Camera Lucida: An Optical Illusion for Artists
Imagine an optical device that allowed you to see what you wanted to paint or draw 'reflected' on your piece of paper. All you'd need to do would be to trace the subject.
• Part 1: What is a Camera Lucida and How Does it Work
• Part 2: How to Use a Camera Lucida
• Part 3: David Hockney and the Camera Lucida
Opaque or Transparent?
Different pigments have different covering properties. Some are extremely transparent, barely showing on top of another colour. Others are extremely opaque, hiding what's beneath. Here's a simple way to test.
How to Use a Painting Knife
Painting knives create quite different marks to brushes and are very useful for impasto techniques with oils or acrylics.
Light Sources
When painting, one decision that must be made at composition stage, is where the light is going to come from as this influences the shadows, contrasts, and colours. So what are the choices?
Painting Trees
The 'secret' to painting believable trees is an understanding of the underlying structure of trees complemented by observation of different species.
10 Tips for Beginner Acrylic Painters
Acrylics are extremely versatile, fast drying, and can be used straight from the tube like oils or thinned with water or a medium and used like watercolours.
10 Tips for Oil Painters
Oil paints are extremely versatile. They can be used thickly in impasto or extremely thinly in glazes; they can be opaque or transparent. Here are a few tips to help you get professional results.
10 Tips for Loosening Up
If you think your paintings are too tight and controlled, try some – or all – of these tips to help you free up your work.
Splitting Brush Hairs
You can painstakingly draw lines or small blocks one by one. Or you can split the hairs of a flat brush and get instant parallel lines or rectangles that represent windows on a skyscraper, roof tiles, bricks or fence poles.
How To Stretch Your Own Canvas
Stretching your own canvas is easier than you may think and cheaper than buying ready-made canvases.
Painting from Photographs
If you're finding the paintings you're making from photos aren't working, it may be because you're not taking enough photos.
