Tag: Monday Morning Art School

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Monday Morning Art School: best art supplies for beginners

Toy Monkey and Candy, oil on archival canvasboard, for more information, click on image.

I’m getting supply lists ready for my October workshop students. My watercolor students will be shocked that I’m actually going to suggest cheaper paper for color exercises. I generally say the opposite. Good materials matter more when you’re learning to paint than when you already know what you’re doing.

Nobody needs super-expensive brushes, paints, canvases or easels. But they need to be good enough to actually work. What are the best art supplies for beginners, and how can you tell where you should spend your money?

Hiking, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on the image.

Learning to paint is hard enough without fighting your tools and supplies

If paint is weakly pigmented, you will never get the intensity you’re striving for. If it’s a ‘hue’ (a copy of a pricey pigment) you can’t mix to where you need to go. If a canvas is too cheap, it will suck up paint or feel unpleasant under your brush. Bad watercolor paper makes washes, lifting and dry scumbling dang near impossible. If brushes are badly made, you will never achieve the marks you’re seeking.

When these things happen, new painters often blame themselves. But they may not be the whole problem.

Where I do and don’t spend money in painting

Buy the best paint you can reasonably afford. 20th century pigments are cheaper and tend to be less toxic and more light-stable. You absolutely don’t need every color in the catalog. A carefully chosen paired primary palette of good paint is far more useful than a giant collection of mediocre colors.

Beginning painters buy too many different colors of poor-quality paint rather than a targeted few high-quality pigments; the net cost is the same, but the results are worse.

Many expensive pigments are, in fact, limited in application. The cadmiums are heavy and can be muddy. Others, like cerulean blue, can be mimicked quite successfully with less expensive pigments.

I don’t ever cut corners on brushes, but I don’t need a lot of them, either. I paint with a mixture of Princeton, which is reasonably priced, and Isabey and Rosemary brushes. You need fewer brushes than you think—a handful of shapes in different sizes.

And, for heaven’s sake, keep your brushes clean! Letting them harden up is a total waste of money.

Generally, I find that I’ve finished a painting using only two or three brushes. But good brushes teach you about pressure, paint handling, edges and brushwork.

Toy Reindeer with double rainbow, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, for more information, click on image.

Painting surfaces.

A properly prepared surface makes an enormous difference. This is particularly important for students because you’re trying to learn how paint behaves. Oil painters can add a coat of gesso to cheap boards, or make boards themselves. Sadly, watercolor students really need to buy good paper from the outset.

Quality, not quantity

Artists have been making excellent paintings with battered equipment for centuries. Some of the tools I’m using were my father’s. Once you know what kind of easel you want, look at Facebook marketplace; I bought my good Gloucester-style easel there. But beware of bad field easels available on Amazon; they’re a complete waste of money.

You can absolutely save money by making some things yourself. I sometimes make my own panels and many artists I know have fashioned their own wet-canvas carriers and brush rolls.

Prom Shoes 1, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, for more information, click on image.

Cheap materials are often expensive materials in disguise.

If a brush splays after your first painting, it was a rotten waste of money. Cheap watercolor paper may stop you from ever mastering washes.

I’m using up some burnt sienna oil paint I was given. It shocks me how much paint I need to equal the intensity of my regular brand (RGH). In watercolor, cheap paints will probably never give the intensity you seek at all.

Figuring out the best art supplies for beginners means figuring out where it’s safe to cut corners, and where it will hurt. This is where a good teacher is invaluable. As a student, you’re investing in something more important than materials: your ability to learn. Give yourself materials that support you, rather than hinder you.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: moving from ‘I feel’ to ‘I think’

Painting from my trusty pickup truck on Bay View Street (courtesy Camden Public Library).

When I teach critique, I start by asking the artist, “what was your goal in making this painting?” I finish by asking the group, “What did you notice first?” and “How does this painting make you feel?” In between are questions based on the elements of design: focal point, line, value, color, balance, shape and form, rhythm and movement and texture.

Let’s start with the messiest question.

Curtis Island, 24X30, oil on canvas, painted for Camden on Canvas. Available.

How does this painting make you feel?

Before you know the technical mechanics of a painting, you know how it makes you feel. You may feel calm, unsettled, energized, curious, melancholy or delighted. If you feel nothing, then there’s no communication. That may on the artist, or it may be that you’re simply not interested in the message. For example, I am utterly unmoved by Frida Kahlo, although millions of people love her.

