How to Keep your Oil 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 after reading this article, you will no longer have to put up with this frustration any longer and will finally be able to enjoy oil 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.

Your Palette

First, you should get into the habit of laying out your colors the same way every time you paint. This is just good practice and keeps the painting process flowing nicely. Arrange your colors along the edges of your palette leaving a lot of room in the center for mixing.

Don't be afraid to squeeze out a good amount of paint, especially your whites. You will be more productive if you aren't continuously stopping to squeeze out more paint.

Make certain to include all of the colors you think you will need to complete that session of painting. Again, this will make you more productive.

When adding paint to the palette, I have found that squeezing the paint out in long lines, as opposed to puddles, keeps my colors cleaner. When you have puddles of paint, they tend to get soiled by other colors when mixing. With a long line of paint, you can just take paint from the end as needed and not dirty the rest. Keep some rags or paper towels handy for wiping your palette knife clean.

It's a good idea to continuously wipe your palette clean during the painting process. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to remove dried up oil paint. Keep some alcohol handy so that you can keep the mixing area of your palette clean.

If you don't want to fuss around with a regular palette, why not try a disposable one? They are basically paper with a plastic coating that prevents the paper from absorbing the oil. The beauty of the disposable palette, is that you can simply throw it in the trash when you are done. Using a disposable palette will definitely help keep your colors clean as you will be starting with a clean surface every time you start a new painting session.

When mixing your colors, use your palette knife and not your brush. A palette knife can be wiped completely clean so there is no chance of your colors becoming contaminated. Your brush is made for painting and not mixing and you can shorten the life span of your brush if you are continually mixing with it.

Brushes

I like to have a handful of clean brushes near by when I am painting. This way, I do not need to stop and clean my brushes when I am working with a different color and there is less risk of the wrong colors getting into the mix.

SATURATION OR BRILLIANCE OF COLOR

When a color is squeezed straight from the tube, it is said to be high in saturation or brilliance. This is because it hasn't been mixed with any other colors. The more colors you mix together, the duller they will become. It has been said that one should not mix more than three colors together and this a very good rule to follow. If you mix more than three colors together you are kind of defeating the purpose.

Why is this so? Let's say that you are going to mix a brown. You decide to use red, yellow and blue to create your brown. You then decide to mix in a bit of orange. As you know, red mixed with yellow will create orange. So there is no need to add the additional color.

No one ever said it is a sin to use color straight from the tube. If you are painting something that calls for brighter color, why not use paint straight from the tube without mixing. Sometimes we get so accustomed to mixing color, that we neglect the pure color that is right in front of us. When using pure color though, try not to over do it. Too many bright colors can create havoc in a painting. Try and add bright colors against a duller surrounding so that your bright colors really stand out.

LIGHTEN OR DARKEN WITH COLOR

What is it that most of us do when we want to change the value of a color? To lighten a color, we usually add white and to darken a color we use black. You should always look for the opportunity to use color to change the value instead of black and white. Adding white or black to color will diminish its brilliance, unless that is the effect you are shooting for. A great example of this is using Yellow Ochre. If you want to brighten and lighten this color, instead of adding white, try adding a little Cadmium Yellow Light.

I hope this article has given you a little more insight into keeping your colors pure. Remember to practice oil painting as often as possible and never give up, no matter how frustrated you get! ?

Author: Ralph Serpe is Webmaster and founder of two popular instructional Websites for artists: CreativeSpotlite.com - Visit us today for more free art lessons. ArtInstructionBlog.com - Visit today for more free art instruction on a variety of different mediums.

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Individuality and the Artist behind Esoteric Art

Interactive learning has taken root in many circles today. The sharing of thoughts and experiences between teacher and student, between mentor and apprentice, between parent and child, or among people in groups helps facilitate the learning process.

Play-acting and dramatization are forms of interactive learning. In a theater or drama class, for instance, a student may be asked to portray emotions like fear, anger, hope, or joy. These are exercises in knowing one’s self and identifying one’s emotions for what they really are. They are warm-ups to effective communication and free expression in the arts.

The interplay in esoteric art is very similar. There is a quiet but active interaction between the artist and you as the person looking at the artwork. The approach on the viewer is very individual. You as the viewer are literally being posed with a question that you alone can answer and face based on your own individual perception. The artist portrays a certain subject and you are invited to interpret this subject based on your own perception of reality. If the subject presented by the artist is a person, then you as the viewer may identify or inter-relate the posture or behavior of the subject with your own person, like you would with a mirror.

