Left Over Paint
What do you do with all the oil paint left on your palette when you’ve completed a painting or a painting session?
Pull it all into one pile and mix it up. This will result in a batch of gray that can be useful for your next painting session. Use it for gray areas and use it for knocking back the intensity of a color.
Can you say, Sweet Savings?
For Faster Warm-ups
Usually I recommend doing some preliminary sketching or blind contours to get yourself warmed up. However, there is another method that you can use.
Begin your drawing by sketching in an area that is less important. This gets your pencil moving and allows you to warm-up before moving on to those areas that are more important and finally to your main focal point.
STOP with All the Details!!
If you get the large masses down correct in the beginning, you’ll find that your painting can communicate extremely well with very little detail.
Challenge Yourself
Oh how our left brains LOVE those details. Break the habit of going for details first. Decide to create 25 paintings using just the basic masses of value, shape and color, and skip adding any detail. When complete, go back to adding detail and see how much you’ve grown!