That first response is valuable, but don’t stop there. For painters, the informative part of art analysis is moving from ‘I feel’ to ‘I think.’

Painting at Curtis Island overlook (courtesy Camden Public Library).

Start with your gut

Your sympathetic nervous system, not your brain, is your first responder.

What happens in your body when you first see a work of art? Do you lean in or pull back? Want to engage, or are you repelled? Does your eye settle somewhere immediately? If so, where?

Don’t worry yet about explaining it. Just let the feelings wash over you.

Now ask why

Perhaps the key to why you feel peace in a painting is its broad, open composition, warm color, soft edges and low-key value structure. Or you might feel energized because the composition is dominated by sharp radiating lines, with clearly divided values.

Your feeling is the door. Art analysis walks you through it.

Artwalk (morning on Bay View Street), 24X36, oil on gessoboard, painted for Camden on Canvas, private collection.

But let your eyes lead

Don’t rush to explain what you’re seeing. In a class setting we are pushing to get through the process in the confines of a class schedule. That has one failing, which is that sometimes we need more time to simply look. For the painter, time is the most important tool in our kit.

We need to put down the brush and step back. We need time to wander through our own work.

  • Where do our eyes go first?
  • Where do they go next?
  • What do they keep returning to?
  • Where do they stop?

Your eyes are doing analytical work even when you aren’t consciously thinking about it. A painting’s composition, value structure, color relationships, edges, shapes and directional lines all influence how we move through an image. So let your eyes see before your verbal brain starts constructing an argument.

This is particularly important for painters. We often see something before we have the vocabulary to explain it. Trust that first response, and then investigate it.

From feeling to evidence

The goal of art analysis isn’t to prove that your first reaction was correct. It’s to discover what in the painting produced it. I know this is difficult, but in time it will become second nature. Hearing that voice inside your head will lead to better, stronger paintings.

Your response is part of the evidence

Your response matters, but it becomes more useful when you can explain it.

Start with ‘I feel,’ and let your eyes wander. Then ask ‘why’ and move from there to ‘I think.” That movement—from instinct, through observation, toward understanding—is one of the great pleasures of making and looking at art.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: why loose brushwork in painting?

Ravenous Wolves, oil on canvas, 24X30. For more information, click on the image.

There have always been painters who embraced rough, broken marks. However, at the end of the 18th century, painters like Francisco Goya and J.M.W. Turner began a permanent break from the polish of strict academic painting. Where did loose brushwork in painting come from, and is it still relevant today?

A quick note before we get into it

Claim your spot in Painting Water, Monday evenings or Painting Nocturnes, Tuesday evenings. Both are 6-9 PM, starting the week of August 17, 2026, which is today.

This is my last Zoom session until I get back from Sedona Plein Air at the end of October. That’s because I’m teaching and eventing non-stop until then.

I upload videos of these online classes and you have access to them for as long as there’s YouTube. That means you can review them if you need a refresher or have to cut out early.

Brooding Skies, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.

The Industrial Revolution

The 18th and early 19th century saw the development of steam power, textile mills, canals and railroads, making muscle much less important. At the end of the 19th century, electricity, petroleum, steel, chemicals, telecommunications and the internal-combustion engine were introduced. That gave us assembly lines, automobiles, electrical grids, telephones, skyscrapers and mass consumer goods.

The second half of the 20th century brought computers, electronics, telecommunications, robotics, satellites and the internet. Now we’re grappling with artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, sensors, robotics, biotechnology, autonomous vehicles and, of course, the Internet of Things. Rapid change makes us edgy, but it’s important to remember that those prior phases had the same effect on the people who lived through them.

Art responded to each phase of the Industrial Revolution in unique ways. But with each of them we saw more of the artist and less of the subject in artwork. Visible brushstrokes said, “this was made by a human,” in a world which felt increasingly standardized.

In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), 24X30, $3,478 framed, oil on canvas, includes shipping in continental United States.

Impressionism and plein air painting

Plein air painting was an important part of Impressionism . Because conditions outdoors shift so fast, plein air painting rewards economy. Plein air painters learn to ‘set it and foret it.’ That produces fresh, economical marks.

Plein air painting is the biggest and most influential painting movement of my lifetime. Its mark-making isn’t going out of style any time soon.