The esoteric artist must then be a strong individual if he or she were to act as a mirror. This artist must be honest and brave enough to deal with the subconscious and unconscious aspects of personality that are openly revealed to other people in his or her paintings. An esoteric artist must adhere not to what is trendy or fashionable, but to what is real and true.

Esoteric art is something of a psychological experience more than it is an emotional or intellectual one. Psychology basically tells you that your personality affects your behavior. Simply speaking, your thoughts and moods affect the way you react to events and situations around you. Our internal reality affects our external reality. What happens inside of us affects what happens outside of us. What we feel and think inside of us will become what we feel and think is going on outside of us. It is something like a chain reaction, wherein a positive play of good vibes within you will help reinforce good vibes in your environment.

In a way, esoteric art is a therapeutic medium towards healing some psychologically-based personality problems, especially in cases when there are unresolved issues within a person and there is still no closure on the past. It encourages you to take control of the situation rather than allowing the situation to control you. It sort of tells you that anything can happen and so whatever may happen, it is how you react to what happens which really matters in the end. It helps you believe that once you change something from the inside, you can change everything on the outside.

Esoteric art is meant to be a liberating experience, both for the artist and the viewer. The goal is always self-realization. Once an artist has portrayed an innermost reality and this long-forgotten memory has been triggered ie viewer, then an esoteric painting has truly realized its purpose for being.

Discover the meaning behind narrative art and how one artist uses it on her work at http://www.mazzoldi-best-acrylic-paintings.com/narrative-art.html
Contemporary romantic esoteric artist Aurora Mazzoldi shares her acrylic paintings and interpretations at http://www.mazzoldi-best-acrylic-paintings.com

Suthee Studio's Picture

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The Performer Versus the Artist

This afternoon was X's final rehearsal for the retreat performance. The rehearsal was at the College of Music, UCT. The room was a piano practice room, TINY! No room to move, so the audience, X's mother, the guitarist's mother and I sat outside in the corridor opposite the open door!

X was nervous, but sang like a dream, and moved like only a heartfelt professional star can move! There was no sound equipment, all the instruments were muted, and X used a dummy mike, but she held that mike and sang into it with ALL her heart, and without any strain projected into the words of the songs every fibre of her being! It was one of those rare moments in life, a moment that is never coming back - one and a half hours of heart-rending beauty SHARED with a few fellow travellers upon the Path with a Heart! A mere rehearsal on a Sunday afternoon, but for me personally so much more poignant than the glamour of a performance! Words can never express the RAW nerves, the OPEN VULNERABILITY of the artist in rehearsal giving his or her EVERYTHING with the CLEAR intent of being able to deliver an utterly IMPECCABLE performance, for perfect it is never likely to be, no matter how well rehearsed! I found myself fighting back the tears for most of the rehearsal!

Audiences only get to see and to applaud the FINISHED product, and although every artist LIVES for that moment of being on stage, yet deep within his or her innermost being there is always an indescribable melancholy and, all too often, a devastating sense of emptiness! This is something only a performing artist can grasp! Performances are like WONDER-FULL meals that take HOURS of preparation, but that are CONSUMED within a few short MINUTES by diners that, although more than generous in handing out compliments, nevertheless leave the table gorged and bloated, and thinking only of going to BED!

The performance is GREAT, yes, and the audience goes home well SATISFIED and already planning when they can attend the NEXT performance, but how does the artist SHARE the blood, the sweat and the tears that have gone into making that performance? How does the artist share the JOURNEY that has taken years and years of an utterly ruthless and most unforgiving training, the great many disillusionments and failures that threaten to strip one of any sense of self-belief, and the endless disappointments that eat away at a hope that is NOT allowed, CAN never be allowed, to waver even for one moment? Do those few moments of success upon the stage, even with thundering applause at the end, do true justice to a journey never shared, simply because it is NOT shared, and neither CAN it BE shared?

