 Do your paintings look flat and lifeless? Do you struggle to visualise your painting from a photograph? Do you need to see another artist's work to get ideas for your paintings? If you cannot confidently transform your painting ideas into something beautiful on canvas you are not alone.
This article will help you escape from being stuck to creating paintings with life, light and that are unique to you. Read on. 
Is your painting’s success being frittered away with fiddly details? You may recognize the reference to Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote. “Our life is frittered away by detail”, he said. Instead we should simplify, simplify. I could not help thinking how on point that statement is for artists too. How often has a strong painting composition been overworked with little brush marks and excessive details.
In this article and demonstration I am going to show you how to simplify a landscape into shapes and color. Take a look. 
Is two better than one? In the world of mixed media it usually is and my favorite mixed media combination is watercolor and pastels. In this article I will show you a ten step approach to painting a light filled painting in watercolor and pastels. There is also a slideshow of each step to help you.
Let's get started.  What is the best way for artists to sell their work? This question is debated by artists all the time. Everyone will have an opinion, but wise artists will use several avenues to market their work. When it comes to seeing the work face-to-face the best method is to participate in an art market. Galleries still have their place, but nothing beats a market for for that personal connection with buyers.
In this article I will cover ten important tips to ensure your next art market is a huge success. Let’s dive in! 
Is a work in pastels a drawing or a painting? I have come across this debate many times. It depends and I tend to leave it at that. Are you doing a line drawing or are you applying layers of color? The latter would be a painting as far as I’m concerned. In a recent work it struck me that the techniques I was using reminded me of painting. Except I was using a dry pigment instead of wet. Aside from that difference I was going about it in the same way as a painting.
In this article and video I am going to demonstrate how you can paint a beach scene using a few pastel techniques. 
Color mixing remains a constant challenge for artists. Most of the questions that I get from students is how to mix certain colors. Of these many relate to mixing flesh colors. This is understandable when you consider the colors used by masters like Rembrandt. Look at the portrait of Rembrandt above. The variety of colors used are astonishing. A magnificent achievement. How can our paltry color mixes come close to this?
In this article I will give you the exact process that you can follow to get better at mixing flesh tones.  The Painterly Workshop is an extensive online learning experience for artists. It is also the foundation of my art coaching program that has been running for three years now. Due to the growth of the coaching program and requests for alternative access to the learning materials I have created two further options for artists.
Do you have painting goals? For some artists simply getting a chance to paint among many other demands is a miracle in itself. For others painting is a compulsion that consumes their free time. A need to create increasingly better paintings is standard procedure for these enthusiasts. If you are constantly searching for that new approach, technique or color mix then you may find this article useful. This article is about the beauty of a creative process that delivers results. Not a magic wand. Rather a process that will reward the enthusiastic painter.  What does a fox, an author and spooky stories have in common? Find out in this first Q&A article where I interview an emerging author about his inspiration for writing. Every artist struggles with inspiration at times. Procrastination more often I would think. Even when inspired there are distractions, fears and chores that beckon. To my mind authors must have the worst of this. Writing is fearfully solitary and minimalist. At least a painter has tubes of paint, brushes and many colorful things to entice and lure one to the canvas. An author has a keyboard or typewriter (there are a few left). The most hardcore only have a few pencils and writing pads. How about an author that is writing one short story a day for three hundred and sixty five days? That must take commitment and discipline. Let’s meet this young author and find out more. 
This may well be the cure to artist’s procrastination. Waiting for inspiration is an excuse often used to disguise the pressure many artists feel when faced with a new project. We know that making a start is necessary, but taking the first step is risky. I am willing to bet that keeping a journal will make it easier to get started. Here is a fun method for making amazing journals.
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AuthorMalcolm Dewey: Artist. Country: South Africa 
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