Learn How To Paint-Take An Idea Break

By Bryon Zirker

Sometimes your creativity starts to wane and you feel like you have no good ideas for a current or new project.

When this type of plateau hits me I like to clear my mind by going for a long walk, working out, visiting an art gallery (the best option) going through my existing portfolio of projects or hitting the library and looking at different art subjects that I find there.

Usually these strategies work very well to get my creativity going again. These work well when you learn how to paint.

Learn How To Paint

How to Draw For Kids - How To Help Kids Draw

By Bryon Zirker

If you feel teaching how to draw for kids is beyond you because you believe that you are unable to draw yourself (I believe that being artistic can be developed just like muscles) do not worry and read on.

While artistic drawing is an amazing skill, even more amazing is the different styles and artistic interpretations that can be found among many of today's young kid artists.

Within each stage in a kids life, art is viewed through many different lenses, each a different perspective colored by experience, perception and growth of ones artistic skills.

Encourage your kids to look at and copy other peoples work. When your kids carefully look at someone else's work it will help to improve their work very dramatically. When doing a copy kids are forced to see things that they do not normally see and this is a very good way to learn how to do it themselves. They just need to remember not to claim it as their own.

Have your kids keep a book close by and work sketches and drawings in it as often as possible. This is something that works very well for keeping track of ideas and for future inspiration.

Make sure that when your kids bring a new drawing or painting to you that you respond with positive encouragement, never criticize your kids work.

If you do not want to shoot your budding artist down make sure you never use comments like these:

What's it supposed to be?

It's not as good as (the next guys) drawing is it?

Why are you wasting your time with this? (the next guy) is the real artist in the family/class.

Oh well, never mind. You will do better next time.

If you are using any comments like these or any kind of critical or discouraging remarks, change them into positive, reassuring and encouraging comments.

Keep plenty of art supplies handy for your kids to use. Any art projects that your kids create will help them develop creatively and to develop their fine motor skills which are necessary for drawing.

Encourage your kids to draw every chance you get. Never force them to draw and paint and they will progress through the stages of creative development quite well. Let your kids develop their drawing naturally.

An interesting thing with regards to kids drawings is that all children appear to progress through the same identifiable creative stages which demonstrates just how innate the desire to express ourselves creatively lies within all of us.

Every kids believes that she or he is an artist, just try asking a class full of kids who is the artist and watch every hand go up.

Children will reach a point called Crisis Period of development where they are trying to create realism without the required skills they must learn to do so and they begin to lose interest in drawing or painting. At this point it is now necessary to begin formal art instruction to learn those skills. This usually happens around the age of 10 to 12.

With how to draw for kids encourage them to keep going get them into classes, explain that it takes time to develop their skills. It is all about trial and error, and lots of practice.

Lost Manuscript Resurfaces, Over 190 Pages on Drawing, Sketching, Oil & Watercolor Painting and Different Modes of Seeing - Revealing All The Secrets of a True Art Master! The Right (and the Wrong) Way to Learn Painting and Drawing

How To Draw For Kids
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Paint and Draw - Beginners Prompting

By Bryon Zirker

So you have decided that you want to paint and draw. Maybe you are the sort of person that really enjoyed art at school though you discovered you were not one of the few that it came to naturally.

Are someone who is retired and has had a set of watercolors sitting on top of your desk or on a shelf for years. Maybe you are someone who aspires to have a go at some kind drawing and painting however you have no real idea in your mind of where or how to begin, and maybe you have had a bad experience with your art back in school and you think there is no hope now!

A lot people think to themselves that they are terrible at art when the fact is they just have not learned the basic skills needed. Maybe you enjoyed art at school and were encouraged to study science subjects instead. Some budding artists are fairly capable, almost without realizing it. They just do not understand the basic of how proportion works. You just need more practice so that you can get past the pin figure stage.

Make it a point to study and learn more about how to paint and draw. You'll learn some very interesting techniques and ideas. Beginner classes are recommended. There are all sorts of positive reasons for attending a beginners art class, going to a beginners art class will enhance your appreciation of the visual world.

You will definitely make new connections in the study of art and make new friends. In classes you will enjoy the chance to experiment with different materials and to enjoy some to yourself away from family for a couple of hours. In the beginning you do not need to pressure yourself into a full blown masterpiece by any means.

Lost Manuscript Resurfaces, Over 190 Pages on Drawing, Sketching, Oil & Watercolor Painting and
Different Modes of Seeing - Revealing All The Secrets of a True Art Master! The Right (and the Wrong) Way to Learn Painting and Drawing


Paint And Draw

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Learn How to Paint - Tips For Starting

By Bryon Zirker

Learn how to paint with oils, I believe may be the ideal medium for beginning artists. Is is a great way to study, as your changes and corrections can be easily made. When you apply and later find unwanted passages of color, they can simply be scraped off the canvas without any injury to the surface.

Colors can be painted over another, your actual drawing can be corrected, and all the aspect of your light and shadow application can be experimented with..

Your painting session can be ended at any time, and picked up and continued at any time. Beginners more than not, make oil their choice without considering other media at all due to a reverence for "true oil painting." Many artists want to produce pictures that show the actual brush stroke marks and textures.

Even an artist that might lean toward a specific medium may find, as I have, that with oils he can gain a quicker study of color subtleties and can gain a basic knowledge which can later be applied to the preferred medium.. You will soon discover after some practice time, that there is more to oil painting than the visible quality of the actual brush stroke work. Your chosen surface type, preliminary stain preparation of the surface, and the underpainting process come together to affect the finished result.

Make sure in your initial efforts that you work in a direct way, particularly when you are painting outdoors. After awhile you might choose to experiment in the studio with various underpainting processes. Also when learning how to paint choose a good box to store the different oil paints, brushes, palettes, and panels. One very popular size for a paint box is 12x16 and another is 16 x 20 inches. Try to find a box with a lid that is grooved in order to hold a canvas panel.

Usually Paint boxes are available in wood and metal. You may find new plastic versions as well. The choice of a metal box will be more expensive and will last a lifetime. You can locate wooden boxes that are already painted or stained though they will cost more than unpainted paint supply boxes. If you choose an unfinished box, put a complete coat or two of a good varnish, on the inside and outside. This makes easier to wipe off left over paint for easy cleanup.

Lost Manuscript Resurfaces, Over 190 Pages on Drawing, Sketching, Oil & Watercolor Painting and Different Modes of Seeing - Revealing All The Secrets of a True Art Master! The Right (and the Wrong) Way to Learn Painting and Drawing.

Learn How To Paint!
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Learn Oil Painting - Beginner Steps

By Bryon Zirker

Oil paint dries very slowly, Unlike acrylic paints which dry very quickly. Acrylic paint was initially created as an underpainting medium for oil painting.

It is perfectly stable to put a base of acrylic and then place oil paint over it. Linseed oil added to oil paint will extend color, increase flow and increase workability. Oil paint with added medium is called long, oil paint used directly from the tube is called short or stiff.

You place you oil paints on a wooden board called a palette the very best palettes are made of pear wood.

It is very important to understand your paints and know which colors are:

Transparent (see through) Semi Opaque (slightly see through) and opaque (not see through) getting started put as much oil paint on your brush for two strokes three maximum always end your brush stroke on the canvas.

Make sure that you use linseed oil only when you are painting with the wet on wet method or process.

Do not confuse yourself with all of the many other mediums. Wait to discover those when you are more experienced. If you can actually afford the professional paints, definitely go ahead and buy them. You will notice immediately that they are completely different from the student paints.

Always buy the best brushes that you can afford. The Da Vinci brand brushes are the best professional brushes. Buy long handle bushes. The technique is to hold near the end of the handle. When developing talent one point to consider is the ability to take risks. Just play around with your paint however first understand it, only paint at an easel and make sure to stand back from your painting all the time. Never put your expensive brushes in turps when you are working in a session. Go ahead and wipe them clean with paper towels or cloth wash out your brushes in turps or a similar solvent at the end of a session and then be sure to clean immediately with soapy water.

Preparing the canvas the foundation of you piece

It is quite essential that you put on the first underpainting or wash on your canvas. This takes away the glare of the white (which will reflect back at you, quite annoying) and the more layers of paint you get onto your canvas the better and the more professional looking your painting, the more luminous the paint ant the more the painting will sing out with color and texture.

Traditionally an earth color of a burnt umber or raw umber, raw sienna or an ochre was painted on as a good first underpainting. Sometimes it can be pretty exciting to paint on a bright red or dark blue as your first underpainting especially when you are in the habit of putting on three or four layers and seeing the underpainting come through your painting. Use a big wash brush to apply the first underpainting it you use acrylic as your underpaint it will dry quickly and get you started quicker.