Hence the melancholy and the sense of emptiness! To walk onto an empty stage at the end of a performance in which one has given one's all, and to look into that empty auditorium is to KNOW with every fiber of one's being what it is to be alone, and what it means to empty one's cup so that finally it may be filled with that ALL-ONE-NESS that makes for the good, the bad and everything in between! Performers are LONELY people that seek out one ESCAPISM after another after every single performance! But the artist LEARNS to savour the JOURNEY until he or she has BE-COME the journey! How can one justify seeking to escape the Path with a Heart?

But by far the greatest source of the artist's melancholy lies in the difference between rehearsals and performances. When an artist walks onto stage and gives his or her everything, of course, the audience will be on its feet, shouting and screaming and clapping! Many will say this is only but RIGHT, for surely it is the artist's JUST reward for having delivered a truly MEMORABLE performance! But those few rare individuals who are in the know applaud more quietly, and do not shout bravo or demand encores, for they KNOW just HOW very EMPTY is that moment of success! This is the distinguishing MARK between the performer and the true artist!

The performer goes through the REHEARSALS so as to EXIST for the limelight and the recognition that comes with SUCCESS! The artist LIVES for the REHEARSALS so as to GIVE EXPRESSION to his or her innermost BE-ING, the performances being mere STEPPING STONES, mileposts, marking the JOURNEY! To the performer recognition is EVERY-THING! To the artist, VULNERABILITY to CRITICISM is the JOURNEY to ALL-ONE-NESS! The performer EXISTS for acknowledgement on stage! The artist LIVES to RECEIVE CRITICISM in rehearsal!

When I looked into X's eyes at the rehearsal this afternoon I saw that openness, that vulnerability that comes with WANTING to LEARN, and even though she had her nose up against a brick wall, and a dummy mike in her hand, she sang into that mike and to that wall with ALL of her heart, but also with the nervousness that is born of the EXPECTATION that she is going to be CORRECTED, CRITICISED, any moment! How does one express this in words, other than to term it HUMILITY in LEARNING what it is to LOVE? X's eyes were REFLECTED in the eyes of her accompanists, no matter how much older and more experienced than her they are! As I stood in the corridor facing these four people in that tiny rehearsal room, I was, like so many times in my life, totally overcome by the unspoken RE-QUEST in their eyes: "Tell us HOW we can IMPROVE our skills!" How can I possibly verbalise my feelings in that moment? The point is I can't! A handful of friends met, their hearts touched each other's ever so briefly whilst they shared for one and half hours the journey upon the Path with a Heart! When they meet again it will be for the performance, and another milestone would have been reached, another retreat will be over, and they will smile at each other, hug, and go their separate ways in pursuit of their LEARNING, their REHEARSALS, to achieve THE most impeccable performance they are capable of!

Strange how LIFE works! Why, at this precise point in my life was I taken back to the College of Music, with the Ballet School just across the narrow little street named Lover's Walk, to rehearse X for THIS retreat?! Never have I felt the impact of the Cry of the Eagle more profoundly than this afternoon! And to top it all, as fate would have it, I was alone, like all the many years during which this specific spot in Cape Town had been my "rehearsal turf." Yes, X's mother was present, and, yes, I could sense that with all her heart she was supporting my purpose in WILLING X to give her best! But strange how alone I was! Strange how the Cry of the Eagle sounded in my EARS! In being back at UCT after so many, many years, and specifically now that the Cry of the Eagle has been sounded, I truly felt the aloneness of the ALL-ONE in handing over to humanity its heritage! Consequently for me, the RE-TREAT started this afternoon! Never have I felt more humbled by the truly wonder-full privilege of being able to tread the Path with a Heart!

Théun Mares, Lightbringer, humanitarian and author, man of knowledge of the Toltec Tradition, is highly skilled in helping people to help themselves in building relationships. Mares has extensive knowledge of life and human behaviour and as an author of eight books, he continues to share a vast amount of the Teachings of the Toltec Tradition.

Author:Theun Mares

For more information on Theun's work please visit:
http://www.relationship-resolution.com
http://www.toltec-legacy.com

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Three Exercises To Improve Your Drawing Abilities

When you start learning to draw, soon you recognize: the major part of this artistry is just craftsmanship and technique. When you're expert in these primary methods, your creativeness can rely on these basics. This leaves you more freedom to develop your drawing skills and imagination rather than focusing on applying the basic methods decently.
So it's a good thought to practice these primary drawing methods regularly. Especially as you're starting to learn to draw, much practice of these primary methods will quicken your drawing success.

