These days I am looking for simple and fun creative art activities that can be done without much supplies at home. I used to love playing with paper dolls that you can dress up when I was a kid a...
When relief printing with multiple colors, you basically have 2 options: Carve a plate for each color Use the same plate that you carve and print with each color. I have done multiple plates-mult...
I don’t know about you but time seems to fly when I am in life drawing class and I have only so much time to draw contours and shade, it is difficult to also add paint. You might also like: ht...
https://paintingdemos.com/painting-over-life-drawings-with-mixed-media
I have been looking for a long time for a press to print my linocuts but I wanted something that would not take a huge amount of space and would allow me to print at least A3 sized prints. So I w...
I have been co-organizing life drawing classes in North Vancouver for the last 5 years and it is becoming an important part of my art practice. The more I draw, the more I think that taking the t...
https://paintingdemos.com/lessons-learned-life-drawing-class
I am doing a lot of work on paper and like experimenting with techniques that are modifying a bit the texture and water resistance qualities of the paper. You might also like:A yupo paper alterna...
I like to take my time when I draw but during the 20 minutes poses we do in class, I sometimes have enough time to work a bit on shading like in the following drawings So, I like to rework some o...
https://paintingdemos.com/order-chaos-reworking-life-drawings-mixed-media
As I learned quite fast, printing from linocut or woodcuts is all but quick and straightforward ! You might also be interested in :Getting started with Linocut printing I was getting frustrated a...
The world of printing has always been both fascinating and intimidating to me, with its specific vocabulary, techniques, heavy machinery and artist community. I recently started venturing in the ...
Indian ink and watercolor look best in my opinion when there is an accidental look to them. If you like to be precise, like me, that accidental look can be difficult to achieve, especially when p...
In part 1 , we saw how you can paint over a drawing and how you could build an image with lines, loops, scribbles patterns or words. In part 2 we will talk more about using drawing medium on canv...
https://paintingdemos.com/between-drawing-and-painting-part-2
If you want to learn more about printmaking, one of the easiest way to start is with monoprints. They can be relatively easy to make and they don’t require that much supplies. You might also be...
Shading is the part that makes a drawing go from a flat contour drawing to a 3 dimensional illusion. There are many options for shading and each option will change the style of your drawing. He...
https://paintingdemos.com/6-shading-techniques-for-your-drawings
Sketching at home is a very convenient and stress free way to get you started on drawing. Ideally I am trying to sketch for 15 minutes a day, 2-3 times a week. If you try to do that, you will see...
If you want to play and really draw the attention to one area of your drawings, selective coloring is a very efficient and fun technique to try. You can leave most of your drawing black and white...
https://paintingdemos.com/add-impact-to-your-drawings-with-selective-coloring
Like most discoveries, this one happened by accident. I bought a Panpastel in black that I wanted to use dry, with my fingers in life drawing class for shading. As it also happens often, my young...
In art a monotype or monoprint is a print taken from oil paint, or ink on glass or metal Making felt tip pens monotypes is an easy and fast way to make a drawing from a picture, and you can do it...
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about where I would like to go with my drawings and especially my life drawings. I am co-organizing a weekly life drawing class in my North Vancouver studio a...
This is a fun exercise you might want to try on your life drawings or even any kind of drawing. Make a few different versions of the same drawing in different media, exploring different styles. Y...
Sketching in pen and ink and then adding watercolor washes is a fast and convenient way to give a bit more life to your drawings. watercolor and pen figure drawing has the perfect mix of precise...
If like me you like drawing as well as painting, you might be interested in trying out the dry brush technique. Basically a way to draw with brushes. This technique works well in mixed media pain...
https://paintingdemos.com/dry-brushing-for-mixed-media-portraits
Charcoal Portrait on paper: You might be familiar with charcoal from life drawing classes, it is a great medium to use for life drawing short poses because it is easy to smudge, take off and quic...
https://paintingdemos.com/charcoal-and-mixed-media-portrait-on-paper-beehive
Scribble drawings are fun to do, they are perfect for a day at home activity with the family. Everybody can make it and kids will love it, you don’t need to know how to draw portraits as we are...
If you are like me, you might be intimidated by sketchbooks, especially when they are new. Who knows you might get a new sketchbook for Christmas and need some sketchbook inspiration:)Actually th...
If you are going to a life drawing class, which I recommend you do 🙂 You will probably accumulate a lot of drawings over time. I am going to our weekly life drawing class in North Vancouver. ...
https://paintingdemos.com/painting-over-life-drawings-with-acrylic-and-watercolor-pencils
This year for Culture Days Sophie Babeanu and I did have a fun activity where participants were drawing a selfie, the old fashion way 🙂 That is without a cell phone. Culture Days is a weekend...
To paint with oil pastels or watercolor on top of life drawings, you have to coat your paper to protect it. You can use either clear gesso or gel medium to do so and still be able to see your dra...
Pastels come in 2 types: oil pastels and dry pastels. They are very different medium as dry pastels is more like chalk and oil pastels have a very creamy texture. You might also like: How to use...
https://paintingdemos.com/dry-pastels-alternative-ways-of-using-them-in-mixed-media
We all have different ways of working and there are many possibilities to make a preparatory drawing for a painting. To make that drawing some artists will project an image from a picture on thei...
Yupo paper is a wonderful surface to work on with many media, including watercolor. The most interesting properties of yupo paper to me are the fact that when the paint dries, a lot of textures ...
https://paintingdemos.com/an-alternative-to-yupo-paper-gel-medium-on-regular-paper
Working from life when painting portraits is always the best solution, but it is not always convenient or possible, especially if working with children!Working from a reference picture is the nex...
I have been going to weekly life drawing classes for three years now. I am very happy I am making some progress and I am also still learning and sometimes struggle with proportions. I find it ...
https://paintingdemos.com/portrait-drawing-basic-proportions-of-the-face
Color is fun and I love color but you can also give impact to your paintings by working in black and white. When working in black and white, I like to use India Ink as it has many advantages: It...
https://paintingdemos.com/give-impact-to-your-paintings-with-indian-ink
I like to think that everything we like to do in our everyday lives is going to influence more or less what we create and what we paint. Your day to day life and interests can be an interest...
https://paintingdemos.com/find-inspiration-for-your-art-in-your-everyday-life-and-experiences
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” ― Pablo Picasso. In the history of Art, many Artists did choose at one point to deliberately break the rules of their tim...
Working in mixed media to add patterns on a portrait painting can be a fun way to make it stand out. Here I worked from a reference picture that my daughter took in front of a mirror. You might a...
https://paintingdemos.com/a-watercolor-portrait-with-india-ink-acrylic-and-colored-pencils-selfie
Patterns are fun, you can include them in your paintings for graphic effects, like this Indian ink patterned portrait with lots of stripes and dots. This summer we took a picture of my daughter a...
Recently I have been working on drawings I previously made in life drawing class. I was trying to find a way to use them as a starting point for a new work, while incorporating repetitive pattern...
It is fun to integrate zentangles in a watercolor painting. See how I did it on this watercolor portrait of my daughter with a step by step painting tutorial. This is my own version of zentangles...
https://paintingdemos.com/a-little-bird-told-me-watercolor-portrait-and-zentangle
The Twitter Art Exhibit is a great initiative, open to all artists worldwide. All you need is to have a twitter account, artists are sending postcard sized original works of arts and proceeds go ...
https://paintingdemos.com/watercolor-over-gel-medium-painting-a-postcard-for-the-twitter-art-exhibit