In today’s video clip, Polly Hammett explains how she makes use of several small value sketches prior to starting on a large painting.
As you’ll see, the question is not WHAT to paint, but HOW to paint it. Polly has already decided on her subject (a woman) and has even drawn the shape of the woman’s outline and many other details.
Before starting with any color, however, she wanted to visualize how her painting would look with different areas emphasized. To that end she created several small value studies in black and white, then compared them to see which one she preferred most. Take a look:
NOTE: You can get Polly’s full mixed-media tutorial at Creative Catalyst.
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
In today's video, mixed-media artist Sean Dye is painting a golden sky into his landscape, using a few sizes of palette knives rather than brushes. As you probably know, palette knife painting is very different from painting with brushes, both in the techniques used to apply the paint to the c. . . 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
In a still life painting, every object's color is affected by the colors of the objects around them. . . but white objects are affected more than most, which can make them very difficult to paint. In the following video, Craig Nelson explains his process for painting two white eggs. He starts . . . read more
Today we have a rare opportunity to "look over the shoulder" of mixed media artist Lesley Riley while she designs a collage/fabric book using photographic transfers, scraps of cloth, and other bits of material. Lesley uses a hands-on approach to design by physically placing objects in differen. . . read more
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