Modernism

Modernist painters increasingly treated the painting as an object in itself, rather than a reflection of reality. Painters like Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh used brushwork to create both emotional tone and structure.

Modernism emphasized subjective vision over realistic representation. The disillusionment and anxiety of the 20th century, with its endless wars, meant that this vision was often fragmented, dark and distorted. In Abstract Expressionism, loose brushwork often was the subject.

Photography

Once photographs could record appearances with accuracy, painting lost its practical purpose, which had been to record people, places, ideas and events. Painters were forced to ask, what can I do that a camera can’t?

Loose brushwork was one answer. This helped shift painting from representation into interpretation.

Certificate of authenticity

Your brushwork is as individual as your handwriting. It’s one thing technology can’t (yet) duplicate. And it’s why we value loose brushwork in painting more than ever; the physical act of painting is imbedded in the work.

Brushstrokes record movement, speed, pressure, hesitation and decision, just as handwriting does. It has become a dominant part of modern style; we recognize the person in the mark.

Brushwork signals confidence

Bravura brushwork suggests decisiveness, mastery, speed, physical engagement, risk and freedom. These are things our culture values, so we find loose brushwork in painting far more exciting than carefully-blended marks (although there is room for both in a good painting).

Athabasca River Confluence, 9X12, click on image for more information.

Looseness isn’t the same thing as good painting

Bravura brushwork only works if the painter knows what each stroke is meant to accomplish. Otherwise, it’s mere sloppiness.

Loose brushwork has to sit on a base of careful drawing, good composition and well-considered color. Great painters with flamboyant brushwork have a wealth of technique supporting their apparent spontaneity. They know proportion, value, edges, color relationships, anatomy, perspective and composition well enough that they can hit the right mark on the first strike (which is what alla prima means).

The big question

If looseness is now the language of serious painting, is there still anything rebellious or exploratory in being loose? Does looseness still matter in the 21st century? For me, the answer is yes but I leave you to make that choice yourself.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: how cameras undermine painters

Thomaston, ME, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard. Click on image for more information.

Stand anywhere outdoors and you’re flooded with information. Each leaf catches light differently. Every building has windows, trim, shadows, reflections and textures. Each cloud changes by the minute. You try to capture all this, and you quickly get lost.

You’d think this would be easier when working from photos, but it’s actually worse. That’s because a camera and the human visual system don’t see the world the same way.

A quick note on weekly classes before we get into it

Claim your spot in Painting Nocturnes, Tuesday evenings or Painting Water, Monday evenings. Both are 6-9 PM, starting the week of August 17, 2026.

I upload videos of these online classes and you have access to them for as long as there’s YouTube. That means you can review them if you need a refresher or have to cut out early.

Beach Roses, 10X10 on sealed Baltic birch, for more information, click on image.

How the camera undermines painters

  • In real life (IRL), your eyes are making tiny jumps (saccades) several times a second. Your brain is suppressing unimportant information automatically. A photograph can’t do that. It records everything with equal indifference.
  • Humans have foveal vision. That means we only focus on what’s in the center of our sight. In contrast, photos make everything equally available. IRL, we naturally spend more time looking at the central points than at the edges of the scene. Our perception and memory is organized around those important shapes. In a photo, every square inch is equally accessible, and we tend to paint every square inch with equal attention.
Along Beech Hill Road, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.
  • Cameras don’t have true depth perception. Our binocular and peripheral vision, along with our head movements, give us a true sense of distance. We instinctively group objects into foreground, middle ground, and far away. Photographs compress the three-dimensional experience into a two-dimensional rectangle, taking away our ability to edit spatial relationships in our paintings.
  • Nature moves constantly—leaves shimmer, clouds drift and water laps in tiny waves. Our brains average these changes into impressions. A photo of the surface of gentle water will show a series of long elliptical shapes. But nobody perceives water like that; we see tiny lapping wavelets. Look at a closeup of a leaf; the background is blurry. That’s not how we see it IRL, where our eyes jump focus many times a second.
  • I take pictures of interesting things only to get home and realize that my phone has edited the charm right out of the scene. The camera is as interested in the scrub in the foreground as it is in the sky in the background.
  • Photos are bossy. We trot right along behind them, copying assiduously. Working from life encourages interpretation because the scene is changing too quickly to copy literally. We have to make choices.
American Eagle in Drydock, 12X16, for more information click on image.

