Techniques

Welcome to the Techniques page. Here you'll find helpful hints on everything from stretching canvas to how to care for your brushes. This area will slowly grow as I add new content.

• Artist's Pigment Chart - Did you ever buy "Cerulean Blue Hue" and get home only to find you could have mixed other colors to get there? This chart breaks artist's pigments into their chemical compounds. Next time you go to the art supply store to buy paints, take a look at the back of the tube and you'll see what I mean!
• The Drawing Pep Talk - Some things to think about for the beginning artist. The biggest risk you can take when learning to draw is not starting. Read on....
• Painting in Progress - A step-by-step review of the oil painting "Aboard the Miss Emma".
• Stretching Canvas - This step-by-step guide will take the mystery and wrinkles out of stretching your oil canvases.
• Shading Techniques: Different shading techniques for different looks. Each shading technique has a purpose and particular "feel" to it. Check them out and give them all a try.
• Caring for Brushes - A guide to washing and storing brushes so that they will last. They're expensive enough as it is!
• Index of Brushstrokes: How to load a brush and make it work for you! Each brush has a purpose and that purpose is to move paint so you don't have to.
• Practice, Practice, Practice: This makes perfect, doesn't it? Methods to maximize practice time and uses of an artist's sketchbook.
• Values: How to achieve realistic looking shading that shows form. We'll look at the five areas of light and shadow on an object to render it fully.