2 Table of Contents

Learn & Master Painting

LESSON 1
Getting Ready to Paint 4
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LESSON 2
Getting to Know the Paint 7
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LESSON 3
Getting to Know Your Brushes 12
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LESSON 4
Painting a Believable Object 16
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LESSON 5
Brushwork Technique 19
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LESSON 6
Beginning a Painting 22
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LESSON 7
Adding Color to Your Painting 27
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LESSON 8
Finishing a Painting 29
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LESSON 9
Introduction to Color Theory 31
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LESSON 10
Lights and Darks in Color 36
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LESSON 11
Controlling Color Intensity 39
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LESSON 12
Color Combinations 43
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LESSON 13
Using Color to Create the Mood 48
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LESSON 14
Understanding Composition 52
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LESSON 15
Beginning Perspective 57
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LESSON 16 & 17
Using What Youve Learned Parts I & II 60
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LESSON 18
One-Point Perspective 65
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LESSON 19
Two-Point Perspective 68
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LESSON 20
Introduction to Humans and Animals 72
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LESSON 21
Using Photographic Reference 76
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LESSON 22
Planning an Original Painting 80
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LESSON 23 & 24
Painting an Original Work of Art 83
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LESSON 25
Finishing and Varnishing Your Paintings 87
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LESSON 26
The Art Community 89
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Art Glossary 93
Table of Contents
Supply List 3
Acrylic Painters
PAINTS: Liquitex Brand
Dioxazine Purple
Magenta
Napthol Red
Cadmium Red Light
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Yellow Light
Titanium White
Pthalo Green
Cerulean Blue
Pthalo Blue
Ivory Black
Burnt Umber
Artisan Filbert and Flat #2, 5, and 10 Brushes;
Paper, Disposable Palette
Oil Painters
PAINTS: Winsor & Newton/Rembrandt Brands
Alizarine Crimson
Rembrandt Cadmium Red Deep
Rembrandt Cadmium Red Light
Cadmium Orange
Rembrandt Cadmium Yellow Medium
Rembrandt Cadmium Yellow Light
Titanium White
Viridian
Cerulean Blue
French Ultramarine
Ivory Black
Burnt Umber
WATER-BASED OIL PAINTS:
Artisian brand paints; substitute Pthalo Green for
Viridian; water and Artisan brand water-mixable
Stand Oil instead of Liquin; Artisan brushes
BRUSHES: Winsor & Newton Artists Oil Brushes
Filbert #2
Filbert #5
Filbert #10
Flat #2
Flat #5
Flat #10
An oil paint supply kit is available at
www.LearnAndMaster.com/painting.
Supply List
OTHER SUPPLIES
RGM Painting Knife #14
Liquin Original Medium
Wood Palette
Easel
Baby oil
Rags
One 9x12; Two 18x24 Frederix Acrylic-Primed Canvas Panels
Two 16x20 Frederix Canvas Pads
Academy Acrylic Paint (Neutral Gray)
Lesson 1: Getting Ready to Paint 4
Welcome to Learn & Master Painting!
Beginners are often afraid they dont have any talent. But thats not true. The reason you know you have talent
is the very fact you bought this course and are interested in learning how to paint. You were given that talent for
a reason. So, youre already set up for success.
Another problem you may encounter is the fear to give time and space to yourself. Sometimes people are hesi-
tant to take up too much space in the house and to take too much time away from family or friends. Honor your
gift by not only taking the time to develop your talent, but also by taking the space to develop your talent. Its
time to begin Lesson 1!
How to organize your workspace
How to choose the correct materials
How to tone a canvas
Organizing Your Workspace
There are many art students who try to do their art without an adequate workspace. Its as if they are afraid their
art isnt important enough to give it the room they need. So thats why youre going to set up a proper work-
space. You should take all the time you need to make the space comfortable and inspiring.
Find a space about 10 feet long by 8 feet wide, or larger. Youll need
enough room to walk back from your easel. The reason to step back
about 8 feet is that when a painting hangs on a wall, people will rst see it
from across the room. If you get too involved making a beautiful, detailed
painting which only looks good from 12 inches away, that painting will be
a failure. It has to look nice from across the room rst, and then people
will want to walk up and take a closer look.
KEY IDEA: You will need an easel, level surface for a still life, a table to
place your brushes and palette, a light source for your painting work-
space, and a rug to cushion your feet.
Your easel should not wobble and it should be adjustable so the canvas
will be at a comfortable height in front of you while standing. If possible,
use a window for your light source and turn of all the electric lights.
If you dont have natural light coming through a window near your work-
space and must use articial light, buy two adjustable spot lamps. Place
one light, with a 75-watt warm incandescent bulb in it, to shine on your
subject. Place another lamp, with a 75-watt cool energy-saving bulb in it,
to shine on your canvas.
There are two possible oor plans for your studioone with a window
and one with a lamp.
Getting Ready to Paint
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
1
PAINTING TIP
Never paint under overhead fuorescent lights.
Getting Ready to Paint 5
1
Painting is all about lighthow light looks on your sub-
ject, and how light looks on the colors of your paints.
You need to have good warm bright light on your sub-
ject, and slightly cooler subdued light on your paints.
Choosing the Correct Materials
The materials listed on your Supply List (page 3) are available at stores that specialize in artists supplies. You
may be able to nd some of these materials at craft-and-hobby stores, but the best idea is to nd a good art-
ists supply store in your area. If there is no such store in your area, you will be able to order your supplies online.
Legacy Learning Systems also ofers a starter supply kit at a discount price with all of the paints and brushes,
the medium, and the palette knife on your Supply List. Its available at www.learnandmaster.com/painting. This
supply kit is useful if you would like to learn with oil paints.
All of the lessons in this course will apply to oils, acrylics, and water-mixable oils.
If youve never painted, you may be intimidated by the idea of using traditional oil paints. You may think they will
dry too slowly. You may think they will be hard to clean up.
The reality is that you can easily clean your brushes with baby oil. If you get any paint on your clothes or walls,
it will come right of with baby oil. We wont even use any solvents. Also, unless you are already comfortable
working with water-mixable oils or acrylics, traditional oil paint is actually easier to use than either of the other
materials.
Because oil paints do not dry fast, traditional oil paints give you plenty of time to x a mistake, to make a change,
or to wipe of any part you want to adjust.
If youre already comfortable working with water-mixable oils, feel free to use your paints as you take this course.
You may already paint with acrylic. If you do, and you are comfortable working with acrylic paint, youll nd all
the supplies youll need on the supply list. Be sure to purchase any supplies you dont yet have.
KEY IDEA: The Rembrandt paints are very important when
painting with the cadmium reds and yellows. If you choose
to substitute them, you may be unhappy with the results of
your painting.
Toning a Canvas
For your rst project, you will tone one of your canvas panels. Acrylic-primed canvas comes to you with a bright
white coat of acrylic paint on it. For some projects thats ne, and sometimes youll paint right on the canvas in
this course. But in three of the painting projects, you will be using a type of painting which the Old Masters like
Rembrandt and Caravaggio used. In this type of painting you dont start out by putting colored paint directly
onto your canvas. Instead, you rst paint your subject with shades of brownish-gray. Only after that layer has
dried will you add your color to the canvas.
PAINTING TIP
The main objective with the lights placement
is to avoid glare on your canvas.
PAINTING TIP
Be careful not to buy any paint tube with
the word Hue on it.
6 Lesson 1
Learn & Master Painting
If you start out with a canvas already covered in gray, you
will save time when you paint that rst coat of brownish-
gray paintyou dont have to worry about covering every
speck of canvas. It already has some gray on it. The canvas
pad, on the other hand, is for painting in a more contempo-
rary way, so you will leave that white.
To begin toning, you will need a mixing bowl, a mixing
spoon, some water, and a rag. Cover a table with newspaper
or plastic. Then squeeze about a tablespoon of your gray
Academy Acrylic into the bowl, and add an equal amount
of water. Mix it together.
Dip one end of the rag into the mixture and rub the gray
paint onto the canvas. Youll see that you will get various
textures on the canvas, depending on how hard you rub or
in which direction. You want to wind up with an overall gray-
ish tone with the canvas texture showing.
Let it dry overnight unless its a hot sunny day. If you put it
out in the sun it will dry in a couple hours.
Youre Ready to Move On
At the end of every lesson, youll be given benchmarks or concepts to understand before moving on to the next
lesson. That way youll know youre ready for whats coming next.
You can and should take all the time you need with each lesson. Everyone works at a diferent pace based on
personality and how much time he or she devotes to study and practice.
You know youre ready to move on to Lesson 2 when you can
Arrange your workspace with the still life setup, easel, tabouret, and lighting in the correct positions.
Gather all the supplies on the Supply List.
Tone all the canvasses youll be using in Learn & Master Painting.
ASSIGNMENT: Tone the canvas panels youll use in Learn & Master Painting.
Lesson 2: Getting to Know the Paint 7
Now that your studio is set up and your workspace organized, youll be
able to enjoy the learning process and allow your creativity to ow. Your
space should feel pleasant and comfortable to you, and it should be an
area where you can work for longer periods of time without interruptions
every few minutes.
In this lesson youre going to be working with the paints on the supply list,
so make sure you have all of the colors beforehand. If you dont want to
take the time to go to the art supply store, weve put together a starter kit
with the paints, brushes, palette knife, and medium at a discount price. You
can nd it at our website www.learnandmaster.com/painting.
How to arrange the paint colors on the palette
How to care for the painting supplies
How to mix paint with medium
How to paint with various paint consistencies
Organizing Your Palette
KEY IDEA: It is important to keep your palette organized so you always know where your colors are.
When paint comes straight out of the tube, many of the colors look similar. Its distressing to reach for a dab of
dark blue and put it on your canvas only to discover youve got black instead! Another reason for keeping an
organized palette has to do with color theorywhich will be discussed in more depth later in the course.
HERE ARE THE PAINT COLORS YOULL NEED:
Alizarine Crimson [Magenta] Cadmium Red Deep [Napthol Red] Cadmium Red Light
Cadmium Orange Cadmium Yellow Medium Cadmium Yellow Light
Titanium White Viridian [Pthalo Green] Cerulean Blue
French Ultramarine [Pthalo Blue] Ivory Black Burnt Umber
If youre using Acrylic paints, substitute the colors in brackets and add Dioxazine Purple to the list.
You dont have to memorize the orderjust follow along.
Place your palette in a horizontal (landscape) position on the table in front
of you.
Getting to Know the Paint
L E S S O N
2
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Palette
Palette knife
Medium
#5 lbert brush
Rag
Telephone book
All paint colors
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Hold the tube like a toothpaste
tube. Some oil may come out of
the tube, and then a bit of paint
will come out.
PAINTING TIP
Use a clean fnger when placing the white on your palette so there are
no remnants of previous colors mixed with the white.
YOU LL
LEARN
8 Lesson 2
Learn & Master Painting
Notice that your reds and yellows are along the top edge of the palette, and your greens and blues are along the
sides. Here is what your palette looks like with all of the colors in the correct place.
You should keep these marks on your palette. The great thing is the marks will never disappear. They will help
you remember where to put your colors when youre getting ready to paint.
Mixing Paint with Medium
Its important to take time to practice mixing your paint with medium.
Medium is a liquid or gel that is added
to paint to thin it. It is made of various
polymers, alkyds, and oils, and is used to
make paint easier to spread.
Hold your knife like a butter knife to mix
the medium with the paint. You will al-
ways mix with the knife if you plan to
mix any more than about a teaspoon of
paint. You can also mix the medium and
paint with a brush for smaller amounts
of paint. With the tip of the brush, use
a circular motion to blend the paint into
the medium. Remember, only mix with
the brush when mixing less than half a
teaspoon of paint.
PAINTING TIP
Use baby oil and a
rag to get the paint
of your hands.
Getting to Know the Paint 9
Mixing Diferent Paint Consistencies
Now that you know the two mixing methods, its time to
learn how to mix diferent consistencies of paint. The paint
youre using comes out of the tube thick like peanut but-
terand if you want to, you can paint a picture with lots of
thick paint. But if you want to try something diferent, you
can thin the paint down a littlewhich makes it easier to
spread. Or, you can choose to thin the paint a lot. The more
you thin the paint, the more transparent it will be.
Paint directly from the tube might remind you of peanut
butter or frosting. When the paint is thick its called Im-
pasto paint.
Impasto paint is thick, heavy paint with pronounced texture.
By adding a small amount of medium, your paint will be the
consistency of mayonnaise. By adding several more drops of
medium, your paint will be very thin like vegetable oil.
There are a variety of in-between consistencies of paintdepending on the amount of medium you mix with
the paint. However, these three consistencies are what will be referred to in upcoming lessons, and theyre the
consistencies artists use most often.
Painting with Various Consistencies
Next, youre going to attempt to put white paint on top of the brown
paint in the middle of the palette, without getting any brown into the
white. Use the palette knife to pick up a bit of the white paint, and
place that white onto the brown patch in the center of the palette.
Dont do anything more to it, just put the white paint on top of the
brown paint.
If youre getting the white mixed into the brown, try being more gentle
when you apply the white paint. You dont want to dig down into the
brown paint when you add the white. You just want to gently lay the white paint on top.
When you can control the paint with your knife, meaning you can place the white paint on top of the burnt um-
ber without getting the brown on your knife, you can go on to the next step.
Thick Paint Onto Thin Paint
You will have trouble placing thick paint over thin paint. It is not
uncommon for you to get brown onto the knife but very little white
onto the brown patch on your palette.
Its better to not add a lot of medium to the bottom layer of paint if you want to place thick paint over it while
its wet. However, your bottom layers very often will have a lot of medium mixed in the paint, so you should let
that layer dry a little before painting over it.
PAINTING TIP
During the painting process, youll want
to clean the brush from time to time.
PAINTING TIP
Thick paint does not transfer easily
onto thin, slippery paint.
10 Lesson 2
Learn & Master Painting
Wet into Wet
When you place wet paint on wet paint, with each color being the same consistency, you will need to wipe your
brush after every stroke. You can see a stroke of paint which starts out white and gradually peters out at the end
of your stroke. Wipe your brush on your cloth and try it again for practice.
When you paint this way, its called working wet into wet.
Wet into wet is the application of fresh, wet paint into an already wet area of paint.
Cleaning Up After a Project
Brush Care
Its necessary to take proper care of your brushes. Put an inch
of baby oil for oil paints and water for water-based oil paints or
acrylic paints into your brush tub. Gently wipe the brush across the
grooves in the bottom of the tub to loosen any remaining paint.
Dont squish the brush up-and-down, because that motion will
drive paint deep into the bristles. Take the brush out of the tub and
pinch it dry with your rag.
If you prefer to clean the remaining baby oil out of your brush, you
can clean it with bar soap and water at a sink. Dont use the kitch-
en sink; you dont want to get any
paint residue near your food. While
the brush is wet, gently reshape it
with your ngers and place it verti-
cally, bristles up and handle down,
into a can.
PAINTING TIP
Wrap your brush in
plastic and put it in
your freezer until the
next time you paint.
Getting to Know the Paint 11
Storing the Cleaning Liquid
When you are nished with your brush cleanup, pour the oil or water you just used
into an old cofee can or jar with a lid. The paint materials will settle to the bottom.
You can then re-use your baby oil or pour of the water. Dont ever pour any of the
settled paint materials down the drainits toxic waste. In time, if you accumulate
enough of this toxic waste, itll necessitate a trip to the toxic waste dump.
Cleaning the Palette
Wipe the brown paint of the palette with a rag. Leave the color-placement spots to
dry. Eventually, your palette may get so messy with dried paint that you will want to
use paint remover on it. Any commercial paint remover will restore your palette to like new. Then you can recre-
ate the color spots along the edges of your palette.
The Rags
Drape your rags here and there until trash day and then put them in the trash. If you stack them neatly or put
them in a box, they might catch re. If you dont have trash day, put them in a can of water with a lid and dispose
of them later with the rest of your trash. The same is true for the telephone book pages youve used to clean of
your palette knife throughout the lesson. Dont leave the book closed with all of the pages stacked on top of
each other.
Storing Leftover Paint
If you have squeezed out a lot of extra paint that you didnt use and you feel bad about wasting it (especially
those expensive cadmiums), there are several ways to keep your paint fresh:
Put your entire palette in the freezerthe paint will keep for a week or more when its frozen.
Put a drop of clove oil on each blob of paint you wish to keepit will last for a couple of weeks.
Let the paint blobs skim over, and then peel of the skim when you are ready to paint again (in time,
you might have skim on your paintno matter how you store itso just scrape the skim of and keep
working with the paint).
Get little plastic-lidded jars and scrape each color into its own jar.
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to begin the next lesson when you have
Placed all of your paints in the correct location on your palette.
Mixed your paint with medium to get a peanut butter, mayo, and vegetable-oil consistency.
Mastered placing one color of paint on top of another.
Cleaned up your workspace when youre done for the day.
We live in a beautiful world and there is so much beauty to paint. This course will provide you with the tools and
skills youll need to paint beautiful pictures out of your own creativity.
ASSIGNMENT: Keep practicing laying color over color with your palette knife, and continue to practice mixing
your paint to varying consistencies until youre comfortable and condent.
Lesson 3: Getting to Know Your Brushes 12
In this lesson youll learn to use the brushes as they were designed to
be used.
The parts of a brush
How to add paint to the brush
Various types of brushstrokes
Types of brushes
Parts of the Brush
The brush is made of three parts: the handle,
the bristles, and the ferrule.
KEY IDEA: The handle is held to the bristles
by a metal sleeve called a ferrule.
The handle is the area from the metal to the
end, usually made of wood.
Each bristle hair has a narrow base that is glued
inside the ferrule, a wider belly, and a tapering
point.
The ferrule is the attened area of metal where
the bristles are glued inside the metal sleeve.
Good brush hairs are springy, and they come from several diferent animalsfrom minks to pigs. This is a pretty
exacting science, and the brushes are still made by hand.
Types of Brushes
You can see that your brushes are shaped difer-
entlysome round, some square, some large, and
some smalland theyre made this way for a rea-
son.
There are many other shapes of brushes, but we will
use these two shapes to learn how to paint.
Getting to Know Your Brushes
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
All six brushes
Palette knife
Medium
Burnt Umber
White
Rags
Baby Oil
3
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
When mixing or applying paint,
always use a pulling motionnot
a pushing motionbecause the
pushing motion will force paint into
the ferrule.
Filbert brushes
have a curved end.
Flat brushes have a
square end.
Getting to Know Your Brushes 13
3
Notice that both brushes have a narrow edge. These brushes
are particularly useful because you can make a broad stroke
and a narrow stroke with each brush.
Adding Paint to the Brush
To add paint to the brush, place the end of your largest lbert (the
#10) into the paint, broad-side down.
Pull the brush through the paint and then
take a look at what is on the brush. The paint
should be primarily on one at side of the
brushnot much on the tip, and none on the
other side of the brush.
Vertical Brushstrokes
There are three ways to make a straight vertical line on the canvas
paper:
1) Stand at arms length from the canvas, holding your brush like a
butter knife and point the bristles at the ceiling. Then touch the
loaded side of the brush to the canvas. Bring the brush down the
length of the canvas by pulling your entire arm downward from
the shoulder, not the wrist.
2) Point the bristles to the ceiling again and bend from the waist, holding your hand
steadythe brush will drag down the length of the canvas, making a long line.
3) Start the same way again, but bend at the knees this timeand slowly squat.
Horizontal Brushstrokes
Just like with vertical brushstrokes, there are also three ways to make hori-
zontal lines on the canvas:
1) Stand at arms length from the canvas, holding your brush like a butter
knifeand this time point your bristles to the wall. Place the at side of
your brush against the canvas and steady your hand. Then rotate your
shoulder to bring your arm across the canvaswhich will drag the brush
across the canvas and make a horizontal stroke.
2) Approach the canvas the same way with the brush and rotate your waist from side to side.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
If your line is wobbly, its only because you
need to practice holding your hand still while
you bend your shoulder or waist or knees. If
your mark is thick at the beginning, and fades
out to nothing before youve reached the
end of the stroke, use a little more medium. If
the mark is runny and drippy, use a little less
medium.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Switch hands to practice doing
vertical and horizontal strokes
with both hands. Its a good idea
to learn how to use both hands
to paint so that you can get at
your subject from any angle you
need to.
14 Lesson 3
Learn & Master Painting
3) After steadying the brush against the canvaskeeping both
your hand and arm stilltransfer your weight from one foot
to the other.
After practicing your vertical and horizontal strokes several
times, your canvas should begin to look like a grid.
Diagonal and Curved Brushstrokes
To make diagonal strokes, load the side of the brush just like
you did for vertical and horizontal brushstrokes. Then place the
brush on the canvas with the bristles pointing to the corner be-
tween the wall and the ceiling, and use your shoulder to drag
the brush diagonally across the canvas. Try switching handsby
placing the brush with the bristles pointing toward the opposite
corner of the ceilingto make a stroke with goes diagonally the
opposite direction of the stroke you made with your other hand.
Curved strokes are made much the same way. But this time, load
your brush so that you have paint on the broad side and on the
narrow edge. Place the broad side of the brush against the canvas
and steady your hand. Then rotate your bent elbow to make a big
arcwhich causes the brush to make a big arc on the canvas. Re-
member to practice with your non-dominant hand as well.
Birch Tree Painting
Now youre ready to start your rst paintinga birch tree paintingstarting with the distant trees, and then
working on the closer trees.
KEY IDEA: You can paint a picture of birch trees in a forest by using the various strokes learned in this lesson.
Use your #5 at brushload it on the broad side and place the loaded side against the canvas to begin making
vertical marks. Then turn the brush on its narrow sideload that narrow edgeand paint some more vertical
strokes. These vertical strokes represent the distant trees in a forest.
Painting the Branches
Grab your #2 at brushload it on its wide sideand make diagonal marks (branches) coming of the vertical
marks (trunks) using your right hand. Place the brush against the right side of one of your tree trunks. Make
the bristles touch the tree trunk, facing toward the bottom left corner of the canvas. Your handle will be facing
toward the top right of the canvas, as you are holding the brush like a butter knife.
Now use your right shoulder to pull your entire arm up and diagonally toward the rightwhich leaves a diagonal
branch mark coming of the right side of the tree trunk. Repeat with your left hand to create branches coming
of the left side of the trunk. Then load the narrow edge of the brush to create thin twig size branches on both
sides of the trunk.
Painting Trees in the Foreground
First use the #10 at brushloading rst the wide side, then rotating to load the narrow sideto create both wide
Getting to Know Your Brushes 15
and narrow tree trunks. Then switch to the #5 at brush and load the narrow side to create diagonal branches.
When youre done you should have a beautiful forest
in the snow.
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to begin the next lesson when you can
Hold the brush properly and load the paint correctly.
Paint a vertical and horizontal line.
Paint a diagonal and curved line.
Paint a line with the fat side of the brush and the narrow edge.

