A- Z of Watercolour Techniques

When we learn to write, we begin by learning to shape letters. We then join these together to form words, then words form sentences, sentences form paragraphs and paragraphs form stories. After all, we wouldn’t dream of expecting someone learning a new language to start by writing a novel! Yet when we are learning to paint we want to start by painting a picture. The act of simply colouring in shapes with washes doesn’t allow opportunity for the medium itself to be fully exploited. We know our arty alphabet is a few letters short, but it's nearly there! Liked this? Related Articles How to Paint a Character Figurative Illustration - How to Draw and Paint Figures How to Watercolour - Getting Started with Watercolours How to create bright watercolour scenes 20 Expert Tips for Wonderful Wildlife Art

How To Paint Water, Demystifying The Process of Painting Water Water is one of the most compelling subjects to paint, and yet it can all end so badly. The problem often is; where to start? I wrestled with creating the illusion of fluidity, clarity and some semblance of realism for a long time. Eventually I discovered a way of looking at water that allows us to recreate it in almost any circumstance. The trick is to break it down into manageable pieces, rather than try and paint it in its entirety. When you understand how these pieces affect each other, learning how to paint water becomes much easier. Before we start, however, there are a couple of things I need to say. Firstly, your technical ability, or your ability to use a brush, mix colour etc. This tutorial is primarily about the "details" I use when painting water. The next point is that this strategy is not the only way, nor possibly the best way. Now that's out of the way, let's get into it! The substrate (or bottom. This is determined by the sediment it is carrying. Refraction, andReflection

Stunning Photos Reveal How Lighting Can Vastly Change Our Perception of the Human Face Light is one of, if not the single most powerful tools at a cinematographer's disposal. For many up and coming cinematographers, however, it's difficult to grasp how variations in light can affect an audience, both from a storytelling perspective and from a psychological one. In fact, that right there is one of the deepest, most confounding questions in all of cinematography, and it's a question that can't really be answered in any other way than through a lifetime of creating and studying images. In an absolutely stunning series of photos, Sebastian Petrovski, a photographer based out of Melbourne, shares several pairs of closeup portraits, with each set featuring one image that has been lit with bright, soft light, and the other with sparse hard light that creates a dramatic look. Of course, the before and after images "look" different, but more importantly, at least from a filmmaking perspective, each one conveys a vastly different tone and range of emotions.

How to Perfect your Impasto Painting I started out painting in a very controlled way. I’d always been heavily influenced by Lucian Freud and work that was hard won; photographic in a way but thick with paint. However when I moved back to Leicester from Bristol, it just wasn’t making me happy anymore. I literally bought canvases and big brushes, and decided to work on the head. I tried to make it more physical and expressive with thicker paint and took more chances; with the work I did before, I wasn’t taking a chance and suddenly I was working on something that could go wrong at any minute. Subjects I treat all of my paintings as ‘portraits’. With a subject that is quite emotive, I push myself to ‘feel’ paint rather than just see it as a mechanical device. Heads are my constant – the subject I go back to if I’m having a difficult time or want to push the work forward. My double portraits are about the relationship between two people in the same space. Composition Technique Head of a Proud Woman is all about rhythm.