A Patreon member recently told me something I hear all the time:“I never mix enough paint. I don’t know why…” At first glance, this sounds like a quantity problem. Not enough paint on the palette, not enough mixtures prepared in advance. But in reality, it almost never is the main problem. Most of the time, the issue isn’t how much paint you mixed on your palette in advance — it’s how the paint is being picked up with the brush.. I thought this would be the perfect occasion to talk about a...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
If you want to learn oil painting properly, painting an eye is one of the best places to start. It’s connected to portrait painting, but without the intimidation of a full head. In a small space, you’ll deal with drawing accuracy, value control, edge quality, color temperature, and brushwork — all the fundamentals, distilled into a manageable exercise. This is a classical approach, ideal for beginners, because it teaches you how to think while you paint, not just how to copy what you see....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
If your colors keep turning muddy, it’s probably not because you’re “bad at color.” Most of the time, it’s because your palette is chaotic and your mixtures are undefined. Mud doesn’t come from mixing too many colors — it comes from mixing without structure. Let’s look at a simple, classical strategy that instantly clarifies color mixing: working with at least three versions of the same hue — shadow, local color, and light. Stop Guessing Your Colors: The 3-Value Method for Clean Mixing 1 —...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Happy New Year everybody, I wish you all all the joy, love and inspiration for 2026! Let's start the year with a wonderful painting named : a Rose. This wonderful portrait by Thomas Anshutz will teach us a crucial lesson about how to paint eyes: Why the Eye Fails When You Try Too Hard "A Rose" by Thomas Anshutz, 1905 (detail) oil on canvas The eye is the most important feature in a portrait. It is where viewers look first, and where they look longest. That is precisely why it is so often...
3 months ago • 3 min read
A lot of us experience the lack of inspiration these days: feeling stuck, anxious in front of a blank canvas is a common thing and I have a pretty good guess as to why. And no, it’s not because of a lack of talent, culture, or ideas. It’s much simpler than that: we are almost never bored anymore. And boredom, uncomfortable as it may sound, is one of the most important gateways to inspiration. I Think I Know Why You Can’t Find Inspiration — a Plea for Boredom 1 — Have You Tried Turning Your...
3 months ago • 3 min read
The Bargue plates are the ultimate system for learning how to see the world with the precision of an artist, a foundational skill vital for both realistic drawing and painting. Created in the 19th century, the Charles Bargue Drawing Course (Cours de dessin) is more than just a set of copies—it’s a rigorous, time-tested discipline. I used this very method to become a self-taught artist, moving past frustration to genuine competence, and you can achieve the same results! Charles Bargue - Cours...
4 months ago • 3 min read
We’ve all been fed a lie about primary colors and it hurts our understanding of color theory in general. People have been led to believe the following: 1) That it is possible to make all colors by mixing together three primaries, 2) That the primaries are Red, Yellow and Blue and 3) That primaries are pure colors that cannot be made by mixing other colors. But here’s the truth: None of these statements are actually correct. We’ve Been Fed a Lie about Primary Colors 1 — Red, Yellow, Blue Can’t...
4 months ago • 3 min read
You’ve probably heard that it’s best to paint “from dark to light” but what does it really mean? Starting with your shadows is never mandatory but it helps in multiple ways. It’s a framework that makes everything else much smoother. Let’s break it down today. Why You Should Paint Shadows First Keying Your Values Setting your value key means establishing the range of darks and lights the painting will live in. When you begin with the darkest dark (=the key), you immediately define the darkest...
4 months ago • 3 min read
This is the story of a funeral: the funeral of a tube of paint! Warning: We'll talk about corpses and mummies in the context of history of arts (seriously), fainted hearts beware! In the mid-19th century, the British painter Edward Burne-Jones, a central figure of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was using a popular pigment known as "Mummy Brown". He received the visit of another painter, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema who mentioned what it was actually made of. Burne-Jones jumped in horror when he...
4 months ago • 5 min read