That doesn’t mean you can’t paint from photos.

I paint from photos frequently. However, there are ground rules:

  • I sketch the scene IRL so the big decisions are already made, including composition and focal points;
  • I have lots of experience painting en plein air and from life, which helps me understand the camera’s lies;
  • I start from my sketch, and finish by working from memory. Photos only come out when I need to check matters of light, composition, and detail.

Professionals don’t see more detail than beginners; they see more structure. That’s a learned skill. It improves through learning and repetition. One plein air painting will teach you something, but five consecutive days painting plein air will teach you a lot.

You’ll begin recognizing recurring patterns. You’ll notice that every successful landscape starts with clear value organization before color enters the conversation. You’ll discover that simplifying actually creates stronger, more believable paintings—not emptier ones. Most importantly, you’ll learn to trust your first impression instead of second-guessing every brushstroke.

That’s why I teach five-day workshops, and why I hope you’ll join me for one.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: nocturnes and water

Christmas Eve 2, oil on canvasboard, private collection.

I’d like to pretend that I am very systematic about my painting classes, but the truth is that I sometimes go haring off after rabbits. This one was set off by a student who loves nocturnes. I’m focusing on them myself right now, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

Since my classes end up oversubscribed on the first go-round, it makes sense to repeat Painting Water so those people who were shut out last time get a chance.

The bald facts:

Amazing Grace, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard, private collection

Painting Nocturnes
Tuesday evenings, 6-9 PM
August 18, 25, September 1

In this focused, three-week session, we’re going to demystify the night scene. If you’ve ever found yourself mesmerized by the night sky, this class is for you. Learn more.

“Surf at Marshall Point,” oil on canvasboard, private collection.

Zoom Class: Painting Water

Monday evenings, 6-9 PM
August 17, 24, 31

Light, surface, and movement are the three important elements in painting water. Class size is limited, claim your spot now! Learn more.

I upload videos of these online classes and you have access to them forever (or for as long as there’s YouTube.) That means you can review them if you feel you need a refresher or have to cut out early for some reason.

Why these subjects matter

Water and nocturnes are both subjects that are just a little mysterious. They’re also two of the most rewarding subjects to learn to paint because they teach lessons that carry over into every landscape you create.

Heavy Weather (Ketch Angelique), 24X36, oil on canvas, for more details, click on image.

Water

Water is often the most mesmerizing part of a landscape, which is why I paint it so much. It catches the light, reflects the sky, and adds movement and atmosphere to what might be an otherwise static scene. Yet many painters struggle because they try to paint every ripple. Instead, there’s an underlying structure, based on the physics of light. Once you figure it out, you’ll struggle no more.

In this class, you’ll learn how light, surface, and movement work together to create believable water. That’s true whether you’re painting a quiet pond, a bustling harbor or surf breaking on a rocky Maine shore. Once you understand the principles, you’ll never look at water the same way again.

Nocturnes

There’s something magical about painting after dark. I’m better at it before dawn than after dusk, although most people see it otherwise. Either way, the world is quieter, colors are subtler and every light source suddenly matters.

In this focused three-week session, we’ll demystify the nocturne. You’ll learn how to organize values and use color to suggest darkness rather than relying on blackness. You’ll create paintings filled with atmosphere and mood. If you’ve ever been captivated by moonlight, glowing windows or the last light lingering in the western sky, this class will give you the tools to paint them with confidence.

Both classes are taught live on Zoom and include explanations, discussion, critique and plenty of time for questions. They’re designed for painters who want practical, repeatable techniques they can apply immediately to their own work. As always, class sizes are intentionally small so everyone has an opportunity to participate.

I hope you’ll join me for one—or both—of these classes. They’re two of my favorite subjects to teach, and I think you’ll come away seeing the world with fresh eyes.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: oil or acrylic gesso?

If we’re gonna talk about sinking, let’s start with The Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24. It’s the only shipwreck I’ve ever painted. For more information, click on image.

“Could you talk about the differences between acrylic and oil gessoes, primers and grounds and whether/how they might contribute to issues such as sinking in?” Beth Barger asked in response to Choosing the right surface for oil painting. She was referring specifically to oil painting.

The preparation of the surface affects both its archival durability and how it handles paint. However, the substrate itself is also a critical player, because of its texture, stability and durability.

