painting tutorials, courses, tips & techniques

New Small Glass Study Acrylic Video Course

Merry Christmas class!

The new mini-course where I paint a coloured glass and festive oranges is now available! Whoo ho! ho! ho!

It’s the perfect addition to the Masterclass Acrylics Course or a great little introduction to the more complex subject of reflections and glass.

If you have ever tried to paint glass and it looked flat and unconvincing or ended up with super bright white highlights that look stuck on, then you may be interested in discovering how to achieve a lifelike glass effect with acrylics – yet still keeping a painterly feel.

3 Downloadable Video Lessons  –  1 Small Glass Study

Over 1 1/2 hours of video instruction, alongside a Quick Start PDF guide and Downloadable images of each stage of the process, which includes your materials lists and tools of the trade.

The lessons are available online to download so you have access to the course forever.

The course is now available, you can learn more and join the course by just clicking this link. 

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and a Creative Year

Cheers,

Will

New Still Life Acrylic Masterclass Course

Morning class!  The Still Life Masterclass in Acrylics course is now available,whoo hoo!

Have you ever asked yourself  “How do I make my paintings look more professional?‘

At some point in every artist’s development, you get to a stage where your paintings are looking pretty good, you can see your improvement from where you first began, but some tricky subjects still elude you.

You’ve got a basic understanding of colour mixing, paint application and your drawing’s sound, but you want to take your work to the next level.

I’ve created this Classical Still Life Masterclass with acrylics to help aspiring artists bring their paintings to a more professional finish.

We deal with the more complex subject of reflective surfaces such as Silver, Ceramic & Mahogany using an extended palette and multi-layered glazing techniques.

Here’s a brief video intro to the course:

In Part 1 we looked at how to master the basic features of your digital camera, so you can emulate how your eyes see things in nature to give you fantastic reference photographs for your still life painting.

In Part 2 we saw how small incremental changes in your composition and lighting can instantly create a more dramatic and pleasing image for a painting.

So for Part 3, we’re on to the painting…

Will Kemp, Still Life with Figs, Photograph, 2012

Have you ever got out your digital camera to take a shot of your still life set up and been sorely disappointed with the results?

Your photo looks washed out, or too dark or the flash had popped up and flattened the whole scene.

You’re not alone in the quest for a simple formula to create great reference photographs for your paintings.

You might have tried turning the dial to the ‘manual’ mode, fired off a few shots, got disheartened, only to return to the safe haven of the ‘flower setting’ or ‘Auto’ on the dial.

Understanding the manual functions of your digital camera can be a liberating experience and can greatly improve the framing of your paintings.

Or maybe you’ve never used your camera to help with your paintings but you’d like to learn how…

And why does it matter?

One of the most common colour questions I get asked on the Art School is “How do I choose the right colour to paint my coloured ground?”

But before I tackle that subject in more detail, I wanted to look at an often overlooked subject, studio wall colour.

To answer the previous question completely, you should be thinking of your studio space as a whole.

The colours that surround you in your studio space influence the perceptions of the colour on your canvas and are often the secret source to effective classical painting.

It isn’t as glamorous as the actual painting, however, getting it wrong can throw your eye out without you even realizing it…

Essential acrylic painting starter set!

This is the final part of the painting and we can start to reap the rewards from our careful underpainting and patience.

If you’ve just stumbled on the tutorial you can catch up below:

• Part 1 & 2 of the French cafe painting tutorial
  
• Part 3 French cafe painting tutorial
  
• Part 4 French cafe painting tutorial

This week we start to introduce a brighter red and a yellow.

A step-by-step French Café Scene acrylic painting

In these tutorials I will be posting a series of videos on my YouTube channel that you can follow along at home. It’s free to subscribe to the website so you can keep updated with the painting progress.

You can watch Part 1 & 2 of the painting demonstration  and Part 3 French cafe

This week we start to introduce a red and a yellow…

A step-by-step French Café Scene acrylic painting

In this series I will be posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel that you can follow along at home. It’s free to subscribe to the website so you can keep updated with the painting progress.

You can watch Part 1 of the painting demonstration here.

This week we start to introduce the lightest lights and some blue…

Bonjour Classe!

This week we’re off to France!

This tutorial takes us through a simple cafe scene, where we follow through the underlying structure of a painting.

We look at an easy way to check your perspective, the importance of ‘negative spaces’ when composing your image and how to mix the perfect consistency of paint…

Natural light in Cezanne’s artist studio

Have you ever been half-way through a painting and suddenly the art studio light changes?

You carry on painting, hoping for a break in the weather, trying to remember the colour you’ve just mixed, and then the lighting changes.. again.

You think it won’t matter, it’s not that important, but the way you light your art studio can be one of the most cost effective ways of improving your painting and your colour mixing without buying another tube of paint.

One of the easiest methods of designing better lighting, is to simply change your light bulb.

But not all studio lamps are created equal.

From a £5 hardware store fluorescent tube to a £1,500 bespoke solution, the choices you make affect your ability to match colours accurately, judge skin tones effectively, and even feel a little happier by the quality of light you paint within.

With different options available you can have studio lighting the Old Masters would have been proud of…. without turning to shots of Absinthe.

Emergency chocolate biscuits needed

Trying to understand all the considerations when choosing my own studio lighting nearly led me to a lighting melt down! But bear in mind, I’m trying to design a bespoke studio where I’ll be painting 12 hours a day some days, through gloomy British weather and many a midnight painting session. So I need a space that has both natural light and the best quality artificial light.

There are so many variables and it’s such a specialist request that many Electrician’s will roll their eyes at you. With this tricky subject in mind, I have tried to created a summary of what you really need to know, and it can get a bit technical in places.

Do I really need to know this? I hear you cry!

Maybe, maybe not.

It depends on how much painting you do and your current lighting situation…

Bringing Personality to your Painting

In the final stages of any painting, it’s a case of viewing your piece as a whole and adjusting details or adding more saturated colour to create a harmony and balance.

You’ll be painting more instinctively, rather than methodically and putting a stamp of your own personal style within it.

Students often ask, ‘How do I develop my own style?’

And the answer is quite simple.

You already have it – even though you might not think it…