Friday January 16, 2009
This week's painting tip is from Patti Vas Dias and is about the colors to use to paint ginger hair or fur.
Read this week's painting tip...Got a great painting tip to share? Use
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See Also:
10 Tips for Painting Black Fur
Top 100 Painting Tips
Photo © Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc
Artistic Talent or Not: What Do You Really Believe?
Thursday January 15, 2009
Is inherent artistic inclination ("talent") or the ability to work hard ("persistence") more valuable to a painter in the long term? Does having things such as perspective or color observation come easily to you make it more likely you'll finish a painting, or does it mean you'll give up more quickly when something goes wrong because you're not accustomed to having to work for results?
I believe we have a degree of inherent aptitude for certain things, but if you don't use it consistently, it has no value. Passion for something makes it far more rewarding than being good at it, and more likely you'll keep striving to be better. We tend to undervalue and neglect what comes easily.
American artist Winslow Homer put it thus:
"What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way.”
See Also:
The Talent Myth
Art is Not About Talent Artist's Quotes: Talent
Image: © 2009 Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc |
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Wednesday January 14, 2009
I painted this color chart some 20 years ago with all the acrylic colors I had then. It's among the things I rediscovered sorting out my art stuff when we moved last year. The detail at the bottom is actual size. (
See larger photo of color chart...)
Image: © 2009 Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc
Tuesday January 13, 2009
How do you decide if a new paint brand is going to be decent and likely to be money well spent? The ultimate test is, obviously, to try it, but there are various things I use to judge an unknown paint brand and decide whether or not I'll buy a tube. Then I select a color I use a lot so I can compare it to what I'm used to using. Read more about
assessing a new brand of oil or acrylic paint...
See Also:
How to Read the Label on a Tube of Paint
How to Test if a Color is Opaque or Transparent
How to Test if a Color is Lightfast
Image: ©2007 Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc