A good artist is the one who can express themselves with a couple of mighty strokes! -- Bill Alexander Bill starts today's lesson showing you how to make $50 with one stroke of the palette knife. Has there ever been an artist with as much enthusiasm for his craft or love for his students? … [Read more...]
As less paint you have…
As less paint you have, as easy it is to paint on top of that. -- Bill Alexander Such an important point! This is how you create great mountains. The first layer has to be thin, thin, thin! Then when you highlight over that, you don't have the problem of paint slipping. Watch this clip again and watch how Bill pushes the bottom of the mountain into the canvas. He almost breaks … [Read more...]
Why clear oil is the key to a beautiful painting.
All oil is alike, right? At the beginning of oil painting, when the "Old Masters" were at work, they used clear oil in their paint. How do we know this? Leonardo recorded it in his notebooks. Vasari referred to it often in his writings. The "Old Masters" tried to keep their oil as clear and as pure as possible. Why would they do this? They knew that clear oil was the … [Read more...]
Ten miles closer…
Bill's lessons on perspective continue. Closer = darker. As Tom Anderson, Alexander Master Artist says, "Gray is far away." So the opposite is true as you move closer to an object. … [Read more...]
What beginners never know!
Beginners never know, they never know the paint will help them. -- Bill Alexander There it is. Straight from the master. We keep talking about Bill's paint because it's the most important thing that can make your paintings stand out from other artists. Every once in a while a new painting of Bill's emerges. There is no yellowing, no dulling of colors. Twenty, thirty, … [Read more...]
Reusing A Canvas
One of our recent website visitors asked a question about reusing a canvas on which she had a dried painting. She wanted to know the best way to remove the paint and "save" the canvas. A wet painting is easy to remove. Scrape off the paint with a palette knife, wipe down the canvas and start again. Dried paint is different. I called Alexander Master Artist Tom Anderson and … [Read more...]