Learn How to Draw Hatchings and Cross-Hatchings

Hatching implies to draw a lot parallel running lines close together. Other than in normal shadings the lines are not allowed to touch one another! Although there's still white space 'tween the lines they build an region apparently shaded densely.

Cross-hatching goes one step further. When you're doing cross-hatching you overlay one set of hatchings with another set rectangular to the first one. Thus cross hatchings get a lot denser and solider than (single) hatchings.
Drawing hatchings requires precision. So practicing hatchings is as well a outstanding opportunity to train your draftsmanship precision. When starting begin to fill up empty sheets of paper with hatchings and cross-hatchings not having a concrete depicted object in your eye.
When you've acquired a certain level of proficiency, you ought to try first easy subjects. Pick out such scenes that contain enough shadow. Seek to depict this scenery not using outlines. Instead rely completely on translating the darknesses and dark areas into hatchings. Let the hatchings' direction play along the subjects you're depicting. For drawing blacker areas and darknesses lay the lines of your hatching closer together or use cross hatching.

Learn to Draw Shadings

To draw shadings is more common than hatching. It is more intuitive and needs lower experience. When drawing shadings you merely fill up areas of your drawing with your pencil. By varying your pencil's softness, the force you apply and the number of shading layers you create you manage the tones you create.
Similar as when creating hatchings you draw shadings by drawing lots of lines. This time you draw them so close to each other they intersection and blend completely. Shadings made out of lines still have a direction (though not as strong as in hatchings). So pay attention to adjust your shadings' direction with the forms of the subjects you're depicting. To get the shading more dense you have to apply the same techniques as when creating cross hatching.
A different way for drawing shadings requires to draw countless really little circles close together so they merge and blend. Shadings made this way are highly even and lack a visible direction. The advantage: you won't have to keep an eye on the shading's hidden direction.
Ideally you begin practicing shadings instantly. Choose some sheets of paper, outline some simple figures like triangles and begin to fill them with shadings. Seek to get them as smooth as possible and use the different techniques explained before.
Again once you have reached enough experience, try to begin using the techniques learned on real-world subjects.

Use Different angles and perspective types

In addition to creating hatchings and shadings the most important skill you have to know while beginning to learn drawing, is a sound understanding of perspective.
There are some rules that may help you in building perspectively sound drafts. But first it's necessary you practice your eye to acknowledge basic forms and structures.
Pick out easy sceneries mostly consisting of straight lines and not too much curves. And then draw those scenes by drawing only the silhouette. This way you can focus on understanding dimensions and perspective. But don't stop here, repeat this exercise by drawing exactly the same scenery again and again from different angles.
You will see with every repetition you'll apprehend the subject better and your ability to understand and depict the proportions of any subject will increase greatly.

What Next?

This trio of practices are the most crucial while studying to draw. There are more basic methods and techniques you could and should train. You could improve your drawing skills by yourself - simply get and draw life sceneries. Start with easy ones and increase the degree of difficulty as you make progress. Additionally you could learn drawing using exercises designed and tested to ensure ideal advancements for your drawing skills.

This is the 4rd article of the 6 part series on drawing and how to learn drawing. Visit the next part to learn to draw fast . Learn to draw today!
http://drawingsecrets.com

Author : Ruediger Schmidt

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Posters Online and Add ‘Charm’ to Your Home

It was not so long ago, you picked those art posters as souvenirs while you were out of the country on foreign trips. But today, while you return from your trip abroad you no longer bring those posters as they can be found online nowadays. Yes, with the emergence of a large number of online poster sellers you can have all types of posters at the click of a button, that too, sitting comfortably in your room.

If you are a wanderer at heart, vintage travel posters can be a very good thing for you to make a collection of. If you search online for travel posters, you will find different types of posters telling travel stories and errands from different ages. Real time travel snaps of renowned world personalities can also be availed at attractive and discounted rates.

As an admirer of beauty and artworks you may already have collected huge number of posters and frames over the years. If you are in a mood to multiply the numbers thus increasing the aesthetics of your home, you can easily buy the posters from the online poster sellers. They deal in very attractive and valuable works from the past getting which you can easily add more charm to your living or drawing room

Vintage posters of all categories now can be purchased online. Apart from vintage travel posters, you can choose your pick from a wide variety of poster categories like – entertainment, wars, sports, fashion, foods, contemporary, movies, transportation, wine and beverages, circus and magic, exhibitions and events, literature etc. And the best thing is that you can order your choice in different shapes depending on the availability. There are also good arrangements for custom poster order on the sites of many a sellers.

