When painting from a photograph (or from life) it’s not always necessary to include the exact background that appears behind your subject. In many cases a more abstract, two or three-color background can be more pleasing, and help focus the viewer’s attention on your subject.
In the following video, Arleta Pech, a watercolorist, shows how she adds those kinds of dynamic, colorful backgrounds to her floral studies. Take a look:
For more watercolor painting instructions, check out Arleta’s full-length video from Creative Catalyst Productions.
Finally, my "big project" is finished! It’s been a crazy day with a lot going on, but foliotwist.com is finally live and online! Since I’ve kept it a complete secret up until launch, here’s a quick (mostly visual) overview of what it does. . .read more
Every watercolor painter should know how to properly apply color washes to their paper. In the following video, Susan Bourdet shows the entire process, starting with a preliminary drawing that has already been protected with masking fluid. Susan explains how to mix several colors of paint in p. . . read more
In this short video from Creative Catalyst Productions, Carl Dalio shares some great tips on painting realistic figures inside landscape paintings. As you'll see, it's not about adding lots of detail in order to create realism, but simply creating shapes that "feel" like human figures. Carl st. . . read more
Most paintings (especially portraits and figurative paintings) benefit from a good preliminary drawing before you ever pick up a brush. The traditional way of doing this is to draw on your canvas using charcoal or graphite, and then paint over it—but today we'd like to show you an altern. . . read more
If you want to create soft, blurred backgrounds in your photographs, you will need to reduce your depth of field. Luckily, there's more than one way to do that. You can change your aperture, adjust your length of lens, or just move closer to your subject. In today's article I'll cover all thre. . . read more
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