Art References

This is just a long document of art and painting advice that I've collected over recent years. This includes notes from books, Youtube videos, Reddit, etc. I have a terrible memory, so I have to write everything down. My personal set of rules and guidelines are more personal and specific.

Top Rules And Advice:

• Be authentic. People gravitate to you personally, and your story. Maybe your human struggle as an artist.
• Paint from your heart. If there is a significant emotional impact or feeling to the painting, then it's worth painting. If not, it's probably not worth painting.
• How to paint more loosely. Simplify forms into paintable shapes. Paint those shapes in a bold, expressive manner. (i.e. Sargent.)
• Fresh Eye. Walk away and come back to the work. Again and again. It is said Monet never worked on one painting for more than an hour at a time.
• Squinting. Squint to better see values and relationships.
• Have a focal point. An eye magnet. Every painter might choose a different one in the same scene. Draw attention with line, value contrast, color contrast, and/or sharper edges. This is an effect, not a thing per se. The center focal point should be somewhere in center third.
• Principle of Dominance. Either light or shadow should ideally be dominant in your composition. Depends on the light source and direction. If shadows are cool, lights should be warm. If shadows are warm, lights should be cool.
• What is your art about? Your art should be a document of your life, what you are passionate about.
• Where is the light coming from?
• Simplify values and shadow shapes. Try to simplify similar values into value shapes, where fewer shapes are usually a stronger composition.
• Unique and specific shapes within a piece. (Quang Ho.) Where to use straights, where curves.
• Edges. Hard, firm, soft, and lost, as compositional tools. Keep edges soft at first. Work from loose edges in the underpainting up to hard.
• Avoid tangents, and control the diagonals. I am also obsessed with creating intersecting lines in the composition (some will say enhance T-lines). The faster a painting 'reads', the better. You don't ever want to visually confuse the viewer.
• Strong colors. Higher, spicier chroma should be in the transitional midtones/halftones. A dominant color and subordinate color, same as values. "When the colors of the painting are too close to the real colors I see, the painting isn't strong enough." - Titus Meeuws
• The moment. "The real painting is the moment, not the subject." - Titus Meeuws.
• Manifesting art. "Results show that purity of intention behind what you are doing, and doing it for the right reason, things tend to work out. It is never based on the outcome. You are asking to rise to the occasion to make something 'great'. But this greatness is hard to define, it's a devotional greatness, with all of your purest intention and self into this thing for the universe, a gift to God. It's a finding your way into what the universe wants you to do, and then do it." - Rick Rubin
• Manifestation strategy: imagine what a very expensive painting by you would look like.
• Two main things that hold artists back: worrying about what other people will think, and the idea that only a few people can make great things, and they are special. Everyone has the capacity to make great things, and none of us are special. - Rick Rubin
• Line in main shapes should lead to the faces or centers of interest.

Composition Rules (that you can break):

• Rule of Thirds. Divide canvas into nine equal squares and put your subject where two of those lines cross. Don't center the subject, off to the side can be more interesting.
• Verticals. In landscapes, horizontals are a given. You are looking for key verticals to move the eye and engage the space. (Ian Roberts.)
• Rule of Odds. Main objects should be odd in number. Try to use an odd number of elements and vary them in size and shape.
• Sargent rules: lots of space around the subject head. One strong color, one dirty complement.
• Golden lines. No matter the composition, put 2 'golden lines'. One vertical and one horizontal line.
• Golden Ratio. A competitor to rule of thirds, and also works. 1 to 1.6 ratio. Finds a similar point, but closer to the center of the painting.
• Lost edges. Losing edges releases the eye to go to the centers of attention.
• Flip a painting over, look at it in a mirror, or rotate it. It becomes an abstract, and you can see the colors and shape balance. (Michael Parkes et. al.)
• Repoussoir. Derived from the French verb répousser, meaning "to push back," this compositional technique involves placing a dark object or figure in the extreme foreground, usually along the left or right edge of the canvas. Mannerist and Baroque artists, Hudson River school, Caillebotte. Frames view, makes distance seem more hazy and atmospheric in contrast with the sharper and detailed repoussoir.

