NewestNovember 6, 2025
Step by Step to Begin Your Oil Painting
“Pretend it’s the very first time you tried to paint — could you give me a step-by-step method to get started? That blank canvas is unnerving.” Here's the method.
Read More »“Pretend it’s the very first time you tried to paint — could you give me a step-by-step method to get started? That blank canvas is unnerving.” Here's the method.
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October 22, 2025
One of the most basic principles of oil painting is 'keep your darks thin and your lights thick.' Most people follow it without knowing why — so here's the why.
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October 2, 2025
A lot of people think color mixing means 'find the closest color on the palette and lighten or darken it.' If you want real control, you need to understand how a color moves.
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September 22, 2025
I walked past an art class in the park and listened in on a critique. What I heard is exactly the problem with how oil painting is usually taught.
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September 17, 2025
Most beginners start on the wrong foot by painting on a store-bought pre-primed canvas straight out of the wrapper. Here's what canvas actually is and how cotton and linen differ.
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July 30, 2025
One of the biggest mistakes I see is thinking you draw it once and then carefully fill it in, like a coloring book. Each stage is a refining layer instead.
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July 18, 2025
Rabbit skin glue has been used for centuries as a traditional sizing for oil painting and gilding. It's simpler than it sounds.
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July 15, 2025
The original Ingres on the left, my copy on the right — painted when I was much younger and trying to get his smooth, brushstroke-free surface.
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January 29, 2013
Rembrandt is one of the few artists most people know by a single name. His style changed enormously from early to late — his painting procedure did not.
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October 19, 2012
The night before I wrote this I sat through curriculum night at my son's school. It made me realize that in all my years of oil painting lessons, a curriculum was followed exactly once.
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September 24, 2012
The old masters painted in a systematic way — each layer had one job. The underpainting is where you work out drawing and value with color set completely aside.
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February 13, 2011
The first picture is how I painted with no plan — beginning in doubt, no idea what to do next, hoping for the best. The second is how I paint now, with a procedure.
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February 9, 2011
Many people started painting by following the wet-on-wet TV painters. If you want to paint the way the old masters did, that method won't get you there — and here's why.
Read More »February 3, 2011
A quick list of three mistakes I've seen over and over from students learning to oil paint — and each one is fixable.
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