ASSIGNMENT: Continue practicing the various brushstrokes until you feel comfortable with all of them.
PAINTING TIP
Add more burnt umber to your pile of paint so
it is noticeably darker than it was before for the
trees in the foreground.
Lesson 4: Painting a Believable Object 16
In this lesson youre going to continue to work on your brushstrokes by
practicing with another brushstroke technique.
Correct and incorrect brushwork technique
How to make varied brushstrokes
How to create shadows and form with brushstorkes

Adding Interest to Your Brushstrokes
If you have ever painted a wall or a
chair, you know its very important
to get your strokes smooth, even,
and painted in the same direction.
But in oil painting, you want your strokes to go every which waythey are
called varied strokes.
Varied strokes are irregular brushstrokes without a specic pattern.
Incorrect Brush Technique
There are two common mistakes people tend to make with their brushes:
1) Drawing the outline of an object, and
then lling it inwhich causes the
paint to be thicker in the middle and
thinner at the edges:
Painting a Believable Object
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
#5 lbert brush
Burnt Umber
Cadmium Orange
White
Medium
Palette knife
Rags
4
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
To make varied strokes, use both
your elbow and shoulder to paint.
Painting a Believable Object 17
4
Instead, the paint should overlap at
the edges like this:
2) Pushing the brush onto the canvas point rst, and then picking it upwhich leaves a gob. This is not the
best way to get texture. It will only ruin your brushes and look amateurish.
KEY IDEA: Oil painting is not about staying in the lines.
Creating Shades and Form with the Brush
Were going to begin by painting a tree with leaves on it. Use your #5 lbert
and load the narrow side of the brush to sketch out an egg shape. Dont
make it a solid line, but a dotted line. Then put a vertical line coming out the
bottom of your egg shape. This will be the trunk.
To make an object look realistic, shade the same side of the object as where the cast shadow lies. To paint the
shadow of your tree, put your brush at the lower end of the trunk, and make a horizontal line that goes from the
trunk toward the right of your new tree. This line will be the cast shadow of the tree. This shadow is the key to
making the tree look realistic. If you are painting anything with any sort of three-dimensional roundness to it,
called form, the only way to show that is with light and shadow.
Form is the three-dimensional quality or volume of an object.
To add shading to an object, its best to start with the dark,
then the mid tones, and the lights go on last. Use the dark
brown that is already on your palette to make the shading of
the leaves and trunk of the tree.
Finishing the Tree
To add midtones to your painting, mix Cadmium Orange with brownto get a lighter shade of brown. Then use
varied stroke to add leafy texture next to your dark leaves. Next, use Cadmium Orangefor a bright fall orange
colorwith varied strokes to paint leafy texture on the light side of your tree.
In order to nish the trees trunk, pick up burnt umber and white to make a midtone gray-brown (adding a touch
of medium for a mayo consistency). Load the narrow side of your brush and stroke it along the center of the tree
trunk next to the dark side. Then add more white to your pile and stroke it along the light side of the tree trunk.
PAINTING TIP
To fx a mistake, put medium on your rag
and wipe toward the center of your mis-
take. If you wipe away from the mistake,
youll make the mistake even larger!
KEY IDEA: Always place the
cast shadow frst, and then
you will know what side of the
object to put the shading on.
18 Lesson 4
Learn & Master Painting
Now you have a painting of an autumn tree in the after-
noon sunlight by using varied brushstrokes.
Youre Ready to Move On
You know youre ready to move on when you can

Paint with varied strokes.
Correctly place cast shadows and shaded areas in your painting.
Fix a mistake in your painting.
You should be more and more comfortable holding the brush in both hands and using varied brushstrokes.
Theres so much more you can do with the brush, which well learn about in the next lesson, so make sure youve
mastered these concepts before moving on.
ASSIGNMENT: Take all the time you need to practice with your trees. Go back to previous lessons and review
those if you need to.
Lesson 5: Brushwork Techniques 19
Now that you know how to make varied strokes and create rounded
objects, its time to build upon those skills.
How to paint hard, soft, and lost edges
How to paint a gradation
How to use brushwork to create a sense of depth and
illumination in a painting
Hard and Soft Edges
To learn how to paint various edges, youll build on what you learned about
blending paint in Lesson 3.
An edge is the point where one shape ends and another shape begins.
From experience with coloring books as children, and with painting rooms
as adults, you know the way to deal with an edge is to come right up to it,
as neatly as possible, and stop. This is similar to painting a hard edge.
A hard edge is a clean break from one shape to the next without blending the
colors of the two shapes.
When you look at anything in real life, you dont see many hard edges. Most
things look just a little bit blurred around the edges. In other words, most
edges in real life are soft edges.
A soft edge is a transition between two shapes that is slightly blurred.
KEY IDEA: If you want your paintings to look realistic, its necessary to learn
how to soften the edges.
One way to make a soft edge is with the two colors overlapping on the can-
vas, pinch the brush clean and use it to straddle the edge between the two colors. Dont press down with the
brushjust barely touch the paint with the brush. Gently stroke the brush along that edge, starting at the bot-
tom and working your way up. Another way of creating a soft edge is to wipe back and forth across the edge
with your nger. You can also wipe up and down along the edge.
Lost Edges
In real life, as well as in photos, there are times when you cant really see an edge at all. These edges usually oc-
cur in shadows, where the edge is completely blurred. When this efect is simulated in a painting, it is called a
lost edge.
A lost edge occurs when the edge of one shape seamlessly blends into another shape.
To make a lost edge, paint a line of black and a line of viridian and jiggle the brush back and forth in a zig-zag
Brushwork Techniques
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
Viridian
Ivory Black
White
Medium
Palette knife
#10 lbert brush
#10 at brush
#5 at brush
Rags
5
20 Lesson 5
Learn & Master Painting
motion as you pull it downward the length of the stroke. Clean the brush and stroke it gently along the zig-zag
in one smooth up and down motion. This is a very blurred, or lost, edge.
What if you want to blend it completely? Paint another line of black and viridian, and use the brush to make a
series of little X marks along that edge. Once you have made X marks all along the edge, clean the brush and
pull it very gently back and forth across the xs until the black and the Viridian are completely blended. You will
use a lost edge in a painting if you want the object to completely disappear into a shadow or the background.
Painting a Gradation
Gradations are used all the time in paintings when deal-
ing with light. Light doesnt just stop and start. It ows
across an object and gradually dims into darkness.
A gradation is a gradual change of colorfrom light to
dark, for instance.
To make a gradation, such as a smooth sky, do the
following:

Pick up the Viridian-medium mixture and scribble it
onto the canvas using varied strokes. Let the color
fade as you work down the page.
Then pick up a bit of white paint (without wiping
your brush rst) to mix into the Viridian on your pal-
etteand scribble a little of this pale-green mixture
onto the lower part of the Viridian on your canvas
allowing it to fade just below your previous layer of
Viridian.
Again, without wiping the brush, do the same thing
with just whitescribbling it all over the lower part
of your gradation. This creates a textured gradation.
To smooth the gradation, clean your brush and make varied strokes from right to left, starting at the bottom
and working from light to dark.
Evergreen Painting
Its time to paint a picture of an evergreen with a forest behind it and light sparkling
through the trees and onto the branches of the evergreen. The light will come from
behind the tree, and the trees shadow will come toward the viewer rather than to
the right or left.
Youll use the #10 flbert to mix up a dark evergreen color (using Viridian, black, and
medium) and scribble a rough triangle shape on your canvas with the loaded side of
the brush. This is called massing.
Massing is roughly laying down the basic shape without drawing it.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
For the smoothest gradation
possible, take your clean brush
and gently make long, even
strokes side-to-side, from right
to left and from left to right,
working your way down from
the top to the bottom.
Brushwork Technique 21
Then add a shadow at the base of the tree that comes toward the viewer (with a little
white, using a side-to-side motion)using the same massing technique. In order to
make this triangle look like a tree, youll need to get some little spaces between the
branches and some branches sticking out farther than other branches. This will be
achieved by painting the background forest color into these areas. These areas where
the background comes up to the tree and shows through between the branches are
called negative space.
Negative space is the empty space surrounding an object.
If you hold up your hand and spread out your ngers, the ngers are
the positive space and everything you can see between them is the
negative space.
Painting the Background
When you are happy with the shape of your tree, use varied strokes to cover the canvas with medium gray-green
everywhere you may see the forest behind your evergreen. But dont put the forest color on the ground where
the evergreen is standingleave that area blank for now. And feel free to use diferent brushes (#5 fat brush or
your #10) to add dabs of forest color right into the evergreen treewhere you can see between the branches.
Now give the forest negative space by adding sky around it (sky holes)
with a very pale minty green. Once you have the tree line the way you
want it, cover the rest of the sky using varied strokes.
Finishing the Evergreen Painting
To nish, all you need is some snow on the ground and some sparkle
on the brancheswhich is where youll be working with the light. This
will be done with thick paint, so youll need to let your painting dry
for a while rst. Then, use your #10 lbert to spread long frosting-like strokes of snow onto the groundleav-
ing the shadow to show through. Using the same brush, add thickly-painted areas of light along the tops of the
brancheswhich will look like snow. If you place white on the
underside of the branches, it will look like light.
Now you should have a nished painting of an evergreen with light
shining through the forest and onto the tree.
Youre Ready to Move On
Heres what you need to know before moving on to Lesson 6

Painting hard, soft, and lost edges.
Painting a gradation.
Painting negative space and massing in objects.
Painting thick paint over thin paint.

ASSIGNMENT: Take all the time you need to learn these brushwork
concepts. Were starting our rst still life painting in the next lesson.
Lesson 6: Beginning a Painting 22
Now that youre familiar with your brushes and paints, its time to learn
the joy of painting from life. When you paint from life, you will learn to
see like an artist.
How to set up a still life
How to determine and place the focal point
How to measure sight size proportions
How to paint a brown underpainting
If you havent set up your shadow box stand at eye level yet, youll need
to do that now before proceeding with the lesson. You can use anything
you have around the house because it is going to be covered with black
cloth.
The Old Masters from the Renaissance period, like Caravaggio, worked
from lifeand their paintings reect the wonder they were experienc-
ing. Take Caravaggios painting, Supper in Emmaus, for example. His
ideas about painting light and shadow inuenced generations of later
artists including Rembrandt. He was the rst to develop a very realistic
way of showing light and shadow, blending the lights, the darks, and the midtones.
You can see when you look at the bread, it has a shadow on the right,
and a dark side, a midtone, and a light side. These darks, midtones, and
lights are gradually blended together to make the bread look round.
This type of blending is called Chiaroscuro.
Chiaroscuro is blending lights, midtones, and darks to show the round-
ness of a form.
The Old Masters didnt try to paint in a whole picture all at once. They
did it in steps, and they painted it in layers. When Caravaggio painted
Supper in Emmaus, he rst painted the whole thing in brown. Then,
after that dried, he added color: the eshtones, the clothing, and the
tabletop. The last thing he did was the details such as shiny places on
the bread and the ngernails.
Youll paint your still life in the same waypainting the rst layer in
brown, then adding color with the second layer, and showing the de-
tails, highlights, and surface decorations with the third layer.
Setting Up the Still Life
Youre going to start small and simple with two apples (red and green).

Set up the black cloth. Completely cover your table and stage (de-
pending on what you build) and make sure everything in your eld of
vision is black (except for the two apples).
Beginning a Painting
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Toned 9x12 canvas panel
Plain black cloth
Burnt Umber
White
Medium
#5, #10 lbert brushes
#2 at brush
Palette knife
Rags
Red apple
Green apple
6
Scala / Art Resource, NY
Beginning a Painting 23
6
Set up your apples so that one of them shows mostly red and the
other one looks mostly green.

Chose one light source (best option: a window; otherwise, use a lamp)shining on the left-hand side of the
apples and hitting them at a 45-degree angle so the shadows are on the right of the apples.
Turning the apples: Have both of the stem ends facing diferent directionsit looks more interesting not to
have the apples facing exactly the same way.
Locating the Focal Point
Its time to locate the center of interest on your apples, otherwise known as the focal point.
The focal point is the area of the painting that is the center of interest.
The way our eyes work, we really only focus on one thing at a time. In the
very middle of our eye, we are able to see images clearly. Around the edge
of our feld of vision, we see things out of focus. Artists consider how the
eye works, and they make sure there is one particular element of the paint-
ing for people to focus on.
In order to locate the focal point you need to see it with fresh eyes. If youre near sighted, take your glasses
of. If youre not, youll have to squint until the whole setup looks blurry. Either way, you want the scene to be so
blurry that you cant see any details at all. And the part of the still life that shows up the mostwhen its totally
blurryis the automatic focal point. In this case, the green apple tends to be what shows up the most against
the black background when you squint at the picturethe best choice for your focal point.
Placing the Focal Point on Your Canvas
Because the focal point is the most important thing on your canvas, its the rst
thing youre going to paint. Place a little spot on your canvas (with white) where
you want the focal point to be.
KEY IDEA: Someplace within an oval around the center of your canvas is a
good place to put your focal point.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
All paintingsabstract or impres-
sionistmust have a focal point.
PAINTING TIP
Choose apples with stems on them.
24 Lesson 6
Learn & Master Painting
Besides the oval method for nding the right focal point spot, another op-
tion is the rule of thirds method.
The rule of thirds tells us to divide the canvas into thirds both horizontally
and vertically, and place the focal point where the lines intersect.
You can see that the placement of this focal point works for both methods.
Sight Size Proportions
Now its time to start forming the shapes of your apples
(starting with your #5 lbert).
To gure out how big the apples are (the proportions) take
your #2 at brush and hold it upright at arms length about
three inches away from the green applewith your arm
completely rigid and your elbow completely straight.
Now take the tip of the brush handle and pretend to touch the top edge of the apple, and line your thumb up
with the bottom edge of the apple. This is called sight size.
Sight size is the apparent visual size of an object, not the actual size.
Now turn your upper body toward the canvas, keeping your feet completely still on the oor. Take the brush
(with your thumb still held in place) and place the handle of the brush at against the canvas where the apple
will be. Hold it there. Then, using your loaded lbert brush, make a little mark at the top, and a little mark at the
bottom. These two marks show how big the apple looks from top to bottom (height)and it should t between
those marks.
PAINTING TIP
During the entire process of measuring pro-
portions, make sure to stand in the same
spot.
Beginning a Painting 25
To gure out the green apples width, do the same process, but turn the brush
horizontally to measure the side-to-side dimensions of the apple.
Notice that the red apple overlaps the green apple just a little bit. Use your #2
at brush again to measure the width of the overlap and to mark it on the can-
vas. Then draw the entire outline of the green apple, including the spot where
the red apple overlaps.
Its time to measure/draw the red applethe same way you did the green apple.
The red apple looks bigger than the green apple because the red apple is in
front of the green apple. This is called linear perspective.
With linear perspective, objects closer to the viewer appear larger than
objects father away.
Where you have the drawing of the green apple showing right through
the drawing of the red apple is called drawing through. This is done so
that you more accurately portray the shape of the green appleand so
the lines of the objects line up properly.
Then erase the part where you drew through (now that you have the accurate shape of the apple, but youre not
going to paint that portion of it).

