow shapes identify forms, for round forms and help bring life into a painting. They are crucial.
This simple watercolor horse study was a demo piece in a workshop this fall to show shadow shapes.
Use shadow shapes to your advantage. With a few lights and darks, it's possible to capture the physical expressions of an animal or person.
I've intensified the darks here to create the illusion of a bright low sunlight. This provides greater drama. Notice how dark I've made the shadow on the legs and face of the horse. The darkness actually sends the visual signal that the planes on the face have changed.
A wash on the background identifies the rump and the muzzle and hooves get lost in the grass.
A bit of negative painting for shadow shapes causes the grass to pop.
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A student asked me to explain the "artists' eye" recently in a workshop. While many things like an understanding of color, weight of line, and light contribute to that "eye", composition defines it.
A thorough understanding of composition serves as one of foundational mental processes behind that elusive "eye" artists seem to possess, yet students neglect it like the proverbial red-headed step child.
You can find a basic explanation of the four types of compositon in the Quick Reference Guide: Create Exciting Art. Study Fibonacci numbers and the Divine Proportion for an in-depth understanding of the core of great design.
November 24, 2007/Updated January 17, 2008
http://www.morguefile.com
Chocked full of copyright free photos, this site has a large number of photos for use in the classroom.
http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
This amazing collection of photos is a helpful resource when you need to know how an animal's foot bends, the color of an ibis's bill, or how light washes through the interior of a cathedral. Note: These photos are NOT copyright-free. They are for reference only.
http://www.phototakeout.com
"Free digital stock photographs and reference pictures for business or public use on your website or any printed material. You may use the images from this site for free but you must have a link back to our site mentioning phototakeout.com as source and if used in printed version a mention of phototakeout.com as source is required."
http://painting.about.com/od/artistreferencephotos/ig/Reference-Photos-Flowers-/index_g.htm
So, if you're wanting some flower reference photographs, try this site. It is part of a much larger photo reference library at http://painting.about.com/od/artistreferencephotos/Reference_Photographs_for_Artists.htm
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American Society of Portrait Painters
American Watercolor Society
National Watercolor Society
Oil Painters of America
Plein Air Painters of America I love their abbreviated name! ... Makes me laugh.
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