How to apply oil paint in two methods

1. Wet on wet or All Prima (in one step)

2. Stage Painting or Glazing Fat over lean

Wet on wet is applied by using the paint stiff, which is directly from the tube Or thinned to the consistency of salad dressing with linseed oil the essential part of painting wet on wet is making your brushes and painting knives do the work for you.

You definitely want to have full control of your brushes and experiment with different brushes to see the marks and texture streaks that they make.

Never work with turps unless you are working with the glazing method.

Never ever stand your brushes in any turps working in your painting session.

Turps will burn the bristles and inevitably there will be some left in the brush when you start to use color.

This will make it difficult to keep control of the flow or thickness of paint. The glazing technique is a process of building up your painting in a series of layers of the thinned paint.

I found this specific method for the glazing technique with oil paint it is called fat over lean

A Lean 1st layer thinned with solvent

A Lean 2nd layer thinned with less solvent

A Lean 3rd layer thinned with less solvent

A Fat 4th layer straight from tube

A Fat 5th layer thinned with little linseed oil

A Fat 6th layer thinned with more linseed oil

It is very essential that you this process exactly follow or the layers of paint will dry at different levels and possibly crack the paint. Granted, it is a slow method and you absolutely need some patience however the results are spectacular tonal values which are essential in painting. This glazing method gives you full control of creating tones in acrylic paint. Here there is no mystery about paint.

Remember that paint is just pigment with a binder. In the case of oil paint, it is just a pigment with a drying oil usually linseed oil is used for this. The very best professional oil paints you will find are Michael Harding and Old Holland. Windsor and Newton and some other makes are good as well just make sure they are called professional paints and not the lesser quality student paints.

One last thing, Oil Paint dries very slowly, have patience and enjoy the journey. Paint on.

Lost Manuscript Resurfaces, Over 190 Pages on Drawing, Sketching, Oil & Watercolor Painting and Different Modes of Seeing - Revealing All The Secrets of a True Art Master! The Right (and the Wrong) Way to Learn Painting and Drawing

Learn Oil Painting
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Art Design Courses - Checklist

By Bryon Zirker

Two of your major art design course objectives should first be an emphasis on your professional skills development and to gain the techniques, skills, methodology, and vocabulary that will be required for your success as a productive artist, designer, or scholar.

You second objective should be the development of critical judgment and historical perspective that you will need to become a problem solver. With art and design history mixed in with studies in the liberal arts and sciences, gives you the context for stimulating intellectual and creative thinking.

Art design is not simply about what you see, it is about what you can make someone else see. Find courses that start with the exploration of art design fundamentals, ones that provide the experience suitable for beginning as well as advanced artists. Once you gain a basic understanding of how to see and describe something in visual terms, you can investigate expressive and experimental directions in your art designs.

Working with the dynamics of color has significant implications in the work of artists, illustrators, craftspeople and designers. The course you choose should explore the issue of color by developing creative exercises, look at studies from nature, the human environment using collage, paint and other art media. Look for or request projects that will facilitate in-depth exploration of the role of light, the psychological impact of color on the brain, and how such factors as hue, value and intensity affect artistic design. Historical background should be provided via lectures and power point presentations.

As an artist you should be constantly researching new materials and inventing new creative processes to for a new piece. Find a multi-disciplinary course which will allow you to experiment with a lot of different media types in reaction to a specific site or location, for example, sound-based, sculptural, a drawing or a painting.

As for great artistic figurative sculpturing it must not be left untouched and let me say it does not just simply copy nature, indeed no, it takes the essential qualities that it needs from nature turning them into the beautiful visual language of three dimensional form. The artist's visual language is how the sculptor conceives of the figure and interprets anatomy. You must learn to think of the human body as an interconnected system full of layered forms. You will want to learn how to about combining close perceptual study of a posing model with a conceptual understanding of the human body's shapes and proportions, finally learning how to create your visualizations of the human figure. You really should include in your art design course studies critical thinking about what it means to represent the human body in your art.

Lost Manuscript Resurfaces, Over 190 Pages on Drawing, Sketching, Oil & Watercolor Painting and Different Modes of Seeing - Revealing All The Secrets of a True Art Master! The Right (and the Wrong) Way to Learn Painting and Drawing

Art Design Courses
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Art Design Courses-Get Started Now

Here are some good ideas and resources to help you get yourself started with creative art painting and drawing or help you with your ongoing art hobby or business! Have fun with it!

Art Design Guide