The Brown Underpainting
Put brown paint on your #5 lbert to paint in the shadows cast by the two
apples. Its important to do the cast shadows before anything else. The
red apple casts a shadow right over onto the green apple and the green
apple casts its shadow onto the clothpaint both of those cast shadows.
KEY IDEA: If the light is coming from the left, the light will always be on the left side and the darker shades
will always be on the right side of everything.
So after painting the dark sides of your apples and the inden-
tation, youll paint in the following stages:

Painting the midtonesadd white to the brown to make
the midtones; the red apple is a bit darker than the green
appleso paint a little bit more of this apple as midtone,
and less of the green apple as midtone.
Painting the light areasthe green apple is going to have
some real light lights on it because it is so light in compari-
son to the red (so add a bunch of white paint and paint in
the green apple).
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
When drawing through, draw the
entire object even though part of
it is obscured by another object.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Its important to paint in this
order: the cast shadows, the dark
sides of the objects, the middle
tones, and nally the light areas.
PAINTING TIP
To paint a soft edge on your apples, pull a little
color from your background into the color of
your apple.
26 Lesson 6
Learn & Master Painting
Painting the backgroundtake a bunch of brown and mix it with medium so it will be slightly transparent and
some of the toned canvas can show through; use varied strokes.
Painting negative spaceput background color in the little triangle between the two apples (the negative
space).
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to begin the next lesson when you have:

Sized the objects on the canvas using sight size measurements.
Placed the focal point on the canvas using the oval or the rule of thirds.
Drawn both apples on your canvas using the drawing through method.
Painted the shadows, midtones, and light tones of your apples and painted the background.

ASSIGNMENT: To practice more, set up a green pear and a red pear and do an underpainting of the pears.
Lesson 7: Adding Color to Your Painting 27
Before beginning this lesson, make sure your brown underpainting is
completely dry. Youll be adding color to the canvas and you dont
want to add wet paint over wet paint. As youve already learned, there
is a wet on wet painting techniquebut that technique is not being
used with this particular project.

How to add color to your painting
How to scumble
Remember that the apples are being painted in three steps: the rst
was to show form; this second step is to show color; and the third step
(next lesson) is to add the details that will make your painting come
to life.
Painting the Background and Shadows
Use the three lbert brushes to nish this paintingstarting with
the #10. First, paint the backgroundthe black cloth behind the
apples. Use varied strokes to cover the background.
At this stage, paint the cast shadows of the appleswhile you
have black paint on your brush. To paint the tabletop area (where the black cloth lies across the table and under
the apples) youll need to adjust the color to make it look diferent from the background. Add a tiny dab of white
and a very tiny dab of red to the black mixture to create a burgundy color.
KEY IDEA: Paint a soft gradation of color from the dark black back-
ground to the lighter black tabletopworking the lighter paint up into
the darker paint using mostly small, varied, horizontal strokesworking
your way across from side to side.
Adding Color to the Green Apple
Use your #5 lbert brush. That way you can overlap the strokes for the red apple over the strokes for the green
apple, and it will look more like the red apple really is in front. Avoid brushing the paint in a long stroke around
the apples or around the shadow.
Once youve matched your color to the dark side of the green apple, thin it to a vegetable oil consistency. This
will be a glaze.
A glaze is a thin layer of transparent paint.
Add the glaze to the shadows and shaded areas of the apples so that the brown underpainting will show through.
Adding a glaze makes these dark areas look more realistic. Put this dark green glaze on every area where you
Adding Color to Your Painting
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Three lbert brushes
Cadmium Red Deep
Cadmium Yellow Light
White
Ivory Black
Medium
Rags
7
PAINTING TIP
Dont stay in the lines when painting
your background; the black back-
ground will overlap the edges a little
bitfor a soft edge.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Its best to paint the objects
which are behindin this case
the green applebefore doing
the objects in frontin this case
the red apple.
28 Lesson 7
Learn & Master Painting
have a dark brown on your underpainting of the green apple.
From here on, youll be working your way from dark to lightfrom
the shaded area into the lighter area by adding more and more yellow
to the mixture on your palette. This will make the mixture gradually
change from a very dark green to a very light yellow-green.
Gently stroke that color into the dark-midtone areas of the green ap-
ple. Youll notice this is not as transparent and not as much of your
underpainting shows through. This is called scumbling.
Scumbling is rubbing semi-transparent color over an underpainting.
The color will get more and more opaque as it gets lighter and you
should not be able to see through opaque paint (the opposite of what
the glaze looks like).
Adding Color to the Red Apple
Just as with the green apple, we will start with a very dark mixture.
This time it will be a very dark red.
Paint the medium-dark red over the medium-dark brown under-
painting of the apple. Next, put pure red on the medium-light area
of the apple.
Then add yellow to the red on your palette. This mixture will
stand in for light red. Place it on the lightest areas of the
brown underpainting of the red apple. What you will have in
the end is a gradation of red, from the dark red through the
orangey red where the light shines on the apple.
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to move on when you can

Match your paint colors to the still life.
Paint the background and shadows to a still life.
Add color to the apples from dark tones to light
tones.
ASSIGNMENT: Take as much time as you need to get your colors matched and looking perfect.
PAINTING TIP
Its a good thing when some of the
black background gets into the
greenyoull use that to make a
soft edge around the green apple.
Lesson 8: Finishing a Painting 29
This is the nal lesson with your rst still lifeyoull be completing your
apple painting today.

How to add the details to your apple painting
How to impasto paint
Adding Details to the Green Apple
You will use your #2 lbert for the details and your #5 lbert for
the highlights.
Youll start with the little red stripe
that you can see in your green ap-
plebeginning with the darkest dark of this red stripe (mixing red and black
to make dark redlike you did in the last lesson).
Once youve got your color set, use your #2 lbertpicking up the tiniest bit of
paint onto just the tip of the brush. And hold the brush like a pencil. At last, on
the nal details, you have permission to hold the brush like a pencil.
Now, lightly sketch the curve of the red stripethis is not the nished stripe, just an indication of where it might
go. When youre content with the placement of the stripe, paint it inworking from dark to midtone to light. At
the very lightest area of the stripe, add a tiny bit of yellowjust like you did when you were making the lightest
area of the red apple in the last lesson.
Allow the stripe to overlap onto the red applebecause you can clean up where it went outside the lines later
(with some medium on a rag wrapped around your nger). This is the same idea as drawing through, but its
called painting through.
Painting through is painting the more distant object before painting the nearer object.
KEY IDEA: You will paint the exact same way for every detail you add to the green applewhether its blotch-
es, stripes, or spots. First, mark the placement of the detail on your canvas. Then mix and match the darkest
color, the midtone color, and the lightest color in that order. Finally, apply the colors to your mark, which will
create a gradation.
Painting the stem
The stem is brown and has a dark side and a light side. Use your #2 lbert to apply dark red paint with a touch
of yellow to make it look like a dark brown. Stroke that dark brown on the shadow side of the stem.
Now stroke a pale yellowish brown (by adding more yellow to the previous color) onto the light side of the stem.
Finishing a Painting
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Cadmium Red Deep
Cadmium Yellow Light
White
Ivory Black
Medium
#2, #5 lbert brushes
Palette knife
Rags
8
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Just like painting the main form
of the apple, the details will be
painted from dark to midtone
to light.
30 Lesson 8
Learn & Master Painting
Adding Details to the Red Apple
If you see any green stripes on the red apple, make a line to indicate where the stripe will golike you did before.
Mix yellow and black to get a very dark green. Then mix a medium green, followed by a very light green (adding
more yellow each time) for the rest of the color gradation. Your apple will more than likely be diferent from what
you see on the video. Use your knowledge of painting from dark to midtone to light when adding your details.
Painting Highlights on the Apples
The very last thing you will do is add the shiny highlights to the apples.
A highlight is the brightest, whitest reection light creates on an object.
Allow your painting to dry before adding the highlights. You can add the
highlights with a brush or with a knife.
Impasto painting is applying thick, heavy paint using the brush or knife.
Load your #5 lbert with solid white paint and add the highlight right in the middle of the lighter area on the
green apple by placing the loaded side of the brush on the area and gently pulling it across that highlight area.
Try adding the highlight to the red apple using the knife. Gently place your knife on the light spot and apply a
single small stroke of white.
Youre Ready to Move On
Move on to the next lesson when you can:

Add details to a painting using correct painting techniques.
Correctly paint through from one object to another.
Add highlights to your painting.

And now you have your rst complete painting to frame and hang on your wall!
ASSIGNMENT: Add color, details, and highlights to the brown underpainting of pearsthe assignment at the
end of Lesson 6.
PAINTING TIP
Its best not to go back and
dab at the highlights youve
already placed. If you arent
happy with a highlight, take
it of and try again.
Lesson 9: Introduction to Color Theory 31
Its time to start the color unit. Up until now youve been working with a
limited number of colors. Artists call it a limited palette.

The history of color theory
A colors pigment, hue, value, and chroma
How to create a hue circle
The History of Color Theory
In very early times of painting, artists worked with the natural materials they
found in the world around them. Black was made from charcoal or burnt bone
(and the Ivory Black on our list is still made from burnt bone). The early artists
also made various browns and grays from clay. These early clays, bone, and minerals are called pigment.
Pigment is the colored material ground and mixed to create a paint color.
Over the course of the centuries, artists experimented with diferent pig-
ments, even grinding semi-precious stones such as Lapis Lazuli to create
a blue color. And, originally, Alizarine Crimson was made from the root of
a madder plant.
Cornelia and Her Sons by Alessandro Varotari has a limited number of col-
ors. Its painted with mostly brown and a touch of blue and red.

In the color list for this course, those that were originally made of older
pigments include Burnt Umber, Ivory Black, French Ultramarine and Aliza-
rine Crimson. However, now French Ultramarine and Alizarine Crimson are
made from synthesized materials because its much more cost efective.
Whats left are the bright-colored Cadmiums, Viridian, and
Cerulean Blue. Before the Industrial Revolution of the late
nineteenth century, artists ground up pigments the way they
found them in nature. It was during the Industrial Revolution
that very high-temperature ovens were invented and it was
discovered that minerals could be heated to various tem-
peratures in order to get the diferent shades of red, orange
and yellow, green and blue. This process became very exact
and the manufacturers of paint were able to produce nearly-
pure colors. We see these colors in Impressionist paintings.
Introduction to Color Theory
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
All paint colors
Ruler
Pencil
Palette knife
Telephone book
9
National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY
Scala / Art Resource, NY
32 Lesson 9
Learn & Master Painting
Color Theory
As paints developed from natural elements to highly scientic products,
artists and scientists were developing the concept of Color Theory. Color
Theory developed over the course of centuries, simultaneous to the scien-
tic evolution of paints.
In 1666 Isaac Newton began a study of color and developed the New-
ton Color Circle, using the spectrum of visible light he observed with
a prism. Its still employed in photography and computer art with the
CMYK color system. In 1915, Professor Albert Henry Munsell gathered
all of the previous knowledge and research about pigments (including
Newtons research) to devise the Munsell Color System. He created the
color wheel based on his research.
KEY IDEA: The color wheel shows the relationships of colors.
It divides color into three attributes: Hue, Value and Chroma.
Hue, Value, and Chroma
Hue is the attribute of colors that permits them to be classed as red, yel-
low, green, blue, or an intermediate color.
Hue is what we associate with the name of the color. The color Red can
be called Rogue if youre French, or it can be called Come Hither if
youre a lipstick manufacturer. But its still Red.
Value is the relative lightness or darkness of a color. In other words, a
colors value is how it translates to black and white.
Take a look at the lady in a red dress. You can see in the color photo her
skin looks esh colored, the fan looks yellow, and the dress looks red, and
the area of the oor to the right of her left knee looks very dark brown.
Now look at the black and white version of the pictureher skin looks
light gray, the fan looks medium gray, the dress looks dark gray, and the
corner of the oor next to her knee looks just as dark as the dress even
though theres separation between the colors. So in black and white, you
can see that the red dress is just as dark as that dark brown oor.
National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY
Introduction to Color Theory 33
Chroma is the saturation or intensity of a color.
The strongest (or highest) chroma is the color as it comes out of the tube. It is easy to reduce the saturation
(chroma) of a pigment if its too bright when we squeeze it out of the tube.
It is not so easy to increase the chroma of a pigment if its too dull when we squeeze it out of the tube. You
can see why its important to learn to use the words high-chroma for fully-saturated colors instead of using the
confusing word bright. And youll need to use the word low-chroma for less-saturated colors instead of the
confusing word dull.
Youll also need to learn to use the word high-value for colors which
are closer to white on the value scale rather than the confusing and
ambiguous words pale or light. And youll use low-value for col-
ors which are closer to black on the value scale rather than the
confusing word dark.
To understand value as it relates to chroma, look at the color circle
with a gray scale coming out of the middle. Each of the colors on
the ring of the color circle is at its highest chromathe color is just
the way it looks squeezed out of the tube. Each color is matched
to the value of a gray in the core, and you can see a colors chroma
as it relates to its value on a gray scale. High chroma colors have a
high value and low chroma colors have a low value.
Creating the Hue Circle
Even though Albert Munsell devised a system of color that in-
cluded a color wheel, it is more correctly called a hue circle.
Its good to create your own hue circleto place at the very
front of your color binder for easy reference.
Your hue circle needs to be eight inches in diameter. Use a
compass (or plate), pencil, and ruler. It needs to be divided
into twelve pie-shaped sections.
The hue circle will be created by using the set of pigments that
are already marked on your palette. However, you wont be us-
ing the neutrals (white, ivory black, and burnt umber).
KEY IDEA: The paints are laid out in the same order on your
palette that they are on the hue circle. This will help you to
make color decisions every time you paint.
PAINTING TIP
Make sure to wipe your palette knife clean each time
you apply a new paint color on the hue circle.
34 Lesson 9
Learn & Master Painting
You will use your palette knife to place a bit of each paint color in its correct space on the hue circle. Begin by
placing Cadmium Red Deep at the top12:00 markof the circle. Then work your way clockwise around the
circle.
Pear Painting
When you painted the brown underpainting for the
apples, you used dark burnt umber for the shadows
and shading, and white to show the light. Instead, for
your red pear painting, youll use a low-value hue (like
purple) for the shadows and a high-value hue (like yel-
low) for the light.
Use a dotted line to trace the basic shape of your pear
with cadmium red deep. It doesnt have to be exact
because pears never are, and youre just creating the
shape from your memory of pears.
Start by painting the cast shadow (with your #5 lbert
and using purple) on the left hand side of the pear. Put
the shaded side of the pear on the same side as the
cast shadow, using purple again. Then youll work your
way from dark to light on your painting of the pear
following the hue circle.
When you painted the apples, you used a neutral un-
derpainting, followed by glazing and scumbling. That
method was used for hundreds of years previous to the 19th century. The method you used in this lesson with
the pearpainting directly onto a primed canvas with no underpaintingis called alla prima, which means on
the priming.
Alla prima is painting directly on the priming of the canvas.
Introduction to Color Theory 35
Youre Ready to Move On
Youll be working with hue, value, and chroma in the next several lessonsso youll be well versed in them by the
end of this color unit. But before moving on, you should

Know how to arrange a hue circle.
Have an understanding of hue, value, and chroma in colors.
Have a solid understanding of a colors pigment.

ASSIGNMENT: Paint a lime and use adjacent hues to show form.
Lesson 10: Lights and Darks in Color 36
You learned quite a lot of information in the last lesson about color, so
make sure you review what you learned (hue, value, chroma, and the hue
circle) before diving deeper into the concept of value.

How to create a grayscale
How to create a value chart
Value relativity
Creating a Grayscale
If you look at your hue circle, youll see that some colors are of a low
value and some are of a high value. But what does low and high value
mean? How would they look in a black and white photograph? If you
choose to add black or white to them, how much would it change
the value?
In order to answer these questions its necessary to make a chart called a grayscale.
A grayscale shows the full range of value from black to white and all the shades of gray
in between.
This chart will have black at the bottom, white at the top, and shades of gray in between.
The shades of gray work their way from dark grays at the bottom (near the black),
through medium grays in the middle, and light grays at the top, near the white.
KEY IDEA: The purpose of making the grayscale is to train your brain to match a col-
ors value with its corresponding gray on the grayscale, allowing you to make better
color decisions when youre painting.
Youll need all of your colors from the hue circle, plus white and ivory black, to make your
grayscale. Squeeze out about a half inch of each color onto your palette. With your pal-
ette knife, place some black near the lower left corner of your canvas paper. Then wipe
your knife and put some white near the upper left corner of the paper.
Now scoop the rest of your black paint into the center of your palette and scoop a tiny
dab of white into the pile of black. Mix them together. This will make a very dark gray
(almost black). Then put this dark gray just above your black on the canvas (use your
knife to mix them together a bitbut just where they touch).
Your goal is to get an even gradation from black through shades of gray to white.
Lights and Darks in Color
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Hue circle
Canvas paper
All paint colors
Palette knife
10
PAINTING TIP
Mix and make the grayscale on your palette frstso that you can make adjustments as you go. When
youre happy that the shades of gray are working you can transfer them to the paper.
Lights and Darks in Color 37
10
The darker gray shades at the bottom of the scale correspond to low value colors, like red. And the lighter
shades of gray at the top of the scale correspond to the high value colors like yellow.
Creating a Value Chart
Now its time for you to match all the colors on the hue circle to a value on the grayscale and create a value chart.
This time youll work your way from light to dark on the grayscale with the lighest color on your palettethe
Cadmium Yellow Lightyour highest value color. And when you look at your grayscale you can see that the
darkest grays are near the bottom of your paper. These dark grays are low value grays. The light grays are high
value grays.
So youll want to match the value of your Cadmium Yellow Light to one of the lighter grays near the top of the
grayscale. To gure out which gray it matches, youll have to learn how to see value. To do this, hold the yellow
on your knife up to the grayscale and squint so you cant see it very well.
KEY IDEA: The place where the value of the yellow matches the value on the grayscale is when the yellow fades
into the gray.
Once youve found that match, put some yellow next to it. Youll make this gradation of yellow the same way you
did with the black and white to create the grayscale (the only diference this time is that you have a total of three
colors to mixwhite, black, and yellownot just black and white).
Youll mix the yellow with white to create colors that correspond to the lightest grays, and youll mix the yellow
with black to correspond to the darker grays.
Once youre done with this strip, youll continue to work your way from right to left toward the reds on your pal-
ette: Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red Light, and Alizarine Crimson. This takes care of
the warm colors at the top of your palette. Then match the cool colors down the side of your palette: Viridian,
Cerulean Blue, and French Ultramarine.
KEY IDEA: The purpose of creating these value
charts is so you can see just how much white or
black you need to change a color when darken-
ing it or lightening it. You also see that adding
black or white to a color will change the hue.
Take some time to study your completed value
chart to familiarize yourself with all the colors
youve created.
38 Lesson 10
Learn & Master Painting
Value Relativity
Make a gradation which starts as black at the bottom and goes through the grays to white at the top. This is
very similar to the small gray strip you made when you began your value chartexcept this time youll make the
gradation larger (about three inches wide and twelve inches high).
When youve nished with that, mix a little blob of medium gray on your palette and use your knife to cut that
blob in half. Then use your knife to put half of the blob on top of the lower part of the gradation on your paper.
And put the other half of the blob on top of the upper part of the gradation on your paper.
What youll notice is the efect of value relativity. The same
color gray looks dark next to a lighter gray and light next to a
darker gray.
Value relativity is the appearance of a colors value juxta-
posed to another color.
This is an extremely important concept to understand when
creating light in your paintings, when creating contrast, and
generally to have a strong painting.
Now try the same exercise with colormake a second gra-
dation using French Ultramarine, and create a third grada-
tion out of Cadmium Orange (using Cadmium Yellow Light
for the blobs/color contrast in both gradations).
Notice how the yellow looks positively sickly against that
light orange. This is the result of value and chroma afecting your per-
ception of a color. The pure, high-chroma orange contrasts with the high-chroma yellow and the
high-chroma blue. The lower-chroma orange matches the value of the high-chroma yellow and kills the yellow.
The same is true of the blue.
Now you know the way a color looks is afected by
which colors are next to it, and you know how to
match a color to its corresponding gray.
Youre Ready to Move On
It might have taken you several days to go through this lesson and create all of the chartsbut thats okay. Take
as much time as you need. Before moving on to Lesson 11, make sure you

Successfully create a grayscale.
Create a value chart by seeing a colors value.
Know what colors are created by adding black and white to all the colors on your hue circle.
Understand that the appearance of a color is afected by the colors next to it.