Oil paint doesn’t dry; it oxidizes. That means the oil in the paint absorbs oxygen from the air. These oxygen molecules create a chemical bridge between the oil molecules, locking them together into a hard, firm bond. If something happens to deplete the oil between the pigment particles, you get color sinking.

The layers of your painting surface

Sizing is the first layer applied to a substrate when using oil gesso. In my youth, it was rabbit-skin glue. It stunk but did a good job separating the ground from the linen or cotton substrate and tightening the raw fabric to its frame. Today, it’s been replaced by acrylic sizing. I can’t get the tautness from acrylic sizing that was possible from animal glue, so I use acrylic gesso instead.

Primer seals metal or wooden surfaces and provides a stable foundation for subsequent layers. It’s slick, so gesso is often applied above it for tooth. When I paint on Baltic birch, I use three layers of Golden GAC 100 followed by Winsor & Newton clear gesso.

A ground is the actual painting surface—the layer your brush encounters. It determines the tooth, absorbency and texture of the support. The word gesso is often used interchangeably with ground, but that’s not always true.

Oil gesso is made with chalk or marble dust bound in siccative (drying) oil. It cures slowly but produces a non-absorbent surface that allows oil paint to remain open longer. Brushstrokes glide across it beautifully, and thin layers of color stay rich because less oil is pulled from the paint.

Oil gesso must be kept separate from the backing. Siccative oils create free fatty acids when curing. These create the beautiful, tough bond of oil paint, but they also rot fabric, paper or wood if allowed to touch them.

Acrylic gesso is acrylic polymer containing titanium white and mineral fillers. It dries quickly, is flexible, and works well on canvas, panels and paper. It doesn’t require sizing, it’s easy to use and remarkably durable.

While you can paint with oils directly over an acrylic ground, never paint in acrylics over an oil ground. The paint will delaminate.

Solvent evaporates, which leaves microscopic gaps between the pigment particles where oil should be. Whether those gaps happen because the fat-over-lean rule was broken or because the ground absorbed too much oil, the result is the same—a flat, dusty surface with dull color.

Sinking

Sinking happens when the ground absorbs some of the oil binder from fresh paint. The pigment remains, but without enough oil surrounding it, dark passages become dull and matte. It isn’t that the color has changed; the leaking away of the oil has left a microscopically-pitted surface that scatters light differently than oil in a tough bond.

That also happens (more commonly, in fact) when you’ve ignored the fat-over-lean rule and used too much solvent in the upper layers.

Acrylic grounds are absorbent and thus prone to sinking. Inexpensive pre-primed canvases with thin factory coatings suffer from this, and sometimes don’t have enough gesso to stop oil from leaching through to the backing.

That doesn’t mean acrylic gesso is bad. I use it. Be sure there’s enough gesso for a solid barrier with the background. Toning the canvas or adding a very thin coat of oil ground after the acrylic has fully cured can dramatically change how paint handles.

If running a rag with solvent over your (dry) painting causes the color to come back, your painting has sunk. You can bring it back with varnish; however, it’s best to avoid the problem in the first place.

To some degree, the ideal ground depends on your working method. When I did illustration, the highly-absorbent surface of Ampersand Clayboard was great for fast, detailed work. Today, I paint on toned boards or canvases, sketch in color masses with thinned paint and then build impasto. I like the slightly-absorbent grip of acrylic gesso. If you prefer the smooth slide of wet-on-wet paint, you might prefer oil primer.

As with almost everything in oil painting, there isn’t one perfect choice for a ground. There is only the surface that best supports your process.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: the right support for your painting

https://www.watch-me-paint.com/product/brooding-skies/Brooding Skies, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard. Click on image for more information.

“What kind of paper/canvas should I buy” is among the first questions I’m asked by new workshop students. While I can’t recommend museum-grade panels to beginners, it’s disheartening to watch students struggle with cheap painting supports.

The painting support you choose affects how your paint behaves, how your marks read and whether your work lasts.

A quick note before we get into it

It’s time to claim your spot in Advanced Plein Air Painting, July 13-17 in Rockport, ME. If you have any questions about whether you fit into an advanced class, just ask!

Let’s discuss medium first

Watercolor depends on controlled absorbency. The paint sits in the surface, not on top of it. That’s why the quality of watercolor paper matters so much. 100% cotton papers hold water evenly, allow controlled washes, allow for scrubbing out changes and resist breakdown over time. Cheaper wood-pulp papers buckle, blotch, and lose clarity.