Be careful about these things:

• Don't divide painting in half.
• Don't put focal point in direct center.
• Studio Lighting - not enough light, palette brighter than your canvas, enough light makes all the difference in the world.
• Source close to canvas - try to keep your photo as close as possible to avoid having to look far into a different light.
• No glare on your painting.
• Try for full-scale photo references, easier, much more accurate than a monitor or phone.
• Try for vertical canvas at same height as eye, avoids messing up proportions etc.
• Use professional materials, of course.
• Don't leave large empty spaces on the composition that need to be filled by random things.
• Higher hip and longer legs are more forgiven than a too low hip, and too short legs, especially on a female.
• Be careful about including an animal in your painting. It needs to look really good, or else it will look bad.

Techniques:

• Bistre, brunaille, imprimatura bistre. A dark brown underpainting, with possible subtractive methods using a cloth.
• Grisaille. A grey tone underpainting.
• Verdaccio. A green tone underpainting.

Selling Paintings:

• Don't make something, then go to a gallery. Join an artist association and do a few shows, show you are trying to establish yourself as an artist. Build yourself a resume. Teach yourself, don't expect a gallery to do it. Do shows, try a library, calls for art from local venues. Need a website, even insta or facebook.
• The gallery or agent is #1 determinant in how your art is priced (i.e. some galleries are just vanity galleries and don't really sell.)
• Critical that price structure should be consistent nonetheless. Price is reputation.
• Subject matter is super important, and also your source photos since a super source just needs to be executed.
• Highly important to only show your best work, otherwise brings your average down. If you show, sell, or give away your older, lower quality stuff, be sure to be clear that it's a special, unofficial rate for friends and family, and not your main body of work.
• The quality and prices of paintings next to yours can influence public perception.
• Best way to sell is to always try to be a better painter.
• Have as many lines in the water as you can, i.e. website, instagram, commissions, etc. Sometimes most of your clients can be repeat clients.
• The professional artist doesn't wait around for the muse. They work hard, and the muse takes notice. (PaintCoach)
• Artist Statement. Key messages in 100 words or less. This should be on your website, gallery website, and in press releases. What is your brand? What do you want people to remember about you? Mission? Vision statement?
• Red is the best-selling color, followed by white, blue, yellow, and green.
• Small tends to sell better. Many successful artists paint a variety.
• Best selling subjects. These are traditional landscapes #1. Abstracts for decor. Dogs. Non-nude figure studies.
• Portfolio review. Galleries sometimes charge money for this. Also, they aren't going to judge if your work is good, just how to get it to the right people.
• Shipping. Shipping art is a huge expense and difficulty. Try to stay local.
• Collectors see the price first, then the art. London collectors get interested at a $2 - $3k price point.
• The online market is over-saturated and most of it is ridiculously cheap, so hardly worth it. Doing exhibitions and dealing with people in person is much more effective and you'll get a realistic compensation for your work as well.

Socializing:

• Go to the see and be seen events. You need to look good dressed up, and go shake hands and meet dealers and critics. This is nightly in summer, four times a week spring and fall, and jack shit happening in winter, but you beat the drums anyway.
• Grants and exhibitions calendar six months out. Arrange to show your work, knowing full well that your work is destined to match a rich ladies couch. Choose art that matches the size of large furnishings in lofts, and make friends with every interior designer in your three nearest cities
• Shows once a year at least of new work, and some sketch/prints shows 3 times a year at a few eateries/bars/mini shops.
• Try all of the above and start meeting wealthy people. Art is about borrowing talent as ambience for them. You are their stupidity camoflage.
• Meet nice richies teaching workshops. They can be your best advocates and some are trained/talented.
• This is a psy-op. You need to be in the heads of all those interested, and date some rich guys and be seen and papped out in public.