ASSIGNMENT: Continue practicing value relativityusing purple for the gradation and yellow for the blob.
PAINTING TIP
To add brightness to your painting, you need to
contrast the values and chromas of the colors
youre using.
Lesson 11: Controlling Color Intensity 39
By now you have a good understanding of hue, chroma, and especially
value. Youve learned a lot about color concepts, and youll feel even more
comfortable painting after creating the reference charts in this lesson.

Complementary colors
All of the colors in a complementary color chart
About purples and their complements
Complementary Colors
Like you learned in the last lesson, one way of lowering the chroma
of a hue is to add black and white. A second way of lowering the
chroma of a huewhich youll learn in this lessonis by adding its
opposite hue on the hue circle. Youll know how to control a colors
intensity by lowering its hue.
If you take a look at your hue circle, youll see that the Cadmium
Red Deep is at the top of the circle and the Viridian is at the bot-
tom. Because they are opposites on the hue circle, these two col-
ors are called complementary colors.
Complementary colors are two hues opposite each other on the
hue circle.
This is how pigments work: Light, which has all the colors in it, trav-
els through the air and hits a pigmentsay for instance Cadmium
Red Deep. The Cadmium Red Deep pigment absorbs every color
in the light except red. It reects red, so red is what you see. The
same is true for Cadmium Red Deeps opposite, Viridian. When
pure light hits it, everything gets absorbed except Viridian.
So if you mix Cadmium Red Deep and Viridianeverything gets absorbedperiod. You wind up with black. This
is why you just add a little bit of Viridian to the Cadmium Red Deep. Then the red gets toned down by the
green rather than neutralized completely. And the opposite is true, too. If you add just a little bit of Cadmium
Red Deep to the Viridian, the green gets toned down.
Complementary Color Charts
You will create these complimentary color charts so that youll have a refer-
ence to use while painting all of the colors a complimentary color scheme
ofers. Use your knife to put a spot of Cadmium Red Deep on the upper left
corner of your paper and a spot of Viridian on the upper right corner of your
paper. In the same way that you mixed the grayscale on your palette before
putting it on paper, youll mix these complementary colors on your palette.
Controlling Color Intensity
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Hue Circle
Canvas paper
All paint colors
Palette knife
11
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
You will lower the chroma of a
hue by adding its complement.
40 Lesson 11
Learn & Master Painting
Cadmium Red Deep and Viridian

Place most of your half inch of Viridian in the middle of the palette and add a speck of red.
The goal is to mix a perfect neutralblack (if its too green, add more Cadmium Red; if its brown, add more
Viridian).
Place a spot of the black neutral at the top of your papermidway between the red spot and the green spot.
Look back at the neutral blob on your palettedivide the blob into thirds with your knife.
Continue to add Viridian to one of the blobsto create two intermediate greens; continue to add Cadmium
Red Deep to the second blobto create two intermediate reds (remember to add only TINY bits of red
because it is much stronger than the Viridian).
Use your knife to transfer part of each color to your paperplacing each color in its corresponding spot be-
tween the red and the neutral on your paper, and between the green and the neutral on the paper.
When you have your frst row of colors completed, add white to each of the colors on your palette that made
up the top row on your canvas. The addition of white results in a tint of each of your colors. Do two rows of
tints beneath your row of colors.
When you fnish placing two rows of tints, add white again to your lightest tints on the palette so you get a row
of very pale pastelsthis will be your fourth and fnal row of colors.

Now youve made your frst complementary color chart!
Make a chart for each of the pairs of colors on the hue circle.
Cadmium Red Light and Cerulean Blue
This combination is beautiful for metallic shades as well
as for skin tones. The neutral will be a dark, steely gray.
Controlling Color Intensity 41
Orange and Ultramarine
This combination works well to show light and
shadow on many subjects. The neutral will be a
muddy brownish green.
Purples and Their Complements
The previous three charts are all the charts that only use two colors plus white. But there are more charts, which
add a third color plus white. So youre remaining three charts will use three colorsand Alizarine Crimson will be
one of the three colors in all of them.
When you look at your hue circle you will see all the pairs that you have done so far, and you will see the remain-
ing pairs include the colors you had to mix: purple, blue-purple, and yellow-green. Youll make charts (using
Alizarine Crimson) for these mixed colors.
KEY IDEA: When youve made all of your charts, you can refer to them whenever you are trying to create or
match a color. Eventually you wont need these anymore, but just making them helps to build your color-mixing
memory.
Alizarine Crimson and Yellow-Green
The neutral will be a warm brown.
Purple and Cadmium Yellow Light
The neutral will be a dark brownish gray.
42 Lesson 11
Learn & Master Painting
Blue-Purple and Cadmium Yellow Medium
The neutral will be a dark gray.
Youre Ready to Move On
In this lesson you learned how to make a color look darker or how to control its value by adding the colors
complement. Now you know how to make darks with black (from the previous lesson) and how to make darks
with a colors complement. Its good to know how to do it both ways. You know youre ready to move on to
Lesson 12 when you
Understand how to fnd a colors complement.
Control a colors value by adding its complement.
Created all six of the color complement charts.

ASSIGNMENT: Find paint chips and create the color to match them; fnd magazine covers or advertisements
and match the colors.
Lesson 12: Color Combinations 43
In the last lesson you discovered some beautiful colors that you may not
have known ever existed, and found out that some colors you didnt know
were beautiful are beautiful after all. And you learned how to make those
colors as well as how to identify them and match them. But there is
even more to color combinations that youll learn in this lesson.

How to use diferent colors together so that your
painting shows exactly what you want
How to choose colors depending on your subject
Various color combinations
Color Combinations
Take a look at your hue circle. Youll see that the colors are arranged
with the two reds, one dark and one light, side by side. Then you see
the orange, then the two yellows, etc. This is set up like a rainbow
its a spectrum of color. The colors adjacent to one another are called
Analogous colors.
Analogous colors are colors adjacent to each other on the hue circle.
Many paintings are planned with analogous colors. In this painting, Ce-
dars by the Lake, there are green hills with a dark blue lake and pale
blue sky. The green, light blue, and dark blue correspond to Viridian,
Cerulean Blue, and French Ultramarine in your selection of pigments.
When you look at your hue circle, you see that the dark green Viridian
is right next to the light blue Cerulean, with the French Ultramarine
right beside it. Because those colors are side by side, you can say that
this painting is made up of an analogous color scheme.
The next color combination is the monochromatic color combination.
Monochromatic colors are all the tints and shades of a single color.
Now look at your value chart. Each row of colors to which you added
black or white is a monochromatic row. Therefore, the red row is made
up of all diferent shades of red and nothing elsewhich is monochro-
matically red. Monochromatic paintings can be efective at certain
times. One example: a landscape in winterwhite snow with pale blue
shadows, dark blue-gray ice, and a light blue sky as in this painting by
Claude Monet called Snow Scene At Argenteuil.
Color Combinations
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Hue circle
All color charts
Canvas paper
All paint colors
Medium
All brushes
Palette knife
12
National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY
44 Lesson 12
Learn & Master Painting
The next color combination is the complementary color com-
bination, which you learned about in the last lesson.
Complementary colors are two hues opposite each other
on the hue circle.
With a complementary color combination you can have two
bright, high-chroma colors, a neutral and a huge selection
of cool and warm tints and shades to choose from. And be-
cause of their complementary relationship, all of these colors
will look good together.
Sometimes you may want to do a painting using two sets of
complementary colors. This would be called a double com-
plement. For example, in the painting titled Resurrection,
the dark purple background is the complement of the gold
leaves and the red orange owers are the complement of the
blue green bird and plate.
A double complement is two sets of complementary colors.
Another option is to pick a color on one side of the hue circle
French Ultramarine for exampleand draw an imaginary line
across the circle to the other side as if you were going to point
to its complement. In this case we would be pointing toward
Cadmium Orange. Then, before you get to the orange, split your
line into a y-shape, and use the colors on either side of the com-
plement. This is called a split complement.
A split complement is a color and the two colors
adjacent to its complement.
Analagous colors with one complimentary color as an accent.
Color Combinations 45
Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY
Triads
Another type of color scheme is the triad.
A color triad is three colors spaced in equal distance on
the hue circle.
You are very familiar with the Primary Triadits the red/
yellow/blue scheme you lived with in kindergarten.
The primary triad is the three primary colors used to-
gether in a painting.
The reason why red, yellow, and blue are called primary colors
is because you cant mix those colors. You have to get them
right out of a tube of paint, and this color combination can be
pretty bright. These three colors on your hue circle are at their
highest chroma. Put them together and you have a very bright
work of art like this peruvian poncho made in the 7th century.
But you might not want a bright painting. That doesnt mean
you cant paint with red, yellow, and bluethe primary triad
does not have to be bright.
KEY IDEA: Its possible to paint with red, yellow, and blue if the
chroma is lowered using black, white, or a complementary color.
If you lowered the chroma of the primary triad with black, you
would have brown, navy blue, and green-gold. You would have
a very classic color combination reminiscent of Oriental rugs,
mahogany, and brass. You could paint a lovely interior scene
with these colors like Emperor Frederick II by Michael Diemer.
Now put your hand over your color wheel in such a way that
you can touch the Cadmium Red Deep, the Cadmium Yellow
Light, and the French Ultramarine all at the same time. Hold
your hand steady, and turn it so that you are now touching Cad-
mium Orange, Viridian, and Purple. This is the secondary triad.
A secondary triad is the three secondary colors used together
in a painting.
You can continue to turn your hand and nd triad combinations
of all the colors on the circle.
Werner Forman / Art Resource, NY
46 Lesson 12
Learn & Master Painting
KEY IDEA: When planning a painting you will predominantly use the colors from the color combination you
have chosen. You will also use a little bit of almost all the colors on your palette, but mostly youll use the colors
from your chosen combination of colors.
Now that youve learned all of the color combinations and triads that can be used in a painting, its time to put
your knowledge to practice by creating your own springtime landscape.
Springtime Landscape
Youll use the Alizarine Crimson/yellow-green comple-
mentary combination for this project.
Its also a great idea to rst sketch out some of your
ideas for color before you start to actually paint.
As you sketch, you can picture using the yellow-green for the
grass, the Alizarine Crimson for the owers in the grass, and a mixture of the two for the brown clump of trees.
Then its time think about the sky. Spring has its gorgeous sky-blue days, but it also has many gray days. Your
experience of spring can be kind of bittersweet with the bright sun or rainy days. So, in this excercise, youll cre-
ate a cloudy day with a wintry sun peeking out between the clouds. The clouds could be those neutral purplish-
grays and the spot of sun could be the yellow.
So for this project youll use a double complement:
Alizarine Crimson/Yellow-Green and Purple/Cadmium Yellow Light.
First, pick your focal pointthe clump of trees with the low sun be-
side it is a good choice. Next, mass in the dark area for the trees using
neutral brown. Also make a mass for the owers on the eld, and then
scribble in both the eld color and the sky color over the areas where
they belong. Now your painting should look like an abstractconsist-
ing of a dark mass, a yellow spot, and a pink massall surrounded by
gray and green.
Nows a good time to look at it from a distance and/or
upside downto see if you want to change the place-
ment or size of anything.
Now its time to make this abstract look like a realis-
tic painting. To nish this landscape:

Make negative space around the trees and between
the twigs (add sky holes).
Use pale yellow to make a streak of light yellow
across the horizon.
Use Cadmium Yellow Medium and put the yellow
where youve chosen for the sun in the sky.
Paint the grassy hill using your knife to cut the green mass into thirds. Add pale gray to one of the thirds for the
distant grass, and orange to another third for the foreground grass, creating atmospheric perspective.
PAINTING TIP
Remember, if you want to remove
anything on your painting, put
some medium on your rag and
wipe it of.
Color Combinations 47
Atmospheric perspective is the efect of air on the color of an object to show distance.

Add the mass of fowers in the meadow (just giving the efect of fowers); use distant pink for the distant fower
area, slightly larger strokes of middle ground pink in the middle ground area, and slightly larger strokes of the
foreground pink into the foreground area.
Hopefully now you can see that though a painting may be predominantly made up of a certain color combina-
tion, you will be using small additions of most of the colors on your palette.
Youre Ready to Move On
Now you should be able to pick the appropriate colors for all of your
future paintings based on what you learned in this lesson. You know
youre ready to move on when you

Identify all of the color combinations from your hue circle.
Identify all of the triads from your hue circle.
Understand how to choose colors for your paintings.
Have successfully completed your springtime landscape.
ASSIGNMENT: Go to the shopping center or look around your house and dene which color combinations are
being used in the decorations, signs, products, etc.
Lesson 13: Using Color to Create the Mood 48
By now you should be pretty good at manipulating the colors to get
the look you want. Now its time to think about manipulating colors
to get the feel you want.
Interior designers are very aware of how color afects our mood.
They avoid garish colors in hospitals, for instance. They have found
that warm peach is a lovely color in a bedroom but a horrible color
in a workspace, where cool blues and greens are more efective.
How to plan your painting to convey a mood based
on the colors you choose
Color Temperature and Mood
One important and signicant tool we artists have for conveying
mood through color is the fact that colors have a sort of visual tem-
peraturewarm and cool.
Color temperature is an illusion of warmth or cold in a color.
Its pretty obvious when you think about it. The warmer colors are
the color of re: red, orange, and yellow. The cooler colors are the
color of water and leaves: blue, green, and purple. There are two col-
ors which can go either way: yellow-green and purple can be warm
or cool depending on what sort of color is beside them.
Color temperature, like color light, is relative. You can have a warm
red, for instance, next to a red that is not quite so warmthat second
red would be called a cool red. So its good to know how to cool
a color.
And, on the other hand, you can also make a color warmer.
So consider the moods you can convey with color temperature:
This painting is mainly cool blues and
blue-grays. Do you nd it soothing?
Using Color to Create the Mood
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas Paper
All paint colors
#5 lbert and at brushes
#10 lbert and at brushes
Medium
Palette knife
13
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
To make a color cooler, add black, or add white,
or mix a cooler color, such as blue, into it.
To make a color warmer, add one of the warm
colors to it: red, orange, or yellow.
Using Color to Create the Mood 49
Do you nd this one to be a little
mysterious?
Might the mood on this one go all the way to
somber?
How about one which is mostly yellow, with
splashes of red and green? Does it glow?
What mood is conveyed here? Do you feel
inspired and uplifted?
Runion des Muses Nationaux / Art Resource, NY
Runion des Muses Nationaux / Art Resource, NY
50 Lesson 13
Learn & Master Painting
KEY IDEA: How your color choices afect the mood of a paintingwhether the mood is cheerful or painful, or
soothing or depressingcan be largely controlled with brushstroke, composition, and subject choice.
Another important way that color afects you is that your eye is drawn to contrastbetween light and dark, high
and low chroma, and between warm and cool colors.
KEY IDEA: You, the artist, control what your painting says by choosing how you use color.
Abstract Paintings Using Color Temperature
Youre going to try three simple abstract paintings using color temperature and mood.

The frst painting will be cool and soothingusing cool colors (blues, purples, and greens), and soothing brush-
strokes: long, gentle waves. Add a focal point that adds contrast of temperature by picking a warmer color
(yellow-green) and that makes a mark diagonally across your wavy lines.
This gives you an analogous color combinationas you can see on the color circle.
The second one will be an exciting, hot paintingusing hot
colors (reds, oranges, and yellows), and exciting brush-
strokes: wild, zig-zag strokes. It looks like an inferno.
Add a focal point/temperature contrast using purple.

Using Color to Create the Mood 51
For this last abstract you will use colors which would normally
be called warm but youll cool them with white (Cadmium Red
Deep mixed to a whisper-pale-pink, Cadmium Red Light mixed to
the faintest peach, and Cadmium Yellow Light mixed to a delicate
butter yellow). This last painting will be light, airy and delicate
(use your palette knife to scrape the paint around on your canvas,
rather than a brush like you have in the previous two paintings).
Make the focal point a warm brownby mixing black with Cad-
mium Red Light (using the narrow edge of your knife to apply it,
making fne, straight lines with impasto paint).
Youre Ready to Move On
You learned in Lesson 4 how to tailor your brushstrokes to determine the mood of the painting, and now you
understand how to choose colors based on the mood you choose. Youll know youre ready to move on when
you

Understand the diference between color mood and color temperature.
Know how to adjust a color, making it warmer or cooler.
Choose the correct colors for your painting depending on the mood.