Now, you can also frame your selected posters online. Some stores specialize in framing solutions for posters as well. You can make your selection from mat, frames and glass in order to ensure durability and attraction to them. With the help of a professional poster framer you can thus give a complete look to your poster besides helping it protect from dust and external particles.

Your Art Poster Painting

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Making of thangka paintings

Most of the thangkas are painted on a canvas. Some are painted on paper or leather. Other are embroidered, appliquéd, woven and patchwork thangkas, but theSketching else forms are not discussed here. Technically making a painted thangka occurs in four stages.

Preparing the foundation:

The kind of thangka under discussion here, the canvas you buy, is made of a woven material: cotton, linen, and sometimes silk. A finely woven structure, made of a single piece of fabric, is best, because paint easily chips off of thicker to rougher fabrics when the thangka is rolled up. The painted canvas is rectangular in shape, taller than it is wide, ideally measuring on the average 30inches tall by 20 inches wide (75 by 50centimeters). The same 3:2 ratio f height to width can also be found in other formats: 12 by 8 inches (30by 20cm); 48 by 32 inches (120 by 80 cm); 120 by 80 inches (300 by 200 cm) for exceptionally large specimens. These proportions generally also apply to the huge thangkas - measuring up to 180 by 130 feet (55 by 40 meters) that are hung out side the wall of the monasteries during festivals. There are also elongated thangkas that are wider than they are tall, with a size ratio of 2:3.The edges of the canvas are folded over twice, rather than hemmed, to prevent them from unraveling. Then the canvas is fastened with thread to four laths that are firmly attached with twine to a wooden frame, and strung tightly, so that it looks like an upright trampoline.The front and the back of the cloth are swabbed with a sizing of anima; glue consisting of boiled bones and skins, often of a water buffalo. After this layer has been applied, it is polished with a smooth stone or shell. This produces a smooth, even layer on rough or uneven cloth that will function well for sketching and painting and will keep the paint from seeping into the cloth.

Sketching

For orientation, the painter will often first lay down a grid of coordinates in the form of eight lines: two diagonal lines with a horizontal and a vertical axis drawn through their intersection, and four lines drawn parallel to the frame. Sometimes the painter will do this on the back so that the lines show through when the canvas is held up to the light the next step is a charcoal sketch. When the painter is satisfied with the result, the lines will be accentuated with ink.There are separate drawings, of templates, available for many of the figures that are to be painted. They can be transferred to the canvas by pricking holes through them along the contours and on the most important lines and components. Powder is blown through these holes, resulting in a dotted outline on the canvas. Another technique for transferring figures uses block prints. The wood or metal blocks are painted black; the figures are colored in at later stages.

Painting

When the sketch is finished, it is time for the coloring stage. Large color area areas are often applied by brushing or writing numbers or syllables into the area in question. Black, for instant, is indicated with the number two or with the syllable Na, yellow with five or SA. When applying the colors, a particular sequence is commonly followed. First, the area furthest away in perspective, the sky, is colored. Then the closer landscape is done, followed by trees, rocks, and water. After this come the deities and other figures. The throne, clothing, and nimbus are painted first. Light colors are applied before dark colors, and then details in gold are added.

Framing

Once the painting is finished, the canvas is loosened from it’s stretchers and framed with textile edging. The silk or brocade trim is of an established width, so that the depth of the bottom trim is half the length of the painting, the top one fourth, and the sides are one-eighth of the length. Still, the framed thangka is not completely rectangular but splays out a little toward the bottom, and metal caps are usually slipped over the ends. If a thangka is not in use, but not rolled up either, a thin piece it from soot and smoky lamps, and to avoid the image being visually touched bye uninitiated eyes. Often the curtain will be yellow silk, with red or blue dots, or sometimes it has a flower motion on it. Over this lowered curtain two bands of red silk hang down to the very bottom. At the top between these two strips hangs a lightweight read cord with which the veil can be tied up. At the very top there is a cord by which the thangka can be hung or with it can be tied together when it is rolled up.

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