Colors And Pigments:

• Premium Category Paints. Old Holland, Michael Harding, and Vasari. Rublev oils are made by Natural Pigments located in California.
• Alizarin Crimson (PR 83) tends to fade with exposure to light, is not recommended. (But research by Golden shows that it is good enough when bound in oil and used at full strength. Use Permanent Madder Deep PR 264 instead as a straight up substitute.
• Burnt Sienna PR 101, PBr7, or others. Commonly used, semi-transparent with orange undertone, good for glazing. Warm orangey brown when tinted with white. See Rembrandt's paintings. Most common use (in watercolor) is to mix with a blue to produce beautiful greys. I.e. with ultramarine good for a warm cloud grey, with pthalo gives a cool grey.
• Cadmium Red Light. Basically the same hue as Vermilion.
• Cad Red Medium PR 108(?). Creates a dull purple when mixed, a bit more dull when mixed with white than Cad Red Light. Strong fire engine red.
• Chromatic Black (Gamblin color) PG 7 + PV 19. Mix of Pthalo green and Quin Rose to get a nearly neutral black. A bit more transparent than Mars. Darkens color without making it so dirty.
• Cobalt Blue. Used extensively by Van Gogh. More neutral blue, more opaque for mixing with white. A lot of impressionists used Cobalt Blue. Cobalt brushes out much more evenly in a glaze or thin coat and is more delicate i.e. might be good for sky or delicate skin tones. Might be a bit cooler and recedes.
• Cobalt Teal. A good clean bright turquoise is hard to mix. This is a very good turquoise from the tube.
• Eosine Red. Used by Van Gogh and others, but was proved to be fugitive and faded almost to nothing in some of these paintings.
• Indian Yellow PY 83. Tests are conflicting on how lightfast this is, so when in doubt, leave it out. A substitute is Permanent Yellow Deep PY 110.
• Ivory Black PBk 9. Common traditional, carbon based. Semi-transparent.
• Lead white. Cremnitz is a modern industrial made white. Stack lead is hand-made from old processes, is ropey, is what the old masters used i.e. Rembrandt.
• Manganese blue. Manganese Blue died in the 1980s when they stopped making it industrially. The manganese replacement is made of more opaque and saturated Pthalo.
• Mars Black PBk 11. Iron based black, so technically an earth color. A bit warmer, a bit faster drying as an earth pigment, and approx. 3x higher tinting strength.
• Genuine Naples Yellow Light PY 41. This is a lead based color. Imitation naples yellow (i.e. from Nickel Titanate or Arylide Yellow) doesn't have the same rich quality. An indispensable color, very expensive.
• Naphthol Red, several varieties. Variety PR 170 is bad, but PR 112 is good, i.e. Old Holland Scheveningen Red. Pyrrol Red (PR 254) is a good replacement for Naphthol red in general, very strong, makes nice pinks.
• Olive Green. Another mixed green with possibly different formulas, but very neutral and pleasing. Good for foliage, good to start out with due to not very intense.
• Mixed purple. Cobalt Blue and Quin Magenta (PR122) mixes to make a beautiful intense violet close to dioxizine, can move between red and blue depending on mix ratio.
• Prussian Blue PB 27. Dating from early 1700's. Greenish. Very popular replacement for Lapis Lazuli until Cobalt Blue was discovered. Used by Gainsborough for 'Blue Boy', and also Picasso for all of his 'Blue Period' paintings. Can be approximated by mixing a bit of black into Pthalo blue.
• Pyrrole Red PR 254. More modern, really beautiful true fire engine red, similar to Cad Medium, but has a bit stronger tinting strength, is a bit cheaper, much cheaper in some paint lines like Michael Harding. Also is a bit more transparent. A bit less blue than Scarlet Lake, but not as pink as a Quinacridone.
• Quin Magenta (PV 122). Used in CMYK printing. Slightly cooler and more violet than Quin Rose. Mixes beautifully with Cobalt Blue to create nice purples.
• Raw Umber PBr7. Comes in cool and warm varieties. Big difference when mixed with white. Richeson and Vasari make the cool raw umbers. Warmer raw umber is easier to find.
• Sap Green. Mixed green, different companies have different formulas for it. For example, Daniel Smith uses Quin Orange, Azo Yellow, and Pthalo green dark. Bob Ross brand doesn't even tell you on their website. Gamblin uses Diarylide Yellow and Pthalo Blue.
• Siccatives. These are fast-drying pigments. They include both siennas, both umbers, prussian blue, cobalt blue and yellow, manganese colors, and lead white.
• Transparent Oxide Red PR 101. Similar to Burnt Sienna but more transparent, so it makes better transparent brown dark passages.
• Ultramarine blue (PB 29). Most common blue on palettes. Tends towards violet more than green. Therefore tends towards a cool blue, and is very good for mixing violet i.e. with Quin Magenta. Semi-transparent, great for glazing.
• Venetian Red, aka Terra Rosa, aka Red Ochre. PR 101. Comes out of tube lighter and very red. Very nice salmon pinks for flesh tones.
• Zinc White. Recent research suggests Zinc white is not as archival as once thought. Issues with cracking and peeling. Some manufacturers are adjusting their formulas accordingly. A rigid support is therefore especially recommended if using Zinc.
• Blacks. They are not neutral. Ivory black tints bluish?
• Greys. Good greys from mixing Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine, Pthalo Green and Quin Rose or Magenta, cool version of Raw Umber (Vasari) and white.