ASSIGNMENT: Find examples of famous paintings that used color to convey mood and/or temperature.
Lesson 14: Understanding Composition 52
Congratulations! Youve successfully nished the color section of
this course and youre most likely looking around and noticing col-
ors in a whole new way now. In Lesson 6 you learned about having
a focal point, or a center of interest. In this lesson, youll take that
a step further.
Methods for creating a focal point in a painting
How to draw the viewers eye through the painting
How to create balance in a paiting
Methods for Creating a Focal Point
First, review the denition for the focal point:
The focal point is the area of the painting that is the center of interest.
Think about the way your eyes work. When they scan over a scene, theyll nd one thing that catches their atten-
tion. After a split second of looking at the object, theyll move on to study something else. But, in a given place
or scene, there will be one object that they continually look at over and over again.
In the apple project, you learned how contrast of value will attract a viewers eye. In the color lessons, you found
how contrast of hue or chroma will do the same thing. The fact is, any kind of contrast will attract your eye. If you
have a scene with all horizontal lines and one thing sticking up vertically, thats your center of interest. A scene
with a lot of busy texture and one spot where there is no texturethe smooth place will be the focal point.
KEY IDEA: Contrast is a huge factor in creating a focal point.
But there are other methods that are
important, too.
Anthropologists have found that an-
cient cultures, children, and isolated
tribal peoples tend to create certain
kinds of symbols. These symbols lead
the viewer to the focal point. Some ex-
amples: a spiral, a cross, a starburst,
concentric circles, a gure 8, arrows, and frames within frames.
If you know what to look for, you will nd something similar in many of the
works of art which have been created by Western and Asian artists. Here
are two examples:
The rst thing you notice in Kuniyoshis A Samurai is the large dark area
contrasting with the lighter background. You immediately nd yourself
staring at the very light area at the center of the dark area. Thats another
contrast. You also see how the artist used vigorous brushwork to show the
action of the warrior. And there is also the starburst compositionwhere
Understanding Composition
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
Burnt Umber
Cadmium Red Llight
Medium
#5 at and lbert brushes
#10 lbert brush
14
Scala / Art Resource, NY
Understanding Composition 53
all the major lines of the painting meet in the middle (created by the sword, his
legs, a part of the costume that sticks out to the left, plus the white jagged line
that comes down from the top).
When you look at this ancient Russian icon titled Laudes of the
Virgin Mary, youll notice an outer frame made up of small pictures.
Inside the outer frame is a smaller frame composing human g-
ures. Within the inside frame youll see an oval with Mary as the
focal point. This composition uses frame within frame to draw your
eye to the center of interest.
In this Italian painting, Mathild of Canossa by Orazio Farinati, you
immediately see the contrast of the red against the gray. Fari-
nati created a cross compositionwith the horse and details
to the left and right of it and the column behind it. The ladys
head and hands serve as the focal
point. Farinati did even more to
strengthen this composition: the
tree at the right of the column is
pointing like an arrow toward the
lady; the trees bordering the lake
are doing the same thing; the en-
tire body of the angel on the left
is pointing toward the lady as well.
Scala / Art Resource, NY
Scala / Art Resource, NY
Scala / Art Resource, NY
54 Lesson 14
Learn & Master Painting
Pathways Through a Painting
There are certain tools you can use to direct the viewers eye
around the painting, just as there are tools you use to dene a
focal point. Examples of these tools:

Lines
Edgeshard, soft, and lost
Patternone example is a dotted line leading the eye down a
pathway the artist has chosen
Rhythm and repetition

In this Gayle Levee painting called Pizzicato you see an example
of pattern. The violin is the main event in the painting, but the
leaves form a pattern which leads the eye in a gure 8 around
the painting.

Look at the painting Emperor Frederick II by Mi-
chael Diemer. It is a great example of rhythm and
repetition. The three arches at the back of the
painting move the viewers eye to the large arch
behind the emperor. The three arches are alike
and theyre an example of repetition. The hu-
man gures in front of the arches are aligned in a
rhythmtwo, one, two, oneuntil your eye settles
on the emperor and queen on the throne.
Balance in Paintings
Another major factor when you plan the composition of
your painting is called balance.
Balance is the viewers reaction to the apparent weight of
objects placed within the composition.
Balance describes the placement of your subjects within
the canvas and is rather intuitive. There are no formulas
for balance, but you can see how it works in this painting
titled Purple Hyacinth.
When you see a picture of a pyramid, you know the pyramid will not fall over. Its wide base makes it obvious that
the pyramid is a stable structure. A painting structured around this kind of balance will appear calm and stable
and is called static balance.
Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY
Understanding Composition 55
The mass of dadols in Purple Hyacinth forms the apex of a triangle. And the two lemonsto the left and
rightform the left and right points of the triangle.
Static balance occurs when there is equal weight on
both sides of the composition.
The upside-down pyramid displays dynamic balance.
If I draw a pyramid upside down, you get a feeling of
instability. You know in real life that pyramid would not
last long before falling over.
Or you could plan a composition with a large, heavy
mass on one side, and several smaller shapes on the
other. That would be dynamic balance.
Dynamic balance is achieved when weight is opposed
by other compositional elements. Dynamic balance gives the efect that if one single element were removed,
the structure would fall.
Composing a Painting
To illustrate some of these ideas about composition,
its time to do a simple painting exercise. Start by do-
ing a rough-in of the composition (using #5 lbert),
including a dab of Cadmium Red Deep for your focal
pointwhich will be a small red house. And with just a
couple of strokes indicate where that house belongs.
Use Burnt Umber to make a series of marks/a dotted
line leading up to your focal pointforming a pattern.
Now youve created a path for the viewers eye to fol-
low to follow to the focal point.
Create a picket fence by painting a rhythmic row of
short vertical lines and one taller linewhich leads
the viewers eye to the left of the canvas. To create
balance in the painting, add a large mass, a tree. And
nally you need to bring the viewers eye back to the
bottom of the canvas to the path, which allows the
viewer to follow it up to the focal point again. So paint
the tree trunk and that should do the trick (with a root pointing at the path).
Now you have a composition. You used color contrast for the focal point, pattern to lead the eye toward the
focal point, rhythm to move the eye around the canvas, mass for balance, and line to get the eye started on
its journey all over again.
56 Lesson 14
Learn & Master Painting
Youre Ready to Move On
Now you have a wealth of information about composition. Not only will your paintings be stronger visually, they
will be much more appealing to the viewer. Youll know youre ready to move on when you

Understand the various methods for creating a focal point.
Can lead the viewer through your painting to the focal point.
Know how to paint a balanced picture.
Are able to put all the knowledge together to plan the composition of your paintings.
ASSIGNMENT: Paint a simple picture starting with the focal point, and then develop it using line, rhythm, and
either static or dynamic balance.
Lesson 15: Beginning Perspective 57
Youve come quite a long way in your understanding of brushwork,
color, and composition. But now its time to address some issues of
drawing.
How to draw using linear perspective
How to draw an ellipse
How to draw a cylinder
Linear Perspective and the Ellipse
Many people consider drawing to be a preliminary to painting, and
it actually is. You do need to know how to draw, unless you want
to limit your painting to simple subjects and abstracts. The master
artists spent years with pencil and charcoal before their teachers
allowed them to pick up a brush. Outdoor sketches and graphite studies of their subjects were, and still are, in-
tegral parts of creating a convincing representational painting.
KEY IDEA: Get in the habit of sketching and drawing when you arent painting. It will help you to become more
aware of the worldwhat youre seeingand it will give you a language to convey your thoughts.
Drawing is not only done with pencil. Drawing can be an important part of the painting process, and you can do
it with a brush. In order to do draw with a brush, you need to rst understand the idea of linear perspective. You
learned about linear perspective in Lesson 6, but now its time to dene it even further.
Linear perspective is a structured system for creating the illusion of space and distance on a at surface.
If you look at a roll of paper towels by holding it straight in front of you, you see it as a long, thin cylinder. And
when you turn it end-on, you see the opening as a circle. When you hold this cylinder just a little below your eyes,
you can see part of the side and part of the top. But the top is no longer a circle. If you tried to place a circle over
that top shape, the circle doesnt match.
The shape of the top of the cylinder, when held just below your eye level is called an ellipse.
An ellipse looks like a circle that has been smashed into an oval.
When you move the cylinder from just below your eye level to quite
a bit below your eye level, the ellipse changes shapeit gets more
and more like a circle as it descends. And when you bring
it back up toward your eye level, the shape of the ellipse
gets narrower and narrower until you cant see the top at
all anymore. This is the efect of linear perspective. The
shape of the ellipse changes as the tube moves up or
down from eye level.
In order for you paintings to be convincing, you need to
know how to incorporate linear perspective.
Beginning Perspective
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
Burnt Umber
Medium
#2 at brush
#2 lbert brush
Rags
15
PAINTING TIP
Any time you paint a picture incorporating a
cylinder, you will be using ellipses. All kinds
of pots, vases, and bottles are cylinders.
Even your arms and legs are cylinders.
58 Lesson 15
Learn & Master Painting
Drawing Ellipses
In order to make an ellipse youll need to stand at your easel and practice curved lines (because an ellipse is two
joined curves). With your loaded brush, held like a butter knife, touch the canvas at an angle. In order to make
the curve of the ellipse, move your elbow. Using your elbow alone makes a big arc (you wont need to use your
ngers or even your wrist).
Practice both curving up and down. And try some with your
non-dominant hand as well.
When joining the two curves to make an ellipse, do not:
1) make the top curve meet the bottom curve with a little
point at each end, or 2) put a big bend at the place where
the top meets the bottom (which will make your ellipse look
like a sausage). Drawing it correctly takes practiceits a
gentle, gradual tightening of the top curve.
Drawing Cylinders
Drawing through is an important part of perspective drawing. Recall the apple project: you drew both apples
completely and then erased part of the apple in front where you had drawn through. Youll draw through and
erase often in this lesson as well so have your rag ready!
Take a look at the bottom of the roll of paper towels. If you look at the bottom of this cylinder, you can see a
circle just like the one on top. Remember that in order to see the ellipse on top you had to hold the paper towels
just below eye level. In the same vein, in order to see the ellipse of the bottom, you need to hold it just above
your eye level. Usually you see cylinders sitting on surfaces, and the bottom is not visible. But the bottom is still
an ellipse.
KEY IDEA: Even though you cant see the bottom of a cylinder lying on
a surface, the bottom is still an ellipse.

Drawing a cylinder

First, draw or paint the central axis of the cylinder.
Next, fnd the horizontal axis along the diameter of the cylinder.
The diameter line goes across the widest point of the ellipse, not
across the front.
Paint a horizontal line at the top of the vertical line, and that will rep-
resent the diameter line.
Do another horizontal line at the bottom to represent the diameter of
the bottom (make both of these diameter lines longer than you think
youll want them).
Draw the sides of the cylinder by drawing vertical lines to join the top
diameter line with the bottom diameter line to get a rectangle (rst
make sure your diameter lines are symmetricalyou can measure this
using your brush handles).
Add the ellipses: they will curve above the diameter line and below
the other diameter line.
Beginning Perspective 59
If you arent happy, just wipe of the part you dont like and try again. What you have on your canvas doesnt
look much like a cylinder. Its covered with lines that you dont see when youre nished. These linesthe cen-
tral axis and the diameter, as well as part of the bottom ellipseare guidelines.
Guidelines guide a drawing so that it will come out right.
But now that the guidelines have done their work, they can go. Put medium on your
rag and erase the central axis line, the diameter lines, and the back side of your bot-
tom ellipse. And theres your cylinder.
Here are examples of other objects using various sized elipses.
Youre Ready to Move On
For most people drawing ellipses is a very hard concept to grasp. Dont worry if you dont feel comfortable with
them right away. Do make sure, though, youve mastered these concepts before moving on to the next lesson
where youll be starting your next still life. Youll be incorporating ellipses into the objects you useso take all the
time you need in this lesson before continuing. Youll know youre ready to move on when you

Have a basic understanding of linear perspective.
Successfully draw the shape of an ellipse.
Use guidelines to draw a cylinder.

ASSIGNMENT: Observe other cylinders in the world: your fnger, for example, is three cylinders. Practice draw-
ing-through with ellipses.
Lessons 16 & 17: Using What Youve Learned Parts I & II
60
There is much more to learn about perspective than just ellipses.
But rst lets use what youve learned so far, putting it all together
into a completed paintinga large still life painting. Youll use the
18x24 toned canvas that you prepared in Lesson 1. Just as you did
with the completed painting of the apples, youll paint a brown
underpainting, followed by color, with the details coming last.
How to paint a more complex still life arrangement,
including cylinders
Color and Composition in the Still Life
In general, avoid the following objects:

Objects with decoration, printing, or writing. Your objects should
be plain colored.
Objects that are highly-shiny silver, brass, glass, or chrome.
Objects with lumpy carvings or bumps all over them.
Once you have assembled everything, spread your black cloth in the same
way as for the apples. Youll notice the red and green complimentary color
combination works for the still life (using Cadmium Reds and Viridian)with
the tulips, stems, leaves, and limes.
KEY IDEA: Your focal point will be at the area of highest con-
trastthe white vase.
The eye rst notices the white vase, and follows that vase up to
the tulips (because theyre beautiful and red). The tulips point to
the leftto the candle. The shadow of the candle points across
the bottom of your triangle to the limes. The far right lime forms
the right hand point of the triangle. After that, the viewers eye
will return to the vase.
Using What Youve Learned
Parts I & II
YOU LL
LEARN
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Three green limes
Three red silk tulips
White vase
White candle
Burnt Umber
White
Cadmium Red Deep
Viridian
Cadmium Red Light
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Yellow Light
Rags
Medium
All brushes
Palette knife PAINTING TIP
Remember you are still learning the basics.
You may want to paint a picture of your
great-grandmothers hand-etched silver tea
set, but you arent ready yet!
L E S S O N S
16
1 7
&
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Create a simple triangular
composition with your objects.
Using What Youve Learned Parts I & II 61
Drawing the Brown Underpainting
Start with the focal point for the vase (using a white mark). Then use the same paint mixture of white and me-
dium to draw a triangle on the canvasuse the sight-size measurement technique. Use the height of the vase as
the main unit of measurement for the triangle.
Now draw rough shapes of the objectsremember to use ellipses since there are cylinders in this composition.
You can measure proportions of the real vase rather than size: take your brush and make a horizontal mark on
the canvas that will show about how wide you think the vase should be to ft welland then make the height of
the vase twice that measurement. Once youve done this, make your central axis at the right height. Then make
a horizontal line at the topcorresponding to the diameter (and the same for the bottom). Draw the contour of
the right side of the vase (the curve). Then measure from the central axis to the right side to know the measure-
ment for the left side/contour line; mark dots for the left side, and then connect the dots. Make the ellipse for the
top and the other one for the bottom. Last thing: erase your guidelines.
KEY IDEA: Remember, when drawing an ellipse, the horizontal lines are NOT the front edge of the top or the
front edge of the bottom of the object.
Follow the same procedure to draw the candlea simple cylinder.
To draw the three shapes for the limes, draw the rst lime right
over the vase. Youre drawing throughjust like you did in the ap-
ple project. After you have drawn the lime that is in front of the
vase, you can erase the part of the vase that is behind the lime.
Continue with the next two limesdrawing through each time.
The tulips are all little cylinders.
Tulip #1: This one is standing at an angle pointing toward the corner of your room. So make a central axis line
pointing toward the corner of your canvas. Make an ellipse for the top, one for the bottom, and then
join them.
Tulip #2: The central axis for this one is pointing toward the candleso make that central axis and then draw the
ellipses and the sides.
Tulip #3: Same process as Tulip #2; sits behind it.
Painting the Brown Underpainting
Its time to paint the tulips now that youve drawn them. This is all
freehand. Dont worry about getting really detailed right now. Just fo-
cus on where you are painting your darkest dark and lightest light for
nowshowing only the dark mass on the right of your top tulip, and
the dark petal behind it.
On your second tulip, the darkness is at the base of the tulipso just mass that in on your canvas, and the line
of darkness following the contour of one of the petals.
For the third tulip, the darkest dark is along the bottom side of the tulip, and the lightest light is at the top.
Then paint in the darks, midtones, and lighter tones on the leaves of the three tulipsthe darkest areas frst, fol-
lowed by the lighter areas.
PAINTING TIP
Since the tulips are not totally sym-
metrical, you dont have to do the
step that consists of drawing the
contour, measuring the other side,
and then connecting the dots.
62 Lessons 16 & 17
Learn & Master Painting
KEY IDEA: Do not draw the outlines of objects as if they
were in a coloring book.
Now turn your attention to the limes:
Lime #1 (in the background): Paint the cast shadow frst,
the darkest shading, then the midtone, and last, the light-
er area.
Lime #2 (at the far right point of the triangle): Cast shad-
ow frst, darkest shading, midtone, and then the lighter
area.
Lime #3: Repeat.
Before getting to the vase and candle, paint in the dark background
frst. Just like you did for the apples, take your burnt umber and
medium mixture and block it in using varied strokes.
Notice places where you can have a lost edge: the very dark edge
on the tulip that is as dark as the background (since red is a very
dark, low-value color, you can let it blend into the background).
Once the background is done, paint the tabletop. Youll need to put in the shadows cast by the candle and the
vase frst, since they are darker than the rest of the tabletop.
Now clean up any edges you may need to on the limes and tulips, and
soften the edges on the shadow side away from the focal point and make
the edges crisp on the light side near the focal point.
And now that you have added the background, you can see that your
two remaining objectsthe white vase and white candlewill contrast
against it. Paint these in the usual wayfrom dark to light.
Paint the cast shadow from the tulips (on the vase)
with a dark/midtone mixture.
Place a hard edge on the lightest side of the white
vasesince thats your focal point.
You may notice that the dark side of your candle
is not as dark as the dark side of the vase. This
is for two reasons: the candle, made of wax, lets
some of the light shine through. The other reason
is that there is reected light coming of the white
vase. So the darkest color for the candle is prob-
ably closer to the middle.
As always, make and add your midtone to the vase
and candle, and last, add the lightest tones.
Take a break and let the underpainting dry before
moving on to add the color.
PAINTING TIP
Even though you are painting a more com-
plex subject, you still need to paint the same
way you have been painting everything else:
observe where the light falls and where the
shadows lie, and paint the light and shad-
ows.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
When painting the background,
allow the strokes to go over the
lines you have drawn for the vase,
candle, owers, and apples.
Using What Youve Learned Parts I & II 63
Adding Color to the Painting
Start with the background: mix a batch of black using Cadmium
Red Deep and Viridianthen add medium to make it like vegeta-
ble oil. Brush it on using your #10 flbert with varied strokes. Again,
dont worry about staying in the lines around objects. When you
get close to the tabletop, stop painting.
For the tabletop, add a molecule of red and a drop of white to the
mixtureand work from top to bottom using varied strokes. Each time the paint gets one inch closer to the bot-
tom of the canvas, add another molecule of red. This is to make the table look fat.
For the objects, youll start with the farthest: the tulip stems.
Paint the leaves and stems rst, since they are behind the tu-
lips. Use a green mixed out of Viridian and red. Try to match
the darkest green on the leaves. Then color check the green.
Use the wide side of your brush for the broad dark areas of
the leaves and the narrow side for the narrow dark areas of
the stems. Then switch to your #5 lbert to add some white
and some Cad Yellow Light to make the midtone green for the
leaves. Color check. Last, add some more Cad Yellow Light and
some more white for the lightest green tone to paint the rest of
the leaves and stems. Again, be sure to color check frst. And
now you have successfully painted throughdoing the darks,
then the midtones, and nishing up with the light tones.
Now for the owers: Mix a dark red out of Cadmium
Red Deep and Viridian. Since youve already placed
the darkest darks with the underpainting, all you need
to do is cover those areas with the dark red. Then use
pure Cad Red Deep for the reddest parts, and mix the
tiniest bit of medium into it so it is a glaze. To paint the
very edge of a petalwhich has just a sliver of light
on itput a relatively thick line on it with the edge of
your #5 flbert. Then apply darker paint into the edge
so the sliver of light looks thin. For the fower areas
that need to be even brighter, touch those spots with
Cad Red Light or Cad Orange. You wont use white for
the red color because you dont want to end up with
a pink color.
For the vase: Mix up your darkest white frstusing
Cad Red Deep, Viridian, white, and a touch of one of
the other cadmiums. Keep a main pile of that color
mixture to mix up your midtones and lights later (just scrape some of the original mixture away from the main
pile when you need to mix up a new color). Remember that you are not painting a white vaseyou are painting
the way shadow looks on a white vase (which wont be white).
Limes: Mix up some shadow green for these (using Viridian, Cad Red Deep, and one of the lighter Cadmiums)
to fnd the dark green color that you like. Then work from dark to midtone to light the way you always do.
All thats left now is the candle: Create a sort of warm whitevery similar to the vase (mixing Viridian, Cad Red
Deep, white, and another lighter Cadmium). Then start with the darkest white in the middle where you put your
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
By making the color warmer as it gets
closer to the viewer, you are incorporating
atmospheric perspective.
PAINTING TIP
If you have overlapping objects,
paint the object in the back frst and
then the object that overlaps. For
example, the tulip stems stick down
inside the vase, which means the
vase will be in front of the stems. So
paint the stems frst.
64 Lessons 16 & 17
Learn & Master Painting
darkest color on the underpainting. Then add some yellow and put the yellowish color on the right. And add
some white for the lighter side of the candle.
Adding Details and Highlights
Remember to color check each of the following details and high-
lights before applying them:

