Category Drawing

Your assignment: Face rejection 10 times, for a start that is. You’re likely thinking that sounds rather unpleasant, but we’re serious. Acrylic Artist magazine has found a common thread running through most artists’ stories—they faced rejection, and overcame it, on the road to artistic success.Remember when blogs first became the rage?

It feels right to talk about color and art during this time of the year, when flowers are blooming, trees are budding, and skies are (mostly) blue. After months of dull-colored scenery, everything seems to be flourishing wherever I look, which makes me want to do whatever I can to capture that beauty and vibrancy in my art.

The drama of this charcoal and pencil drawing by LilianWescott Hale is in the bold contrast of value of thefigures skin, dress, and hair.I love all kinds of art: super complicated installations, amazing marble sculptures, and virtuosic canvases filled with color and form. But when it comes down to it, I’m a simple woman at heart, and the art that moves me the most is a pure and simple pencil drawing on paper.

How to Paint Imagined PlacesMost painters I’ve spoken to say it’s somewhat liberating to paint an imagined subject or a fictitious place. Working in such a way does come with its own set of challenges, however.People often judge such artworks more harshly than works that are more realistic, almost as if they are trying to uncover the secret behind a magic trick.

Sometimes I can forget how good it feels just practicing drawing techniques. By practicing them, youre rewarding yourself in the moment and also in your future drawing.Young Woman in a Black and Green Bonnet, Looking Downby Mary Cassatt, ca. 1890, pastel drawing, 25 5⁄8 x 20 1/2.In our newest free eBook, Learn How to Draw From Artist Daily: Drawing Techniques on Depth, Color Value, youll find drawing instructions on how to draw with an eye toward creating the illusion of depth in your work; how to draw with color effectively; and drawing techniques surrounding value, which is a mainstay of all draftsmanship.

During my first week of graduate school at Cornell University, the professors called the students together to order supplies for the semester. The lithographers wanted Basingwerk, the etchers wanted German Copperplate, the drawers wanted Fabriano Roma, the painters wanted Saral transfer paper, and everyone mentioned specific papers made by Rives, Fabriano, and Arches.

I dont care what anyone says, color is king. It makes everything better–more appealing and lively. Oftentimes in an artists drawing practice, a sense of color takes a backseat to the black, white, and gray of charcoal or graphite. But that doesnt necessarily have to be the way it is.Distortion(s) by Janie Gildow,colored pencil and acrylic, 11 x 10.

Greek Steps, Sifnosby Thomas W. Schaller, 2008,watercolor, 12 x 9.I just finished writing an article on Thomas W. Schallers watercolor paintings for the April 2010 issue of American Artist, and it occurred to me that Thomas is the third licensed architect whose watercolors I have written about in the past year.

Landscape Drawing BasicsA landscape drawing is a formidable artist’s tool for many reasons. But learning how to draw landscape features such as trees, mountains, or beaches allows you to become familiar with how to deal with issues of texture, light and shadow, and proportion, all of which are cornerstones of strong artistic practice.

When I walk through a museum or gallery, there are certain paintings that I breeze past and others that always draw me in. I’m always intrigued by how artists choose to represent themselves and perpetuate their own personal mythologies.True, a self-portrait at its most basic is a simple likeness. Historically, in fact, artists used self-portraits as a kind of calling card, attesting to their ability to capture a likeness and giving a sense of their capabilities.

Old Timer by Aaron Westerberg,12 x 9, oil on canvas.Painting instructors often ask students to consider two important relationships between the colors squeezed out on their palettes: value and temperature. That’s what artist-instructor Aaron Westerberg did during a workshop he recently taught in California, where he showed students how to apply their drawing skills to creating oil paintings.

I recently had the honor of judging the entries for the “Banks of the Hudson” exhibition for the Woodstock School of Art and noticed two common problems among the drawings and paintings I rejected. However, I was surprised that so many artists who proudly submitted their work didn’t seem to understand how to manage their choices of colors, values, and contrasts to create the sense of space within their paintings.

Still Life PaintingThe still life painting genre is as diverse as its history is long. From the times of the Egyptians when paintings of food and valuables were depicted on tomb walls to the floor mosaics and wall paintings of Pompeii to High Renaissance works of art to contemporary still life painting of today, the genre has always been one that artists turn to again and again.

Ariadne by Janet Rogers,watercolor painting.Since coming to Artist Daily, my parents are both super supportive of me and our web community. Ain’t he sweet? Delusional, but sweet.Another thing my dad would love to do is have a portrait artist make a portrait painting of my brother and I as a gift for my mom.

1. WATERCOLOR ARTIST, DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONAll reports indicate that Santa will be headed down the chimney with a record number of tablet readers this year. Make sure the watercolor artists in your family have plenty to read on their iPads, Nooks and Kindles by adding a digital subscription to Watercolor Artist to the package.

It’s often said in sports circles that the best players often make the worst coaches. He is regarded as one of the finest hitters in baseball history, but his short-lived managerial career is considered by most to be largely unsuccessful, due in large part to his admitted impatience with players whose abilities didn’t match his own.

I was recently fortunate to see an exhibition of the Italian artist Giorgio Morandi’s (1890–1964) paintings at The Phillips Collection, in Washington, DC, and I learned a great deal about the artist’s paintings by reading the wall text. Rather, he used them as visual reference points for a study of the abstract forms.

John Howard Sanden teaches portraiture as a sequential series of steps that an artist can masterfor the sake of capturing a likeness, but the skills can also be applied to other genres of painting.Trying to capture the likeness of a person in a finite period of time and meeting the high expectations often associated with portraiture are far from effortless tasks.

Interest in acrylic painting is skyrocketing. There is less and less of a bias against this medium as a newcomer, and more and more of an interest in the healthful qualities and vibrant colors acrylics have to offer.In our free eBook, Acrylic Painting Techniques: Methods on How to Paint With Acrylics for Acrylic Landscape Painting and Interiors, youll see what all the fuss is about concerning painting with acrylics.

Mixed Media BasicsMost painters and draftsmen are in fact mixed media artists because they mix media quite often, sometimes without realizing it. Working in such a way allows one to explore how various media can work together and gives the artist an opportunity to brush up and hone a multitude of skills.