The best support for gouache is heavy-weight paper (at least 140 lb.) that can handle water without warping. Because texture isn’t as important as for watercolor, hot-pressed paper—also known as Bristol—is ideal. Other options include illustration board, watercolor journals, and heavy mixed-media paper. Gouache can be painted on gessoed board, but it’s not necessary.

Lake of the Woods, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard. Click on image for more information.

Acrylics will stick to almost anything, but a properly gessoed surface controls absorbency and prevents paint from sinking in unevenly. Cheap surfaces can feel draggy or dead.

Oils absolutely require a sealed, primed ground. Oil paint binders are acidic, which reacts with and destroys the support over time. If painting on paper or a wood board, prime with either clear or regular gesso.

Maynard Dixon Clouds, 11X14, oil on archival canvas board. Click on image for more information.

Rigid versus paper supports

Paper is immediate and responsive. It’s ideal for watercolor and gouache, and perfectly good for acrylic studies. But quality varies wildly. Good paper has proper sizing (which controls absorbency) and consistent texture; poor paper acts like a blotter or warps under even modest moisture. Paper must be properly prepared for oil and acrylic painting.

There are many good paper watercolor boards on the market. They’re more convenient and less prone to buckling than watercolor paper, but they cost more.

For oils or acrylics, I use archival canvas-boards for all smaller paintings. They’re easier to frame and carry, and I don’t have to worry about light coming through the back of the canvas. However, larger boards can be prone to warping.

When I travel, I sometimes bring loose canvas and tape it to a board. That gives me less bulk when flying, but floppy wet sheets of canvas can also be difficult to transport.

Stretched canvas and linen are the traditional choices for oils and acrylics, and I use them for all larger work. It can sometimes be hard to determine the quality of packaged canvas, so research before you buy. Cheap canvas can sag or distort, and insufficient gesso allows paint to bleed through to the backing.

In practice student-grade panels and canvases are fine for students but can have inconsistent tooth and weaker priming.

No Northern Lights Tonight, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard. Click on image for more information.

Size matters

I tell students to prepare to paint two 9X12 paintings a day during a workshop. In practice, some will paint more, some less. Some students produce small jewels on 4”X5” canvases; others love working big. This is personal preference.

When preparing for an event, I usually bring canvases and frames in all sizes. I never know how a scene will inspire me.

What separates good from mediocre?

  • Absorbency control–good surfaces absorb just enough paint or water without sinking color or bleeding through.
  • Surface consistency—cheap painting supports have inconsistent surfaces. Good ones behave predictably.
  • Longevity—archival materials including cotton paper, proper sizing and rigid supports, keep your work intact over time.

The right painting support isn’t magic, but it will improve your painting.

Want to learn more?

I have three upcoming Zoom classes. In From Field Sketch to Final Studio Work (six weeks on Tuesday evenings) we talk about how your initial decisions carry through to a fully-realized studio painting. In Painting Clouds (a three-week Monday session), you’ll learn practical ways to paint these all-important natural phenomena.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: glazing vs. scumbling

A very old painting by me, using indirect painting technique.

Being the World’s Oldest Living Person, I learned to paint from my old friend Rembrandt van Rijn. That meant I learned to paint indirectly, through glazes. When I went to the Art Students League, I jumped forward a few centuries and learned to paint directly, or alla prima.

A quick note before we get into it

It’s time to claim your spot in Advanced Plein Air Painting, July 13-17 in Rockport, ME. If you have any questions about whether you fit into an advanced class, just ask!

Alla Prima

Alla prima painting is done in a continuous pass, or as close as you can get within the limitations of size and time. You mix colors and put them down in their final form. It’s characterized by immediacy and loose brushwork.

Indirect painting is built in stages, layer over layer, with drying time in between. Each layer modifies but doesn’t obscure the one beneath it. Indirect painting trades immediacy for control.

Most painters end up using a hybrid approach, especially when working large. Scumbling and glazing are opposite in method and effect, but can appear in the same painting (see Rembrandt’s self-portraits, for example). However, it’s hard to glaze over impasto, as the glaze sits in the valleys of existing paint.

Glazing is very useful in making revisions on a dry painting, provided there is little texture.

What is glazing?