Add the stem area to the limesdark side and then the light side
Add the wick of the candledark side and then light side
Add highlights to the limesuse a very light yellow
Add the bright highlight to the vase, your focal pointload your
knife with pure white paint and stroke the largest highlight on
the right and then two smaller highlights
Last, stand back and decide if you want to go any lighter with
the bright highlights on your tulips
Youre Ready to Move On
Congratulations! Youve fnished your second still lifeand
this one includes ellipses. Its also much larger than your
rst one. Youll be ready to move on when

The objects are symmetrical and sit solidly on
their elliptical bases.
The lights and darks are established throughout
the painting.
Your composition is balanced with a focal point.
Correctly match the paint colors to your still life.
Add the details and highlights to your painting.

ASSIGNMENT #1: Choose a focal point object for another painting, one that you will paint on your own. Choose
a background cloth of a plain color that contrasts with your focal point color. Include one cylinder and two other
objects that have no straight lines. Do not use glass, silver, brass, or complicated decorative fnishes. Do the
brown underpainting. Then add color and detail to it.
Lesson 18: One-Point Perspective 65
Now its time to begin the next major segment of Learn & Master
Painting, and it concerns going into greater detail about perspective.
Its key to understanding perspective if you want to paint believable,
3-D objects.

How to fnd the vanishing point and horizon line
How to paint with one-point perspective
Horizon Line and Vanishing Point
When you looked at a roll of paper towels in Lesson 15, you could see
how the shape of an object appears to you depends on its relation to
your eye level. The top of the roll could look like a circle, like a wide
ellipse, like a narrow ellipse, or anything in between, depending on
where it is in relation to your eye level. Everything you see around
you follows that rule.
KEY IDEA: All objects will change their apparent size as they move away from you.
An example is how the highway changes shape as it moves into the distanceit looks narrower. This place where
the road or the beach gets so small you can no longer see it is called the vanishing point.
The vanishing point is the point where an object vanishes into the horizon.
And a line drawn horizontally across the vanishing point is called the horizon line.
The horizon line is the line drawn horizontally across the vanishing point.
To nd the horizon line in real life, stand and hold your head straight, looking straight out in front of you. Then
raise your arm, palm down, ngers extended. Keep gradually raising your arm until you can no longer see your
ngers. You are now pointing along your line of sight to your horizon line. If you swing your arm side to side, you
are drawing your horizon line in the air.
If you were standing in the middle of the highway, you would see the highway come to a vanishing point some-
where along that horizon line. When you are sketching or painting, you need to have a horizon line in the paint-
ing. And the lines of your subjects will converge to a vanishing point. So
KEY IDEA: One-point perspective is when the lines of a subject, like a road, converge to one vanishing point.
The main idea with one-point perspective is that one object has one vanishing point. But sometimes your paint-
ing will have multiple objectseach with one vanishing point. Youre still painting with one-point perspective.
Linear Perspective in a Tree-lined Road
Lots of artists try to get away with shortcuts and avoid thinking about horizon lines and a vanishing pointand
One-Point Perspective
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
Burnt Umber
Medium
#2 lbert brush
#5 lbert brush
18
66 Lesson 18
Learn & Master Painting
it shows in their paintings. When an artist avoids thinking about horizon lines and vanishing points, that artist is
avoiding linear perspective.
In linear perspective all parallel lines that recede into the distance appear to get closer together or converge.
Converging lines are lines that get closer together as they reach the
vanishing point.
Linear perspective involves step-by-step procedures that are actually
very easy once you get used to them. Youll learn these steps in the
following exercise:

Load the narrow side of the #5 flbert and stand in front of the can-
vas with your arm extended at eye level and the brush touching the
canvas. Keep your arm extended and make a straight horizontal line
like you did in the beginning brushwork lesson, Lesson 3. Make this
line extend all the way across your canvas. Change hands if neces-
sary to reach the other end of the line.
Now put a dot somewhere near the center of that horizon linethis
will be your vanishing point.
Youre going to make a road. And in order for a painted road to
look convincing, it must go from a tiny dot at the vanishing point
all the way to a big, wide, road that you can get your car on.
Make two very long curvesone from the vanishing point and curving out the right side of the canvas, and one
from the vanishing point and curving out the left side of the canvas.
Put Italian-style trees along the road. Theyll all be the same height and the same distance from the roadall
the way to the horizon line. In order to make sure you get it right, make a guideline for the tops of the trees,
and it will be like your road curve.
Then make another guideline for where the trunks will meet the ground. This curve is following your road curve
too and gets gradually closer to the road curve until it meets the other two curves at the vanishing point. The
way these lines get closer together as they get closer to the vanishing point is called converging. Remember,
Converging lines are lines that get closer together as they reach the van-
ishing point.
You have two lines converging on the vanishing point (one for the tops
of the trees and one for the bottoms of the trees).
Place the vertical lines that will be guidelines for the trees themselves.
Scribble in the shapes of the tall Italian poplar trees on the tree trunks
already in place (make each tree a little wider near the middle). As
you move along toward the vanishing point, each tree will be slightly
shorter and thinner than the one in front.
Make a little footpath going of to the side (that wont be as wide as
the road), with its own vanishing point.
One-Point Perspective 67
Linear Perspective in a Stream
Oftentimes, people like to have a winding stream in the middle
of a picture, coming right toward the viewer. Perspective is used
to create a stream, as well:

Draw a horizon line and put a vanishing point near the center
of the line.
Your stream will get wider at the front of the picture, just like
the road did.
In perspective, the curves of your stream should look more like
zig-zags than they do like gentle curves, and the lines of the
straight areas will be closer to each other than the curves.
Add stream banksby making a line that follows the stream
just slightly above it. Then join the bank to the stream at the
curves. Finally, erase the part of the stream that is obscured by
the bank.
Add mountains (using curved lines) and trees in the distance
(remember that these objects will need to be smaller because
they are farther away).
Put refections in the water (by making a mirror image of the
tree in the water).
Youre Ready to Move On
I hope youre thinking to yourself, Perspective wasnt as hard
to learn as I thought it would be. It really isnt a hard concept to
understand when youre willing to accept what you see. Linear
perspective will become second nature. You know youre ready
to move on to learn about two-point perspectivein the next
lessonwhen you

Understand how to fnd the vanishing point and the horizon line.
Understand how to paint with one-point perspective.
Completed the two practice paintings using one-point perspective.

ASSIGNMENT: Prove to yourself that the world really does exist in one-point perspective by taping a sheet of
plastic to your windshield and tracing what you see using a permanent marker. This will help you to understand
that the lines of the road really do appear to converge (one-point perspective immediately becomes clear at
this point).
Lesson 19: Two-Point Perspective 68
I hope you are beginning to understand how distorted the world
looks due to linear perspective. You will use this understanding when
you are sketching your ideas for pictures, when you are sketching
from life, and when you are drawing with your brush. But, as you
know, what you see in the world is much more complicated than ob-
jects converging to one vanishing point.

To understand two-point perspective as it relates to
boxes, houses, and tables.
Two-Point Perspective with a Box
You learned how one-point perspective works in the last lesson, but youve probably already noticed that when
you look around there are some objects that dont t into this modelhouses, for instance. Unless youre stand-
ing directly in front of a house, youll see two sides of it. Usually youll see the front, one corner, and one side.
You have already learned that, in perspective,
the parallel lines of the side of a road and a line
of trees planted next to the road will converge
to one vanishing point on the horizon line. So
you can imagine that the parallel lines along the
eaves of a house and along the foundation of
the house would also converge to one vanish-
ing point on the horizon line.
If you only understand one-point perspective,
you will only be able to show how the lines of
the side of the house converge to a vanishing
pointbut you need another vanishing point
for the front of the house.
When you use more than one vanishing point
for one object, its called two-point perspective.
Two-point perspective occurs when the lines
of a subject, like a box, converge to two vanish-
ing points.
Two-Point Perspective
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
#2 lbert brush
Medium
Burnt Umber

19
Two-Point Perspective 69
All the lines running toward the right will converge at the right
hand vanishing point. All the lines running toward the left will
converge at the left hand vanishing point.
The house youve been looking at is shaped sort of like a box.
In order to begin to learn how to draw a house, youll start by
learning how to draw a box. You know that when you draw this
box youll make the lines of the left side converge at the left
vanishing point. And, you know that the lines of the right side
will converge at the right vanishing point.
Converging lines are lines that get closer together as they
reach the vanishing point.
When you move the box a little lower, you can see how the lines
leading to the vanishing points change, and the shape of the
box changes too.
And if you raise the box a little higher, you can see again how
the lines leading to the vanishing points change, and the shape
of the box changes too.
When you feel ready, draw a box on the canvas at eye level on
the horizon line:
Draw your horizon line at your eye level.
Make a vertical line to represent the corner of the boxthe
Near Corner.
Make sure the vertical line goes across the horizon line, just
left of center.
Place a vanishing point on the horizon lineat the right edge
of your canvas.
Place a second vanishing point on the horizon linetwo inches from the left edge of your canvas.
Draw a guideline from the top of your Near Corner to the right vanishing point, and a line from the bottom of
your Near Corner to the right vanishing point.
Draw a line from the top of the Near Corner to the left vanishing point, and then from the bottom of the Near
Corner to the left vanishing point.
Draw in two lines (vertical) for the two rear corners.
Erase the guidelines. And now you see a box at eye level.
Look at this birds eye view of a
househere is the near corner.
Here is the side of a house with a
vanishing point at the right.
And here is a side with the
vanishing point at the left.
70 Lesson 19
Learn & Master Painting
The Near Corner is the corner of an object closest to the viewer.
KEY IDEA: When painting, pay attention to where you place your
box-shaped object in relation to the horizon line. The main ques-
tion to ask yourself is: do I look up at it, or do I look down at?
Box below eye level
It gets a little more complicated to create a box below eye level.
You will be looking down at the box. If it were a big-box store, it
would be in a valley. You would be on a hill looking down at it. If
it was a smaller box, like a gift box, it would be sitting on a table
and you would be standing up looking down at it.
The reason drawing a box below the eye level is a little more
complicated is because you now have to address the lines at the
top of the box. So, there will be two extra guidelines. Draw in the right
and left side vanishing points and along with the rear corners, which should be absolutely vertical. Then draw
the guidelines for the top of the box to the right and left vanishing points.
Two-Point Perspective with a House
Once you feel comfortable sketching diferent size boxes, its time to draw a simple house:
Make a horizon line and two vanishing points like you did with the box.
Your house is at eye level, which means your Near Corner will cross the horizon line.
Left-hand guidelines go to the left-hand vanishing pointfor the front of the house. Right-hand guidelines go
to the right-hand vanishing pointfor the side of the house.
Put in two far corners (the side of the house will be a little longer than the front of the house).
Erase your guidelines of the box, and move on to adding the house features.
Locate where the point of the roof peak needs to go above your boxusing the X method.
Join the top of the roof peak to the left front corner with a straight line, and do the same on the right side.
Draw the ridgeline of the roof, right along the peak (which will converge at the right vanishing point).
Draw in the line for the back end of the roof by measuring the correct distance.
PAINTING TECHNIQUES
To make the box below eye level,
the near corner will be below your
horizon line.
Be sure the lines for the back two
corners are absolutely vertical.
PAINTING TIP
Always make your van-
ishing points far apart,
not close together.
Two-Point Perspective 71
Erase your guidelines, and theres your house.
But dont forget to add windows and doors (the lines for the tops
of the windows and windowsills need to converge at the same
vanishing point as the eaves and the foundation linethe right
vanishing point).
You can use your house shape for many kinds of houses, barns,
and sheds.
Two-Point Perspective with a Table
Use the box shape to draw a picture of a table. Youll be standing in
front of this table and looking down at it.
Draw the horizon line frstthen add the vanishing points.
Add the next linethe Near Corner (below the horizon line).
Make guidelines to make sure your table legs will be the right
length all the way around (one from the bottom of the near corner
to the right-hand vanishing pointfor the legs on the right of the
table; one from the bottom of the near corner to the left vanishing
pointto draw the legs on the left of the table).
Make a guideline going from the top of your near corner to the
right hand vanishing pointthis is for the tabletop.
Put in your two far corners.
Add the back side of the table.
Put in the far leg (using two more guidelines).
Erase all your guidelines, and now you can see your table.
Youre Ready to Move On
With the basic information youve learned in this lesson, you will be
able to draw many of the things you may want to. And if you decide
to study perspective in more depth, you will have this foundation to
start from. Youre ready to move on when you
Understand two-point perspective as it relates to boxes, houses, tables, etc.
Can draw a box above the horizon line, at eye level, and below the horizon line.
Can draw a square-shaped object inside a room.
Can draw a house.
ASSIGNMENT: Tape plastic to your window and trace the house across the street using a permanent marker.
Then nd the horizon line and draw guidelines from the house to the horizon, thus nding the vanishing points.
Lesson 20: Introduction to Humans and Animals 72
By now you have the skill set to draw almost any object you see
around you. Lets add a few more skills to your abilities. This lesson
will help you to place people or animals within your landscape. Its
not a wildlife-art lesson, nor is it a portrait lesson. You wont get that
detailed with your people or animals. But there are times when you
will want to paint a landscape, for instance, of a stream in the moun-
tains, and you may decide you would like to add a deer on the other
side of the stream. Or perhaps you are painting a street scene and
you want to include some people.

How to add people and animals to your paintings
How to draw using gesture
Gesture in Humans
In the initial planning stages, you will need to understand how to make the people and animals in your painting
look like they belong in the paintingnot too big or too small, for instance. And you also want to make them look
like they are standing on the ground in your painting rather than oating through the air.
In order to paint a person that looks realistic you need to understand gesture. You are likely familiar with the
word as its used in body languagefolding your arms, for instance, is a gesture. In artwork, gesture also refers
to motionthe apparent motion of your subject, stripped of all other detail. So
Gesture is the directional line that denes the orientation of a gure.
Complete the following exercises to grasp the concept of gesture:

Draw a balloon foating straight up with its string hanging straight down. Youve just drawn the gesture of
someone standing up straight. The balloon is his head, and the string is the body.
Draw the balloon with the string slightly slanted. Now the balloon looks like its sort of foating away. If its a
person, that person may be walking.
Draw the balloon and make the string lie horizontally. Now the person is lying on the beach.
Draw a ft man standingstart with a straight balloon. Then mass in a wide place for his torso with wide shoul-
ders and a narrow waist. Next, mass in a wide place for his hips, two wide lines for his arms, and two wide lines
for his legs.
Draw an overweight man whos running. This time the balloon string is at a slant. Then mass in a round body,
two wide lines for arms, and two legs running.
Draw a ft glamour queen. Make a curved gesture line with a torso and narrow hips. Then do two wide lines for
her arms and two wide lines for her legs.
Think of the string as your persons spine, and also as his line of gravity. When you stand up straight, your spine is
Introduction to Humans and Animals
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
#2 lbert brush
Burnt Umber
Medium
Drawings from Lesson 18
20
Introduction to Humans and Animals 73
20
straight, and gravity is going right down from
the top of your head through your neck and
down your spineand from there its distrib-
uted evenly on your feet.
KEY IDEA: When you are planning to add
people to your painting, the frst thing to
consider is what gesture do you want your
people to have.
Now you know that you can make all kinds of
people with gesture sketches. When you feel
condent about your gesture sketches, go to
the next step: putting people into a painting.
Painting Humans
All of these gesture sketches have a purpose. The goal is to get small human gures into a painting of a seashore,
a road, or a city and so forth. You will need to be sure to paint the person the right sizenot too big or too small
compared to the other elements in your painting.
KEY IDEA: To get the people or animals to be the right size, you will need to refer to what you learned about
linear perspective.
Look again at your picture of the road with the
Italian trees that you did in Lesson 18. To add
people walking down that road, you need to
do the following in order to make the people
the right size on the road:
Find something in the picture that relates
to the size of a person: If your person were
lying down across the road, how far across
would he stretch?