Mediums:

• Utrecht classic oil painting medium. Can also mix for yourself with 33% turp, 33% linseed, 33% damar varnish, all highest quality artist.
• Lukas Painting butter. Thick gel with thick strokes that dries well good impasto and knife painting.
• Rublev Italian Varnish. (Really a medium) is a good replacement using Black oil and Beeswax instead of mastic in the Maroger. Also gives good body to paint. Fairly fast drying.
• Old Masters Maroger Medium. Good for alla prima and impasto effects.
• Gamblin Flake White Replacement. Horrible yellowing. Looks almost like naples yellow after aging. Do not use.
• Safflower Oil. Less yellowing, very slow drying. I use this to clean my brushes.
• Linseed Oil. Refined linseed has less impurities and will have less tendency to yellow over time. Cold-pressed is purified without any 'chemical treatment', so is considered more stable.

Coloring and Mixing:

• Orange is warmest color, and blue is coolest on color wheel. Warm colors should be in the foreground, cool recedes.
• Black. Try mixing black with Burnt Umber and Ultramarine. You adjust the ratio to adjust cool/warm.
• Shadows. Light tends to be warm, so cast shadows are shifted towards cooler, or blue.
• Distance effects. Yellows drop out before reds, then reds, leaving blue. Values and contrasts are also less. Landscape photos will often mis-represent or not properly render distance effects. (PaintCoach)
• Color keying. In a narrative painting, can assign the same color to subjects that are related. This creates relationships between multiple subjects or things in the environment. This is called color keying or color coding.
• Premixing colors. Try premixing more colors to avoid neglect of orange, green, purple and other compound colors due to fatigue or laziness.
• Try having a greyscale panel handy to compare color values to.
• Brown/reddish skin looks better against sky than yellow ochrish skin (Tiepolo.)

Rhythm:

• Movement of edges. Edges can move horizontally, vertically, curve, or diagonally, or in some combination.
• When a single edge moves in a direction, that's a rhythm. Shadows. Light tends to be warm, so cast shadows are shifted towards cooler, or blue. Goal is to orchestrate rhythm so eye stays in, and moves around painting.
• Short, gentle rhythms are more restful.

Models and Schools of Painting:

• Traditional Art vs. Modern Conceptual Art. This is subconscious communication (more sophisticated) vs. conscious.
• American tradition: Harvey Dunn, Mead Schaffer, Norman Rockwell, Dean Cornwell
• Impressionist model. Lost and found edges, painting pools of light and color.
• Academic model (Bougereau, Ingres). Linear outlines, painting objects.
• Bargue. Raphael -> Poussin -> Davide -> Ingres, Gerome -> Charles Bargue. Envelope shapes, using straights to simplify forms. Start by making envelope shape with minimum number of lines. Divide envelope into two separate values: light and flattened shadow shapes with contour of shadow edges. Increase the detail with straights.
• Boston School - Otto Grundman, Baron Leyes - key in defining the Boston School. Tarbell and Benson. Sought also to emulate Vermeer among the Boston school, i.e Decamp, Tarbell, and Paxton.
• French School Generally. Flatten out masses, minimal detail in shadows. Distilled style. Shadow is atmosphere, light is form. Follow-through lines, repetition lines. Raking light planes.

• For Small paintings. A large dark frame around a small painting can be striking.