Art painting blog

Elisabeth Peyton and paint male youth

The painter Elizabeth Peyton was born in 1965 in Connecticut, United States. She is famous for her portraits with a youthful style with which he captures the human being in a unique and very personal way.

His portraits are created from photographs, from well-known actors, musicians or characters of all kinds, even royalty, until photos of his friends. As an artist, she is attracted by this kind of people, and she represents them with her powerful and sensitive style at the same time.

Elizabeth Peyton reflects with her pictorial style, a kind of human’s thirst for life, the energy of youth and the inner play of emotions and personality.

Tony
Tony on Daniel’s bed, © Elizabeth Peyton.

Tony on Daniel’s bed, 1999, oil on canvas, 152.5 x 101.5 cm, © Elizabeth Peyton.

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Chinese / India / Japanese Ink Painting

Chinese ink is an ancient technique that is used to draw in black and white, although there are many colors. This technique works a lot with the drawing and brushstroke effects. Japanese drawings and paintings of the Sumi-e style are very famous. The shapes are represented with simple strokes. In these works it is necessary to develop the practice and stroke management with brushes.

Materials for India ink
Materials for India ink
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Painting the serene face of a Buddha

Collection of images with the calm face of a Buddha in the process of enlightenment

I have always been fascinated by the sweet faces of the Buddhas, with their closed eyes and that immense peace that they express.

Buddha is a very fashionable pictorial subject throughout the world due to its relation to the increase of the meditation philosophies and personal development and inner peace. These are paintings with the human face close-up, a calm expression and a state of meditation. The man in serenity and inner peace.

When I discovered the great success of this type of painting, I thought it was a fashion. And all fashions are fleeting and capricious. But the pictures of Buddha or related to this process of meditation are paintings that continue to be very successful.

Primer plano del rostro de Buda sereno

If what you are looking for are ideas to paint a Buddha, here you have some paintings and photographs where his face is serene and in meditation. This is the most classic and popular style. This is due to the inner peace expressed by the image with a large face in the foreground with its eyes closed and focused inward.

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Video Tutorials for Painting Landscapes in Watercolor – by Terry Harrison

The best video tutorials about watercolor landscapes, trees, flowers, rocks, branches… The videos created by Terry Harrison.

This painter masters the techniques of watercolor in an amazing way, as can be seen in his books and videos.

Landscapes by Terry Harrison
Landscapes by Terry Harrison
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Masking liquid for watercolor painting

One of the most interesting and successful watercolor techniques is to use masking fluid or Drawing gum to protect lighter areas. It is a liquid used to paint some areas to reserve and protect the watercolor paper. It is made of latex with some shade to distinguish it well from paper and to be visible. It is sold in jars and dries quickly, forming a waterproof film to protect the covered area while the rest of the paper is painted.

It is very useful as it helps us with the profiling of small and complex shapes that should not be painted when we make a wash.

In the watercolor technique, you have to learn how to reserve the whites colors in advance and then apply the paint around it. For example, a seagull in the sky is a small shape and needs to be protected first before painting that sky. Thus we reserve white and the sky will not have variations in tone, but will be a single brushstroke.

Masking liquid for watercolors
Masking Liquid for watercolor
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Current themes as artistic inspiration

Throughout history, painters have received their inspiration from the events that occurred in their specific historical moment, from their surroundings, technological developments, new cultures, new ways of life and all kinds of transformations that human civilization undergoes.

If you are looking for inspirational themes for your next painting, you have to think deeply about the wide variety of subjects currently offered.

Mike Savad, the good life
Mike Savad, the good life
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How to find out who painted a picture thanks to Google images

Do you want to know who has painted a picture and what’s the name? Do you have an image and would like to find out more about that painting or photo?

Thanks to Google’s image search engine, you can search from an image who is the author, what the work is called and other technical data.

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How to make Varnishes

The varnishes are used to protect the paintings and also to apply to them a matt, semi-matt bright effect. Some varnishes are just the tree’s resins that are dissolved with turpentine (or better essence of turpentine) and with smoth heat (into a water bath), or just leaving the resin some time to dissolve inside the turpentine.

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Understanding the rule of thirds in paintings

The Rule of Thirds consists in dividing the image with two horizontal guides and two vertical guides that generate a division into 9 equal parts. This is a technique of composition that we can use to fit our drawings and forms, order our composition and also it’s useful to improve our photos.

Painting by Paul Chabas

Painting by Paul Chabas, “Morning on septembre”, painted on 1912. Oil on canvas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. See in Wikipedia.
The female figure, the protagonist in this painting, is located on the right vertical line.

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