If you determine the person measures half
the width of the road, then measure half the
distance of the road with your brush.
Then turn your brush vertically and hold
it up next to the nearest treeso that you
know how tall your person is standing next
to the tree.
Make a little mark on the tree at the height of the person (and this is how tall your person is in relation to the
closest tree).

But if you want to place your person further down the road, you know that your person will get smaller because
74 Lesson 20
Learn & Master Painting
the trees get smaller as they go further down the
road.

Use a guideline to measure how much smaller your
person will need to be (draw a guideline along the
line of the trees at the height of the person, all the
way to the vanishing point).

To keep your person from looking like theyre foat-
ing, use a horizontal guideline that runs from the
base of the tree directly across the road to where
you want your person to stand.

When youre fnished placing people on your road,
wipe of the guidelines.
Here is an example of how gesture sketching is used in
the painting Orchid Lounge.
You can tell there are people on this street, but you cant see their eyes or ngers. Its just the general idea of
people walking on the street.
Gesture in Animals
Gesture lines work for animals, too. But instead of the string of the
balloon to show the persons stance, youll use a gesture line that
is more or less horizontal to show an animals motion. Here are
some animal gesture sketches to practice:

Draw a leaping tiger using a sweeping curve lineto convey the
curve of a leaping tiger. Then mass in the tigers torso just like
you did with the humans. A tiger has a long torso with a swell-
ing ribcage. He has strong hips and legs. So mass in a wider part
where his hips join his body. Then mass in a heavy, blocky head,
and his long reaching forelegs (ready to catch a gazelle).
Draw a girafewhich has a gesture that is long and upright
for his neck, and it bends down over his backbone and down
his tail. This gesture line pretty much follows the spine. Block in
his body with a triangle shape. Add his little head with two ears
sticking out and four spindly legs.

Draw cows in a meadowusing a horizontal line for the back-
bone that drops down in the back for the tail. The gesture of
cows standing is much like a block. The head is blocky too, and
when shes looking at you, you can see the ears and horns stick-
ing out. And then add four stubby legs (also try doing a cow ly-
ing down, and then place a herd of cows in the meadow).
Now get out your stream picture from Lesson 18 and put a deer
by the stream drinking water.
Introduction to Humans and Animals 75
Youre Ready to Move On
Your paintings will be all the more interesting now that you can add humans and animals to them. Hopefully
youre beginning to feel comfortable massing in the general shape of them. Youll continue to practice with
people and animals in later lessons when photographic reference is discussed. Youll know youre ready to move
on when you

Understand the concept of gesture.
Can draw numerous gestures for humans and animals.
Feel comfortable adding humans and animals to your paintings.

ASSIGNMENT: Go to a caf and sketch the patron. Concentrate on capturing the gesture.
Lesson 21: Using Photographic Reference 76
Many artists use photographic reference at some point during the
painting process.
A projecting device called a camera obscura was invented during
the Renaissance and used by artists who wanted to achieve realistic
efects while painting difcult subjects. These devices are still in use,
but thats not how artists paint. Art begins with an idea. After the
artist develops the idea, then he looks up any reference. So lets learn
when and how to use photographic reference in our paintings.

When to use photographic reference in paintings
How to use photographic reference for certain
elements in paintings
When to Use Photographic Reference
Using photographic
reference is not the
same as copying a photograph. I use photographic reference af-
ter creating a composition of a collection of experiences that I
want to depict in a painting. I never copy a photograph directly
onto a canvas. Thats why we call it ART. Art is not nature; its not
objective reality. Art is always the synthesis of our human experi-
ence.
KEY IDEA: Photographic reference is good for objects that move
too fast to draw from life, for details like architectural carvings,
and for portraits when the subject doesnt have time to sit. In or-
der for the photo to serve your painting, you must get your idea
frst, and then fnd the reference to support it.
There are a number of technical reasons not to copy photo-
graphs. Depending on the lens the photographer used, there can
be inaccuracies and distortions in the lines and in the perspective.
And, the color can be wrong. Many beautiful views of
backlit subjects wind up looking washed out in a photo.
And, the camera does not see light the way we do. The
camera also does not see shadows the way we do. To a
camera, a shadow is simply a dark gray area. As artists,
we know shadows are made up of a number of colors.
The camera will also atten form and space. If you had a
little clay ball and you attened it, the ball would no lon-
ger look round and it would look quite a bit larger. That is
Using Photographic Reference
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
Canvas paper
French Ultramarine
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Red Light
White
Medium
#10 at and lbert brushes
#2 lbert brush

21
PAINTING TIP
Artists who use a lot of photographic refer-
ence should take the time to build an image
fle. Public libraries have image fles and
reference books for your image fle. Google
Images and stock photography websites are
also good places to gather images. Always
consider copyright law, though.
Oxford Science Archive, Oxford, Great Britian / HIP /
Art Resource, NY
77 Lesson 21
Learn & Master Painting
exactly what the camera does to form.
You as an artist need to understand these technicalities and override them in your painting. To adjust the atten-
ing of form, you will need to contour the form the same way you contoured the apples in the very rst painting.
Put in darks, midtones and lights, which the camera will lose.
You the artist want to create an illusion of depth in your canvas, and the skills youre learning in these lessons are
all about creating that illusion. You will need to use your knowledge of perspective and color to get that sense
of depth.
KEY IDEA: Always make sure the photo you use has light coming from the same direction as the light in the
rest of your painting.
Deer by the Stream Painting
This will be an alla prima painting, so you will start di-
rectly with color and youll do it on your canvas paper.
Alla prima paintings can be done in one layer. But they
can also be done in multiple layers.
When adding layers of paint, you are adding details,
subtly adjusting the colors, making any changes you
think the painting needs. You will paint the rst coat
in this lesson, and you can decide whether you want
to put another coat of paint on later. With alla prima
paintings, you dont have to add multiple coatsits
up to you.
Each time you add a layer of paint to an alla prima
painting, remember to add new paint to the entire
paintingnot just part of itor your painting will get
picky and lose its look of spontaneity.
This painting will use the complementary color combi-
nation of blue and orange.
After marking the place for the focal point, make a ho-
rizon line about two inches above the deer. Then, draw
a zig-zag line for one bank of the stream. Make sure its
a ZIG ZAG and not just a little wiggle.
Draw another zig-zag for the opposite bank. It shouldnt match the rst zig-zagthere should be variations in
the width. These two stream banks will meet at a vanishing point just above the deer.
Now sketch in the two curves that will become the two hills and ve somewhat vertical lines to be trees.
Take a moment to look at the composition. The focal point should be just of center, within the oval of the canvas.
The stream will point to the focal point, and the trees and the hills should frame the focal point.
Adding Color to the Background
First make a glaze of Cadmium Yellow Medium where the sun will
shine through the clouds and reect in the stream. The yellow
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
The deer will be the focal point in
the painting. The stream points to
the focal point, and the trees and
the hills frame the focal point.
PAINTING TIP
Dont forget to place the refections of
the sky, sun, and hills in the stream.
Using Photographic Reference 78
reection on the water near the focal point will strengthen the focal point. And the yellow in the sky will echo
the focal point, giving our viewer a secondary focal point to enjoy.
Mass in the two hills next. You know that the nearer hill should have less blue in it than the distant hill for atmo-
spheric perspective. So you will add a touch of orange to the gray mixture for the nearer hill.
Next, mix a tiny amount of orange with a large amount of white and a small amount of dull gray for the afternoon
winter sky. Brush that color all over the sky except where you have the yellow glaze.
Adding Color to the Middle Ground
Youve established the distance in your painting. Now its time to paint the middle distance. But rst, its a good
idea to sketch the gesture of your deer. Mass in a cylinder for the body and the narrow place for the neck. Then,
mass a little triangle for the head and add four spindly legs.
Note that the front legs are lower than the back legs. The deer should look like its standing with its front legs
in the stream. Remember this is just a gesture sketch, and youll be painting over part of it when you put in your
middle distance. Later on you should use a photograph of a deer for reference.
The two hills need shadows, so add those now. Next, paint the shadows of the trees, and then youre ready for
the snow. Use your knife to mix a large quantity of white with a speck of Cadmium Orange to get an extremely
pastel of-white color.
Now use the knife to smear that color all over the area of snow in the distance and middle distance. This will give
a nice, smooth texture that looks like snow. Dont worry about the trees; just paint into them.
Dont do the foreground of the snow yet. You should paint the foreground water before the foreground snow
because the water is under or behind the snow.
Adding Color to the Foreground
To paint the water in the foreground, use your #10 at. Use up-and-down
strokes with the brown paint as the water at the very bottom of the canvas.
This is because you will see the bottom of shallow water in the foreground.
Now add blue and white to your mixture as you work your way toward the
middle ground. In this area of the stream, the water is reecting the blue of
the sky overhead, away from the sun.
Now paint in the trees. They are in the foreground, so they need our darkest,
highest-chroma colors because of atmospheric perspective. Start out with
pure French Ultramarine for the tree trunks.
Now wipe of the brush and load it with pure Cadmium Orange. Working
wet-in-wet, delicately place strokes of orange where you think
the light would shine on the trees.
Our next step is nally to use the photograph of the deer. Take
special note here: You have nearly nished this alla prima paint-
ing and only NOW you are looking at the photograph. You
should use photographic reference, not copy a photograph.
PAINTING TIP
If your deer is not working, scrape it
of and re-establish the snow. Then, try
again, but dont keep painting over it.
79 Lesson 21
Learn & Master Painting
The deer in this photograph is not in the snow, nor is it drinking. But two important things are here: the gesture
is the same as the painting because this deer has its head down. And the light source of this photo is the same
as the light source in the paintingfrom behind.
This photograph will help us with important information, such as where a deers ears are in relation to its head
and neck, how the light falls on its body, and how it spreads its legs when it stretches down its head.
And now, at last, youll be doing what most people try to do at the beginning of a paintingcarefully painting
the deer the way it looks in the photo.
If you add more than one coat of paint, make sure the rst coat is dry. Also, make sure to repaint the entire paint-
ing in a second coat, not just part of it.
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to begin the next lesson when you can
Have a basic understanding of how photographs distort reality.
Know when and how to use photographs for reference.
Have completed the frst layer of the alla prima painting.
ASSIGNMENT: Begin compiling an image le.
Lesson 22: Planning an Original Painting 80
So how does an artist get ideas? Lots has been said and written about
the creative process. Its the way we humans take in our experiences,
think about them, and share them with others.
The best way to start the creative process as a visual artist is to pay
attention to what you see. The things you see in your world are con-
stantly giving you a kind of mental image le.
One way to get yourself to notice your world is to carry a small sketch
diary with you. When you have a sketchbook and are aware of your
world, you will start thinking of ideas for pictures. Jot down those
ideas as little thumbnail sketches in the book. And if you are some-
place where you have a little time, practice your drawing skills by
sketching your surroundings.
How to turn an original idea into thumbnail and col
or sketches
How to take an original idea through the creative
process
Creating Thumbnail Sketches
Were going to create our second large painting in this lesson and in the next two lessons. Today were starting
with gathering ideas and creating sketches of the composition and color.
We determined the idea for the painting by walking around outside. I choose the theme of the painting based
on the mood of the weather outside, the time of year, and how I felt about the weather outside. I then imagined
images that would convey that theme and mood based on what I saw while walking around.
KEY IDEA: Its important to carry around a sketchbook so that you can record by writing or sketching what you
see and feel when youre going through daily life.
So, based on what I saw and felt I choose to paint a cold, rainy day with
a house in the distance. I wanted a man to be walking toward the house
in a raincoat as if hed do anything to get to the warm room we see
through the lighted window.
The meaning of the picture without the person is: I think its dismal
outside and boy does that house look good.
The meaning of the picture with the person is: He thinks its dismal
outside and is desperately trying to get to the house for warmth and
comfort.
KEY IDEA: Your focal point and secondary focal point should be chosen carefully to convey the theme and
mood of the painting.
The method I use for deciding on the composition of a painting and where to place the focal points is to draw
Planning an Original Painting
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
All six brushes
Palette knife
Scrap paper and pencil
Canvas paper
All paint colors