Glazing is transparent. You take a thin, translucent layer of paint and lay it over a dry underpainting. In oils and acrylics, that paint is thinned with medium, not solvent. In watercolor, it’s thinned with water. In gouache, it doesn’t work.

If the layer underneath isn’t completely set, you’re not glazing, you’re just mixing. You’ll end up with mud. A proper glaze allows light to pass through the new layer, bounce off the layers below, and return to the viewer’s eye. That’s what creates depth and luminosity.

White, yellow ochre and other opaque pigments have no place in glazing. Only transparent and semi-transparent pigments work. How do you know which is which? Good paint manufacturers put it right on the tube.

Glazing can build rich shadows, unify color passages, and create atmospheric distance. A cool glaze over a warm passage can push it back in space. Done well, glazing doesn’t sit on the surface; it seems to glow.

Glazing is slow. It requires more patience, planning, and restraint than I’m currently capable of. I can’t brute-force my way through an entire indirect painting, but I do use glazing to make editorial changes.

You can’t scumble if the paint is too wet.

What is scumbling?

Scumbling, on the other hand, starts with heftier paint. In watercolor, that means less water; in oils and acrylics it means opacity. (All pigments can be made opaque with a drop of white or yellow ochre.)

Drag a lighter, drier layer of paint across the surface so that it skips over the high points of the texture, allowing bits of the underlayer to show through. Scumbling is broken, irregular, and tactile. It’s a very lively texture.

Scumbling can suggest the roughness of stone, the sparkle of light on water, or the haze of distant atmosphere. It’s especially effective over a darker, dry layer, where the broken application creates a vibrating edge between colors. Unlike glazing, which deepens and unifies, scumbling disrupts and enlivens.

The drier the paint and the more horizontal the brush, the more the painted line will break.

It’s all technique

For glazing, use a soft brush, plenty of medium and a light touch. The paint film should be thin and even. Don’t scrub; if you break the surface of the lower layer, you’ll make mud.

For scumbling, use a stiffer brush and reduce the water or medium. Physically drag the paint, keeping the brush at a low angle to the surface. The brush should skip. If it’s laying down a smooth, continuous stroke, you’re not scumbling.

Either can be overused

Too many glazes, and everything turns murky. The transparency that once created depth becomes mud. Too much scumbling, and your painting can look overworked, with no clear hierarchy of edges or forms.

These are advanced topics, and if you want to learn more, you’re a candidate for Advanced Plein Air Painting in Rockport, ME, July 13-17, 2026. This is for experienced painters ready to level up: work side‑by‑side with experienced painters to deepen skill and spark new ideas.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: cast versus form shadows

Prom Shoes 2, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information. One of the great benefits of painting still life is that it teaches you to manage form vs. cast shadows.

We tend to lump shadows together into one vague, dark idea, kind of like Halloween. Despite the dangers of noun-thinking in painting I’m going to throw two more labels at you: cast shadows and form shadows. When you understand the difference, your paintings will sit solidly in space.

Form shadow on a sphere.

Form shadows belong to the object itself. They describe the turning of a surface away from the light. Above, I’ve illustrated a sphere: one side faces the light, the other gradually rolls into darkness. That transition—from light into halftone into shadow—is a form shadow. It’s soft, gradual, and tied directly to the geometry of the object. Form shadows are what give volume. They’re how a circle becomes a ball.

Cast shadows, on the other hand, are thrown by one object onto another surface. A tree casts a shadow on the ground. A nose casts a shadow across a cheek. These shadows are graphic and shape-driven. Their edges depend on the sharpness of the light source. They primarily describe the interruption of light rather than the turning of form.

Cast shadows are opposite the light source.

Not all shadows behave the same way

Form shadows will have softer edges when they are created by gradual changes in light across a curved surface. The more matte the surface, the softer the shadow. Even in strong light, the transitions of a form shadow are rarely abrupt. A hard edge in a form shadow will flatten the object. When we paint with form shadows, we’re doing what’s called ‘modeling’.

Cast shadows, especially close to their source, tend to have firmer edges. They can soften as they move away from the object, and the softer the light source, the softer the shadow. But cast shadows are usually crisp near the object that’s casting them. If you paint cast shadows with mushy edges, your painting loses definition. Everything feels vague and unanchored.