22
81 Lesson 22
Learn & Master Painting
thumbnail sketches, normally in my sketchbook. I drew them for you on the blackboard, but I dont usually go
to that much trouble.
Creating Color Sketches
After choosing the thumbnail sketch you like for your
painting, its time to create color sketches. Remember
in Lesson 13 when we made color sketches to decide
which colors to use in our springtime landscape? Youll
use the same process again.
You should make at least two color sketches, but play
with your ideas about color. Create as many color
combinations as you think would make sense for the
theme and mood until you nd one youre completely
happy with.
Ive sketched in every element of the painting that I
know will stay the same and their colors: the house with
the window, the road to the house, the man, and the
streetlights. Now its time to show some grass. Im not
sure about the color of the grass, the sky, and the trees.
Thats why well do several of these little color sketches.
Lets make a color sketch with green grass and one with yellow grass. Lets also make one with a nighttime sky
and one with a cloudy sky. Then you can choose the one you like.
When you are happy with your color sketches, it will be time to plan the next step: the nished painting.
We know that we can draw the house from imagination, using our knowledge of perspective. The trees will not
be detailed, so we can probably get them from imagination too.
I can make the gesture of the man with the yellow slicker, but Im not good enough at human gures to be able
to paint him from my imagination. So its time to go to my image le and nd a picture of a human gure with
the approximate gesture.
Alternatively, I could get someone to go outside in a raincoat and take a snapshot. The most important thing is
that the person should have the same gesture as my sketch, and they also need to have the same light source
as I have shown in my sketch.
PAINTING TIP
Your little sketch diary is for making little
thumbnails of a composition while you
think. Its kind of like thinking aloud, but
in pictures. And that way you can see how
your ideas are forming.
Planning an Original Painting 82
And here is a picture of someone in a winter
coat. Its a brown coat and I would rather have
yellow, but I can x that. In the next lesson,
youll copy your favorite color sketch onto the
canvas board, and youll use this photograph to
draw your man.
Youve practiced color sketches before, but I
want you to understand how important they
are to the creative process. Every time you be-
gin a painting, its very important to plan the
composition and colors in small sketches be-
fore beginning the large work of art.
Youll feel much more condent in your painting
if you have a plan and know where the painting
will end. Then as youre painting, you can focus
on the details that will only make your painting
more enjoyable to look at.
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to begin the next lesson when you
Can go through the creative process on your own.
Can create thumbnail sketches for your ideas to show composition and color.
Have decided on a sketch to use in your last painting.
ASSIGNMENT #1: Sketch thumbnails on your own, and use linear perspective to sketch as much as possible. Find
photographic reference to support your theme. Remember not to get sidetracked by pretty photos you want
to copy.
Lessons 23 & 24: Painting an Original Work of Art 83
In the last lesson, you determined the composition of your paint-
ing based on what you wanted to say to the viewer and you chose
a color combination that best ts your composition.
Now its time to get started with the brown underpainting and
nally the color.
How to create a work of art from an original idea
The Brown Underpainting
Now that youve decided on the composition and which colors to
use, draw your initial sketch of the objects for the brown under-
painting. Then youll paint in the darks, midtones, and lights. Just
like when painting a still life, youll rst make a little mark where you
want the focal point.
Your focal point in this case will be a man in a yellow
slicker, and that means he will be lighter than the rest
of the picture. So use white paint to make the mark for
the man.
Now measure each object in the color sketch with your
brush to determine the proportion and transfer them to
the canvas. Again, its just like the still lifeall youre do-
ing is getting the basic shapes and sizes.
The most important marks in this composition are those
which form the triangle composition. The composition
is a triangle with the man at one end, the line of street-
lights along the top side, the house at the far end, and
the road following the bottom side of the triangle.
So, use the white paint to sketch in a triangle. That way, youll know you have the basic foundation for the paint-
ing the way you had it in the sketch.
Continue to use the white to make the little white dots of the street-
lights and the light in the house. These dots more than likely will not be
in exactly the right spot because you still need to do the perspective
drawing. These dots are just little places where you think you might put
the streetlights and the house light.
Next, use your knowledge of one-point perspective to draw the horizon line and the road leading to the house.
Then make guidelines for the location of the streetlamps.
Painting an Original Work of Art
YOU LL
LEARN
SUPPLIES YOULL
NEED:
All six brushes
Palette knife
18x24 toned canvas board
Medium
All paint colors
L E S S O N S
23 24
&
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Remember that as the poles get
closer to the vanishing point, they
also get closer together.
84 Lessons 23 & 24
Learn & Master Painting
Now that youve gured out where you want the
house, and move the mark if you need to, use your
knowledge of two-point perspective to draw the
house with the roof and door and window.
Now work a little more on the man. To be sure hes
the right size for the rest of this painting, determine
how much of the road he would cover if he were to
lie across it. He should be about half as tall as the
road is wide.
You should have his size marked, and sketched a
slumped-over leaning into the wind gesture. And
after that, mass in his general bulk. When you have
done everything you can from memory, its time to
get out the photographic reference.
Copy the basic shape of this guy onto your canvas, in brown and
white. All you need to do is block in the basic light areas and dark
areas but dont worry about details.
KEY IDEA: Only use photographic reference after you have
sketched or painted all you can of the shape from memory. Never
copy a photograph.
Adding Details to the Underpainting
Start with the distant details, work to the middle ground, and nish with the fore-
ground details. That means youll rst add the windows and door to the house.
Then in the middle ground youll add the streetlamps and the lights reection.
Refer to the photograph of the streetlamp if you need to.
Next comes the foreground. In the foreground are the man and the clump of
trees. Now refer closely to your reference photo to make the man as detailed as
you want to, but paint him brown. This is still the underpainting; youll glaze yel-
low over it after its dry.
When youve nished the man, add branches and details to the clump of trees
and to the asphalt. Use these photos of trees and a road. When I originally
planned my rough sketch of the road, I had forgotten that there can be some
interesting cracks and concrete edging to a road.
Go ahead and incorporate some of those details
into the road now.
PAINTING TIP
Every time you paint an object, paint the
darks frst, then the midtones, and then
the lights.
Painting an Original Work of Art 85
They are not terribly important to the composition, so you dont
want to make them look terribly interesting or youll take away
interest in the focal point. But these details can add credibility
and believability to the painting.
Finally, paint the clump of trees in the foreground and the curb,
and use this photo for reference if you choose.
When youre nished with your brown underpainting, go on to
the next step and add color.
Mixing Colors
Weve decided on the dark nighttime sky for this picture. Think about what you know of color theory. The lighted
window will be yellow, so will the raincoat. You want a gloomy painting otherwise: cool colors like blue and
purple.
So this painting will be mostly the yellow and purple complements. As with all your paintings, you will have the
other pigments on the palette just in case you need a touch of another color here and there. For the most part,
though, this painting will be variations and mixtures of yellows and purples.
This decision, youll remember, happened much earlier in the planning process. As you paint more and more,
your color combinations will occur to you very early.
Now its time to mix up some of the colors you may need while you paint. Make a batch of purple and a batch of
blue-purple. Next, it will help you to have some of the other colors mixed and ready to use.
You know there will be a large area of forest. That will
be medium value brownish purple. The sky will be me-
dium low value, low chroma purple. The third color is a
brownish yellow. This color will be for the grass and for
the dark folds of the mans slicker.
Remember, I dont mean for us to use only these pre-
mixed colors for everything in the painting.
PAINTING TIP
Organize your palette so that the purples and
brown purples are in one area and the yellows
and brown-yellows are in another area. Youll
have a better chance of keeping your colors
from getting mixed up and muddy.
86 Lessons 23 & 24
Learn & Master Painting
Adding Color to the Painting
First, mix some of the air color into the brownish purple, to make it a paler, grayer brownish purple for the forest
behind the house.
Then mass in the forest behind the house. Dont
worry about details, but you may want to use
one of your darker mixtures to indicate a few tree
trunks and branches. Remember to add air color
to the tree trunks.
Also in the background, paint in the sky.
For the middle distance, youll paint in the house
and the far grass. Remember, the grass has a side
farther awaythats the part next to the forest
and a side closer to us. This grass will need at-
mospheric perspective in order for it to look like
its fading into the rain, so add some of the sky
color into it.
The grass will also need a slightly darker area
near the house since our light source, dim as it is,
is at the right of the house.
Now do the middle distance of the road. It is wet asphalt, so it will reect the other colors of the painting. Put
reections of the house directly under the house.
KEY IDEA: Refections are always a mirror image of the object they are refecting.
Last, paint the foreground, including the human gure, the nearest streetlight, and the clump of trees at the right.
There are four things we can do to make this look nearer, not counting making everything larger.
Increase the contrast Add details
Use larger brush strokes Add red to warm each color
My goal is that you will begin creating paintings from your own imagination at the end of the course. I hope by
going through the process together you will know exactly how to start and complete a painting.
Youre Ready to Move On
Youre ready to begin the next lesson when you have
Measured all of the objects in the painting to the correct proportion.
Created a triangle composition using the appropriate objects in the painting.
Painted the darks, midtones, and lights of the underpainting and color.
Used photographic reference to add the details to the streetlights, road, trees, and man.
ASSIGNMENT: Create an original work of art from your own imagination, using thumbnail sketches, color sketch-
es, and photographic reference.
Lesson 25: Finishing and Varnishing Your Paintings 87
How do you know when youre nished with a painting? How do you know
when to stop? Thats what youll learn in this lesson.
Youll also learn how to retouch parts of your painting where youd like to
see adjustments made and how to put a nal coat of varnish on.
So, lets get started!
How to add use retouch varnish to make fnal adjustments
How to add a fnal coat of varnish
Critiquing the Final Painting
When you think youre nished with a painting, its best to stop working or youll start picking at it.
Its a good idea to stop before you are completely nished, turn the painting to the wall or go away for a few
hours, and see how it looks when you come back. Then youll be looking at it with fresh eyes. Looking at the pic-
ture in the mirror helps too. Its also very helpful to get feedback from someone who has not seen the picture yet.
If there are no adjustments to make, youre nished!
What if there are adjustments to make?
Usually, adjustments have to do with these three factors: composition, color, or drawing. When critiquing your
own work, check these three things:
First, check the composition. With your eyes squinted and the picture upside down and across the room, what
do you see? What you see from there should be the focal point. If it isnt, you need to gure out how to make the
focal point show up better, which is usually done by increasing the contrast of the focal point.
Second, check the colors. If the colors are generally wrong, you can sometimes adjust them by glazing or scum-
bling over the colors that need to be adjusted. Wait for the painting to dry and mix plenty of medium into a few
experimental colors. Be sure to test the colors before applying them to the painting.
Third, check the drawing. If the drawing is wrong, you will have to x it with opaque paint. You may need to paint
over a larger part of the picture than just that area where you can see the inaccurate drawing in order to make
the correction blend in.
KEY IDEA: When you think youre fnished with a painting, stop. Wait a few hours or days and then reevaluate it.
Retouch Varnish
Depending on your painting and what kinds of adjustments need to be made, you might nd that you want to use
retouch varnish. There are two diferent uses for this kind of varnish. One is for retouching or making adjustments.
Finishing and Varnishing Your Paintings
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
25
88 Lesson 25
Learn & Master Painting
Using a thin layer of Liquin medium as a retouch varnish works perfectly. But you already knew to use Liquin for
xing a mistake because youve been using it throughout the course.
If you paint with water-based oil paints, you can use your medium the same way.
If you paint with acrylic paint, Polymer Medium is ne as a retouch varnish.
Another use for retouch varnish is to make the painting look evenly shiny
before it is thoroughly dry. For oil painting, a thin layer of Liquin will work,
or use a thin coat of spray retouch varnish if you choose. For acrylic paints,
a thin layer of Gloss Polymer medium does the job.
Final Coat of Varnish
So, after all of the painting and retouching, you nally have a painting you like! Youll want to protect it with a
nal coat of varnish. But rst wait for the painting to dry thoroughlyand it can take six months or even a year
if your paint is thick.
After the painting is thoroughly dry, you will want to apply a coat of Kamar varnish. This is a synthetic varnish
which comes in a spray can and will work for oil, water-mixable oil, and acrylic paints.
The reason for this coat of nal varnish is so that, after your
painting nds its way into the Louvre, future art restorers will
be able to remove the entire coat of varnish. Thus they will
remove the accumulated grime of the years, disclosing your
original brilliant colors. A retouch varnish, on the other hand
and this includes Liquinbecomes part of the painting and the
restorer will not be able to remove it.
Youve Mastered the Concepts
Youve mastered the concepts in Lesson 25 when you can
Evaluate your paintings for any fnal corrections.
Use retouch varnish to make any adjustments.
Put a coat of fnal varnish on your dried paintings.
ASSIGNMENT: Find a painting youve completed in this course and using your medium, change an element of
the painting.
Add a coat of nal varnish to a painting after it is completely dry.
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
Remember, you can always x
a mistake or retouch an area of
your painting with medium.
PAINTING TIP
Be sure your painting is completely dry
before applying a fnal coat of varnish.
Lesson 26: The Art Community 89
Now you have completed several paintings and beautiful color
reference charts.
Congratulations! I think we can both say that you are an artist.
How to join a community of artists
Places to display your art
Joining the Art Community
Part of the fun of being an artist is you get to be part of the art community. The art community includes people
who are amateur artists, people who have been professional artists for years, people who deal in art supplies,
people who collect art, and people who support art through gallery ownership and public advocacy.
The best way to get involved in the art community is to volunteer. Everyone likes a volunteer!
You will usually nd information about art groups or upcoming art events on the bulletin board of your local art
supply store or library. The employees often know of art events or of a group of artists looking for new members.
One of your local schools or colleges might have information about art groups or upcoming events. Ask the
people who work there if they have heard of upcoming events.
Your city, county, or state government will also have a department for art advocacy. The people who work for an
art advocacy group are extremely supportive and willing to help.
Go online and search for art events in your region. You will be amazed at what you nd!
The next step is to contact the organization. Tell them you are
interested and want to know more. If the group you contacted
is interested in new members, they will send a reply that could
include meeting times, dues, requirements for the size/style/
quality of artwork, requirements for volunteer time, and any
other information.
Displaying Your Art
Most artists want to display their work. Remember, art is visual communication. Letting your art pile up in the
corner of the basement is kind of like talking to a brick wall. No communication is happening! Thats why youll
have such an urge to show others what you have done.
Here are examples of places where you can display your work:
Businesses. Many businesses encourage artists to show their work on their walls. Banks, hospitals, restaurants,
and cofee houses often work with artists to create exhibits. In this way, the business has original art on the walls,
and the artist has a place to display. It works out for everyone!
The Art Community
YOU LL
LEARN
L E S S O N
26
PAINTING TIP
Perhaps you live in a community that
doesnt have an art group. Heres your
opportunity to create one!
90 Lesson 26
Learn & Master Painting
Public libraries, churches, clubs, and community centers. These places often arrange for solo or group art ex-
hibitions in one of their meeting rooms.
Juried exhibits. You can nd lists of juried art exhibits in the back of most artists publications. You can also
search for juried art exhibitions on the Internet. When you nd one or more exhibits you would like to try, write
to the organizers and get a prospectus. These people are usually very particular about how you photograph your
art, how you frame your art, and how you ll out the form, so be sure to read the prospectus carefully.
Commercial gallery. Notice the word commercial. Of all the venues for your paintings, this one is the most dif-
cult. These galleries need good, professional, quality art. In order to survive, a commercial gallery needs art
which is not just good, it must also appeal to the gallerys particular clientele. So, they are looking for artists
whose work will selland the owners of the galleries are generally the best judge of whether they will be able
to sell your work.
If youre interested in a commercial gallery, you will need to do some homework. First, research galleries online.
Look for galleries not too far away for you to visit. You want to be able to go there and see what the gallery is like
in person. Decide if the art they sell is similar in style to yours, but not exactly like yours. Look at the prices and
determine if you would like to part with your art for about half the price youll see on the price tag. Commercial
galleries have very, very high expenses, and they will need a 50 percent commission.
Most places where you show your work will require a certain type of framing. While you are looking for places
that may appreciate your painting, take a look at the type of frames the other artists are using.
Framing is a signicant expense but totally worth it. A frame
can make or break a work of art. Its kind of like selling your
house: You may have a beautiful house, but if the grass is
overgrown, people wont even want to come inside.
For an oil painting, you will want to use a frame at least two
inches wide. The people who run frame shops are very help-
ful, and they will have some good ideas about how to show
of your work to its best advantage.
Closing Thoughts
Ive really enjoyed showing you how I paint. I hate to see it end!
But I guess it doesnt really have to end. Youll continue to learn about painting for the rest of your life and the
time and efort youve invested in your education will reap benets for years to come. I learn every time I paint
a new picture. Thats one of the wonderful things about paintingthere is always something more to explore.
You now have a solid foundation to paint any subject you choose. However, if you want to explore more in a
certain area or on a particular subject, I encourage you to work with a qualied teacher. To nd more information
on all types of painting, visit www.myamericanartist.com.
I hope youve found my instruction helpful. You should be able to adapt the things Ive shown you to your own
style as you develop your own way of painting. Have fun! I wish you all the best in your art.
Keep in touch on the Learn & Master Painting discussion board and let us know how youre doing.
Thank you for letting Learn & Master Painting be a part of your learning experience.

PAINTING TIP
When you are applying to a competition,
note what kind of frame the jurors require.
91
Gayle Levee is todays link in an unbroken chain of master-to-student art
training lasting for 160 years. It began with and is passed from Paul Dela-
roche to Jean-Leon Gerome to William Paxton to Ives Gammell to Robert
Douglas Hunter, Gayles master. Contemporary art historians consider Mr.
Hunter to be a golden link in this chain and a preeminent artist of the Bos-
ton School of Still Life Painting. Gayle now ofers this important lineage
and knowledge to her students.
She began her art training in Colorado as a child, learning from her grand-
father and mother, both of whom were artists. She then studied painting
at the University of Denver, supporting herself during her college years by
working for a paint manufacturer and selling her art to galleries.
In her early 20s she moved to Boston, where she joined the Copley Society of Art and studied under Robert
Douglas Hunter. There she lectured at the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society, Montserrat College, and at the Bos-
ton Museum School. Her art and training under Mr. Hunter is featured in American Artist Magazine.
Gayle currently resides in Nashville, teaching art classes and painting for galleries across the country. Since 1995,
Gayle has been teaching adults on subjects such as color theory, brushwork techniques, and Impressionism, to
name a few. She has also taught art to at-risk children through the Tennessee Art League.
Gayle is a member of Oil Painters of America, the Copley Society of Art, and the Tennessee Art League. Gayle
is represented by galleries from Tennessee, to Maine, to Massachusetts, and collectors from coast to coast have
bought her award-winning work.
Acknowledgments
This project came about through the eforts of a team of talented people with a vision. I was honored to work
with them and I thank them for choosing me. I also want to thank my students, friends and family for their sup-
port and encouragement along the way. Thanks to Sandy for letting me use her art, and to Frances for letting
me use her book. And I thank my parents for teaching me how to draw and paint.
And most especially, I thank You, dear Lord.
Author Biography
92
Learn & Master Painting
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Emily Garman
DIRECTOR
Paul Williams
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Johnny Gerhart
John Huber
CAMERA OPERATORS
John Huber
Johnny Gerhart
Adam Winfrey
PHOTOGRAPHER
John Huber
Johnny Gerhart
MAKEUP/SCRIPT SUPERVISOR
Jes Mercer
Editors
Paul Williams
Shelley Boyd
Paul Cain
Jes Mercer
Bert Elliott
Jon Young
AUDIO
Hugo Sanchez
SET DESIGN
Paul Williams
Emily Garman
Bert Elliott
GRAPHICS
Paul Williams
Bert Elliott
John Huber
DVD DESIGN
Paul Williams
Cameron Powell
Bert Elliott
BOOK EDITOR
Adria Haley
Emily Garman
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Studio430.com
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FILM LOCATION
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93
A
Alla prima An Italian phrase meaning on the rst; the process of painting directly on the priming of the canvas with
no underpainting
Analogous Colors Colors adjacent to each other on the hue circle
Atmospheric Perspective The efect of air on the color of an object to show distance
B
Balance The apparent weight of objects placed within the composition
Bristles Hair of a animal at the end of a brush, consisting of a narrow base, a wider body, and a tapering point
C
Cast Shadow The rough image cast by an object blocking rays of light
Chiaroscuro The process of blending lights, midtones, and darks to show the roundness of form
Chroma The saturation, or intensity, of a color
Complementary Colors Two hues opposite each other on the hue circle
Composition The arrangement of elements in a painting to create symmetry and balance
Converging Lines Lines that get closer together as they reach the vanishing point
Curved Stroke A type of brushstroke made with a rotating action
D
Diagonal Stroke A type of brushstroke made at an angle to the horizon
Double Complement Two sets of complimentary colors
Drawing Through A painting technique where one draws the entire object even though part of it is obscure by another
object
Dynamic Balance When the weight of painting elements is opposed by other compositional elements
E
Easel A stand used to hold a canvas
Edge The point where one shape ends and another shape begins
Ellipse A circle that has been smashed into an oval
Glossary
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Learn & Master Painting
F
Ferrule The attened area of metal on a brush where the bristles are glued inside the metal sleeve
Filbert Brush A type of brush where the bristles are arranged at a curve
Flat Brush A type of brush where the bristles are arranged at a square
Focal Point The area of the painting that is the center of interest
Form The three-dimensional quality or volume of an object, painted with light and shadows
G
Gesture The directional line that denes the orientation and/or motion of a gure
Glaze A thin layer of transparent paint
Gradation A gradual change of color, such as from light to dark
Grayscale The depiction of the full range of value from black to white and all the shades of gray in between
Guidelines Lines that guide a drawing so that it comes out correctly
H
Handle The part of the brush that is the area from the metal to the end, usually made of wood
Hard Edge A clean break from one shape to the next without blending the colors of the two shapes
Highlight The brightest, whitest reection light creates on an object
Horizon Line The line drawn perpendicular to the body across the vanishing point
Horizontal Stroke A type of brushstroke made with a side-to-side action, perpendicular to the body
Hue The attribute of colors that permits them to be classied as red, yellow, green, blue, or an intermediate color
Hue Circle The depiction of the relationship among colors
I
Impasto Paint Thick, heavy paint, often with pronounced texture
Impasto Painting The application of thick, heavy paint using the brush or palette knife
L
Limited Palette A limited number of paint colors used in a painting
Linear Perspective A structured system for creating the illusion of space and distance on a at surface, where objects
closer to the viewer appear larger than objects farther away; when all parallel lines that recede into
the distance appear to get closer together or converge
Lost Edge The edge of one shape that seamlessly blends into another shape
95
M
Massing The process of roughly laying down the basic shape of an object without drawing it
Medium A liquid or gel used to thin paint
Midtones The range of tones that lie between highlights and shadow
Monochromatic Colors All the tints and shades of a single color
Mood The feeling or emotion an artist creates in a painting through color choice, brushwork, composition, and subject
choice
N
Near Corner The corner of an object closest to the viewer
Negative Space The empty space surrounding an object
O
One-Point Perspective The lines of a subject, like a road, that converge to one vanishing point
Opaque Paint Paint one cannot see through
P
Painting Through The process of painting the farther object before painting the nearer object
Palette The hard, at surface an artist uses to mix paint
Palette Knife A thin, exible blade attached to a handle used to mix colors and/or apply paint
Pattern - A consistent form, style, method, or characteristic used when developing a composition
Photographic Reference The process of referring to a photograph when painting an object
Pigment The colored material ground and mixed to create a paint color
Primary Colors The three colors that cannot be created and must be used from a paint tube: red, yellow, and blue
Primary Triad The three primary colors spaced in equal distance on the hue circle to form a triangle
Proportional Measurement Using one object to determine the size of another object to paint the correct size ratio on
a canvas
R
Repetition Replicating the same mark, shape, or color over and over
Retouch Varnish An artists tool used for making adjustments to a painting, whether it is retouching or making the paint-
ing appear evenly shiny before it is thoroughly dry
Rhythm The process of repeating a mark, shape, or color with variations
Rule of Thirds Where one divides the canvas into thirds both horizontally and vertically, placing the focal point at a point
where the lines intersect
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Learn & Master Painting
S
Scumbling The process of painting a semi-transparent color over another color
Secondary Triad The three colors, orange, viridian, and purple, spaced in equal distance on the hue circle to form a triangle.
Sight Size The apparent visual size of an object, not the actual size from where the artist is standing
Sky Hole Sky used as negative space
Soft Edge A transition between two shapes that is slightly blurred
Split Compliment A color and the two colors adjacent to its complement
Static Balance Equal weight on both sides of the composition
T

Tabouret For painting, a small portable cabinet used for storing work supplies
Temperature An illusion of warmth or cold in a color
Toning a Canvas The process of adding a gray layer to a canvas before starting a painting
Triad Three colors spaced in equal distance on the hue circle to form a triangle
Two-Point Perspective The lines of a subject, like a box, that converge to two vanishing points
U
Underpainting A layer of paint intended to be seen through a subsequent layer of paint
V
Value The relative lightness or darkness of a color
Value Relativity The appearance of a colors value juxtaposed to another color
Vanishing Point The point where an object vanishes into the horizon
Varied Strokes Irregular brushstrokes without a specic pattern
Vertical Stroke A type of brushstroke made with an up-and-down action, parallel to the body
W
Wet into Wet A painting technique applying fresh, wet paint into an already wet area of paint