Form shadows are part of the object’s local color family, darker and often cooler. Cast shadows, however, can drop dramatically in value; they represent areas where light is blocked entirely. That said, they’re rarely as dark as beginners make them. There is almost always reflected light bouncing into them, especially outdoors.

Where cast and form shadows meet

There may be almost no differentiation where cast and form shadows meet; they can sometimes run into each other as an unbroken dark. A great example is Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Red Hat, which is a delightful exercise in lost and found edges.

Color temperature

Form shadows will generally shift cooler relative to the light, particularly in natural light. Cast shadows also follow this general rule. However, depending on the environment, they can pick up surprising color such as warm, reflected light.

In either case, shadows can have reflected color in them. For example, the insides of daffodils—despite being in shadow—will be a clear, deep yellow. They’re reflecting the yellow back on themselves.

Baby spruce on the shoreline at Corea, 8X10, private collection.

This is a good place to ban black

Shadows may, in certain situations, appear black. If, for design purposes, that works for you, make yourself a chromatic black from ultramarine blue and burnt sienna or a blue-magenta-yellow combination if you’re working in severely-limited palette. Tube black is useful for making greens, for making tones and shades, or for painting your grand piano. But it has no place in your shadows.

But in any case, most shadows are simply more charming if they have color in them, or many colors in them.

Your practical takeaway

One of the great virtues of painting still life is learning to manage cast and form shadows differently. When you see a shadow, ask yourself what it’s doing. Is it describing the turning of a form, or is it being cast onto a surface? That will help you handle its edge crispness, its value and its color.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Monday Morning Art School: what is hardest to paint?

Surf’s Up is 12X16, on a prepared birch surface. Click on image for more details.

(The answer, of course, is ‘yes.’)                                         

Students ask me how to paint water, portraits, clouds, trees, rocks, animals and many other things. That’s thinking in nouns, not visually. Getting hung up on a subject (for example, “I can’t paint people”) is just psyching yourself out.

Every subject is equally difficult, or easy. While there are things to learn about the properties of these subjects, the overall process is universal:

  1. Observe carefully through drawing;
  2. Create a compositionally-strong value sketch;
  3. Organize color harmony;
  4. Commit to canvas or paper in the most-economical brushwork possible.
High surf, 12X16, oil on prepared Baltic birch surface. Click on image for more information.

Strong paintings are built on a foundation of strong shapes. The world doesn’t compose for you. Even the desert offers abundant visual imagery rather than austere elegance. Your job is to edit that down.

Think in terms of masses, not objects

Children paint in those aforementioned nouns—car, sun, tree, house, rainbow. When we paint what we know instead of what we see, we’re falling back into that childhood habit. But painting works better when you think in shapes and values.

When you shift from object-thinking to shape-thinking, drawing gets easier and composition starts to organize itself. “Every good picture is fundamentally an arrangement of three or four large masses – a design of masses or large blocks of color – light, dark and half dark or half light,” wrote John F. Carlson. If those shapes are clear and well-arranged, the painting will hold together, even without detail.

Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard. Click on image for more information.

Painting by design

A perfectly copied scene will still feel flat or confusing if the shapes aren’t well-organized. Feel free to move things around. Adjust the size of a shadow. Merge shapes. Eliminate distracting elements. Strengthen a silhouette.

Ask yourself:

  • Does this shape help or hinder the design?
  • Is there a clearer, more attractive way to group these elements?
  • Where do I want the viewer to look first? Second? Third? How am I encouraging that?

Simplification is about emphasis. When everything is important, nothing is.

Use edges and contrast to reinforce your shapes

Once you’ve established strong shapes, protect them. Avoid breaking them apart with unnecessary edges or fussy detail. Keep your major masses intact. You can always add complexity later, but it should sit on top of a clear structure.

Focal point is established by line and by contrast in value, hue and chroma. No intricate detail can draw the viewer’s eye as effectively as a sharp edge between two radically-different color masses.

Blueberry barrens, Clary Hill, oil on canvas, 24X36. Click on image for more information.

The value of value sketches

Practice doing quick, simplified sketches that map out value relationships. That means no color, no details, and just a few value levels. This trains your eye to see what matters.

Ultimately, painting is about seeing those relationships, and once you can do that, you can paint any subject with equal confidence.

These are skills I stress in my workshops (below) and online classes. Turning a complex subject into a paintable scene is not a talent questions. It’s a decision-making process you can learn, practice and refine.

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters