Hey – don’t be jealous of the professional camerawork of this video. I *just* got this box in the mail and needed a cameraman – My 4 year old son.

Anyway – opening the package was exciting.

The new format makes super easy to use at your easel. When you get your copy, you don’t have to film it, just put the information and techniques to work for you.

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Hi there.

This article is going to show you the sequence to painting your detail, specifically leaves, and edges in a landscape painting.

Many people ask questions such as…
“Should I paint over another area (overlapping), should I paint around an area I already painted, etc.

Let’s try to cover some of that here.

I will use an old master landscape for our lesson.

Here is the videos on this lesson. Turn up your sound, watch, repeat if you have to, and learn.

Part 1

Part 2 is here

Note: Museums are the best place to learn and I strongly suggest going as often as you can and looking for real examples of the lessons you learn from me.

This is an old master landscape painted by the Dutch artist “Hobbema”. A nice wooded landscape I’m sure any of you would be happy to paint, or at least know the procedure to how it was painted so you could paint your own landscape using the same or similar procedures.

Lets focus on a detail of this painting in the next image…

Look to the right of the Black Letter “A”. Do you see how those leaves overlap the sky? This is painted over, not around. Have no fear about going over the sky. It is most likely done after the sky has already dried. Painting into a wet layer, like I will explain soon, helps to get rid of that cut out look.

If you look to the left of the letter “B” and at the highlighted leaves all around the letter “C” you will see another example of detail being painted “over” not “around” an area.

The step by step process would be something like the following…Let’s use the area to the left of the letter “B”.

After the dark areas of the trees in the background were already in and dried, an intermediate glaze layer would have been applied…

Here are the steps from this point, starting with the intermediate glaze layer.

1) Use a bristle brush of the size that would fit the area you are working on.

As an example, you may want the bristles to be around the width of the letter “B” itself. This should give you a good idea of the size brush to use if you were working on this painting and the image above was life-size.

Now, take that bristle brush and dip into a darker green and thin it down with your medium. Perhaps a mixture of sap green with a little burnt umber, or perhaps raw umber with some ultramarine blue. The color mixture is not what we are focusing on here so I am generalizing about color for this example.

We are only mixing color and thinning paint, getting it to the right consistency in this step.

2) Loading this paint on your brush. The paint should not cover anything, therefore we do not need thick paint. Your goal here is to only make the canvas wet to paint into it and add a thin film of color. And not dripping wet either, just a damp film (maybe think of it as a stain) of color.

3) Apply this thin film of color over the dried area where you are going to work on the detail. This would give you a wet base to work into.

4) Make sure you have a clean brush and create a mixture for the light color of your leaves on your palette, but not your lightest, (perhaps with some sap green mixed into a light gray – again color mixture is not the focus of this lesson so I am generalizing on the color)

5) Take a clean small sable brush to apply this mixture right into your thin film of color that you have using dabs with the point of your brush. The harder you push, the larger the dab for a larger clump of leaves. Do not try to paint every individual leaf at this point.

6) When your dabs of color start to take on the color of the thin film of color you put down in step 3, it is time to load your brush with more fresh color of the mixture you made in step 4. How many dabs will this take to happen?…until you need to reload?… Perhaps 3 to 5 dabs. And when you pick up a fresh supply of paint on your brush, make sure the brush is clean first. Yes, that may mean cleaning it in turpentine before picking up the color again. Wiping it on paper towels alone may work as well.

You have to judge when you pick up and apply new color. If it is not clean, your brush was still dirty.

If you do not clean the brush between loadings of it, your dabs will blend more into the dark area that already have down. This may be effective to paint the light areas which are not the final highlights, but not for the real hard light areas where you are picking out individual leaves.

7) Lighten your mixture with more white (or lighter gray) and load your brush to pick out even lighter leaves which have even more light shining on them. This calls for a little thicker paint and a softer touch with your brush. You are laying on the paint, right over the other paint you layed down. Don’t keep teasing the dabs or they will mix with the wet paint underneath and lose their original brightness.

The thicker the paint, the lighter you need to apply paint with your brush.

If some areas are too light and you need to make them blend into the background more, you can use the sable brush without any paint on it and dry and dab into the paint you already have on the canvas, because everything is already wet, it will automatically blend into the thin film of color that you originally layed down.

Soft Edges

Note that areas are painted right over one another. Every leaf is not drawn in first and then the sky carefully filled in around it.

The edges of the trees are not drawn in first and then the sky carefully filled in around that.

And edge is a detail and can only be made soft by overlapping areas, either when the paint is dry or wet. However, putting down a wet film of paint like I described above will help keep edges soft, especially if you use the right medium. using the right medium will automatically soften edges for you.

Of course, paint what is “behind” first and paint the overlapping objects afterwards.

Details All Over

In this image below you can see I have put a red letter “D” next to some areas where there are details that are painted over other areas.

Branches, highlights on branches, highlights on leaves, leaves painted over the sky, etc.

It is the highlights on the leaves that do all the “drawing” work. They are the details and they make it seem as if every last leaf is drawn. The darker areas are masses of dark, and have no real detail in them.

But with some dabs of lighter thicker paint, these individual leaves are picked out and are great detail work.

By the way, if you want to watch this entire landscape painting being recreated from start to finish, I recommend this dvd Museum Landscapes Quick and Easy

———————————-

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This is the second part of the video lesson.

By the way…

I recommend you get a copy of  Museum Landscapes Quick and Easy – 2 hour DVD showing how to paint a traditional landscape (the very one in this demo) using the wet on wet method. This goes beyond the wet on wet method you have seen on tv.

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Yes, this is what some people are calling my oil painting lessons. Some people say they are worthless…and some of these same people even say I made up the story about my mother’s death as part of a grand scheme.

I’m wondering if I should post my mother’s death certificate on the blog.

Here is the forum and the thread I am referring to.

http://www.artspan.com/community/showthread.php?t=184&page=4

I invite you to go to this forum and respond. Of course, some people may think you are not real and that you are just me using a fake name.

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In case you ordered your product in the last few weeks and have not received it…I am in the process of transferring the production and shipping of my products to an outside company. It will be worth the slight delay as there will be color printing in the manuals. All product fulfillment will be much faster and smoother.

Your product should start shipping around wed. or thurs. of next week.

Hold on…it’s coming. In the meantime, refer back to the download version while the manuals and discs get shipped to you.

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The Personal Instruction Program is the future of my teachings. 

If you have always wanted to be able to ask me questions and get a more personalized instruction from me…this is the program for you.

I have a mailing list of well over 5000 people, so I could never answer everyone’s email,

but when you sign up for my personal instruction program, you become a student, a VIP.

You have access to all my latest video clips, newest lessons, and everything I come out with. The introductory cost is ridiculously low…$29.99 per month or about $1 per day.

Since, this program entails a lot of personal time from myself, this price will increase as people join, so to be grandfathered in at a low price, join today.

You can even try it out first in a test run for a buck.

Nothing to wait for…nothing to be shipped to you…just lessons and personal instruction, when you need it most…all right from your computer.

See you with the rest of my students…

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Back in school, I used to see people painting landscapes that they worked on for weeks. The funny thing is, the painting seemed to get worse the longer they worked on it.

They would just muddle through and scrub and wipe, never knowing what they were really doing. They would just spend weeks scrubbing on a store bought canvas…

NOTE: (if you know me, you know how I hate those canvases…you’re making it 100 times harder for yourself by using them)

And at the end, they had a landscape that they were never happy with, with no luminosity, no depth,and that was the result of all that time and effort.

That’s ridiculous and a waste of effort!

What if you could paint a complete landscape in 2-3 hours instead of weeks?

Oh…and what if you knew what you were doing?…Not just muddling through and hoping it all turns out well in the end.

Well, go watch the preview of my DVD…”How to paint a landscape”…the price is ridiculously low and you get another DVD totally FREE.

I have to mention…this offer is ending tomorrow or possibly before, depending on the amount of orders and administrative work it causes.

• Want to know how to begin from a blank canvas? you’ll get this
• Want to know how to glaze in a landscape? that’s there as well
• Want to watch a 2 hour painting appear before your eyes? you got it
• Want to see a landscape created in more than 1 sitting? You got it too.

So, run and get this DVD if you care to paint landscapes that will have you beeming with pride.

NOTE: This ships to anywhere in the world. There seem to be a few people who write to me and tell me things like…”I’d like to study from your lessons, but I’m in Australia”. This is a total misconception. I am not advertising in person lessons…all my products are lessons you work on in your onw home.

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If you are dealing with someone close to you who is dying, here is a great article.

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When I first started to learn to oil paint, my Grandmother would occasionally see some of the paintings I made. And she liked them. She liked them enough that she decided she had to have some of them.

In my family, what Grandma wants, Grandma gets. At least back then.

You see, I was somehow raised that Grandma was always right and you should always listen to her. And when Grandma wanted a couple of my paintings, and I was not that keen on just giving away paintings I had worked hard on, my mother told me…

“She’s your grandmother, let her have them.”

My grandmother lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn NY, right near Coney Island. My Grandparents were not a very social couple. Meaning they didn’t have lots of friends, they never did things like go out to eat with friends, nobody ever really stopped by the house for lunch, dinner, or even to have coffee.

In fact, picture a less social version of George Costanza’s parents from “Seinfeld” and you will have an accurate picture.

These were the stereotypical – growing up near the train tracks – Jewish grandparents, from Brooklyn New York.

Now although my Grandparents lived in a small 2 bedroom housing development, she thought of her 2 bedroom apartment like a museum. She wanted it decorated a certain way and she suddenly had found a new way to accomplish her goal.

Me and my paintings.

In trying to convince me to give her the paintings she would say things like…

“I’ll frame them and hang them up on my wall. Maybe someone will see them and want to buy them.”

I thought to myself, “Who’s going to see them? I don’t think you’ve had anyone over the apartment in 10 years except mom and me.”

But, like I said, grandma always wins so I gave in and gave her a couple of paintings, which to her credit, she had framed and hung them in her apartment in prominent spots.

Well, one day when I was visiting with the family, I happened to have a book on paintings that I took with me to read in the car during the trip to Grandma’s. During my visit, grandma started flipping through the book and grandma decided she needed another painting.

She knew the colors she wanted and decided to flip through my book until she found what she wanted. I knew what was coming and tried to dissuade her and gently stop her from flipping through the book and take it away. But, I was too late.

She had found it.

The perfect painting that matched the image she had in her mind.

And this is the painting you see here.

She had no idea that it is a famous painting, painted by one of the worlds greatest painters. She liked the subject matter and the colors.

“Look how beautiful. A little girl with a pretty pink dress. Can you paint this for me?” She asked.

I think I replied with a snort, not wanting to do it.

Then the persuading tactics began…”It’ll be easy for you. You can do it fast. You’re so good it won’t be hard.”

It was interesting that she was appealing to my ego. After all, all my life I was called an “idiot or a schmuck” by my grandparents. Again, think George Costanza’s parents.

Now, all of a sudden, I was so talented I could replicate a Velasquez painting “no problem”

Well, after protesting, who do you think won out? Remember, back then it was “What grandma wants, grandma gets”

So I went home, and did NOT get to work on the painting.

I put it off and put it off, and my grandmother would call me and ask me on the phone…”Are you working on my painting?”

“Not yet” I would reply.

This would go on for about a week and then a new tactic entered the picture…

…Guilt!

It’s true…jewish women know how to give guilt like no other.

The phone calls would now be…

“Are you working on the painting?”

my reply: “not yet”

But now, I had to contend with this followup…

“You know, you said you were going to do it. It’s not right. You promised me and you’re not doing it. After everything I do for you, you can’t do this one small thing for me. I thought you cared about me more than that…”

“Ok ok I’ll paint it” I replied. Anything so she would leave me alone with that nonsense.

So I set about starting to paint this painting.

I didn’t even want to look at the image. I was so disgusted that I was forced into painting this. I would squeeze the paint onto my palette grumbling to myself…

…”Everything I do for you…like what? Call me an idiot my entire life? Make some matzoh balls during passover?”

Anyway, I started to paint this picture against my will, but something happened while I was painting it.

The painting just kind of took off.. Every stroke I made was the right one. There was no erasing parts, and correcting parts…everything just worked right from the start.

It was almost as if a point was being made that grandma was right. It would in fact be easy for me.

The painting was painted without much medium at all so it has not yellowed. It is around 20 years old and looks as fresh as when I finished painting it.

Here are some more detail images from the painting…

I must say, I have always had a very special place in my heart for this painting because of how it came to be.

What started out as the painting I didn’t want to make, became a little jewel that holds a special place for me.

When it was finished, my grandmother loved it. It was better than she had hoped. She had it framed and placed it in her “forbidden” living room.

You know, the room where nobody was allowed to go in.

For some reason, the living room was off limits. If anyone ventured in there, she would follow them in and chase them out shouting ” Get outta here, you’ll make the room dirty”.

So, when I would visit, even I had a hard time seeing my own painting without being chased out of the forbidden living room where it hung for years.

My Grandmother died a few years ago so I now have all the paintings I did for her, except for the couple that have sold.

Now, you can learn the exact procedures I used to create this and my other paintings. Including how to begin, how to layer paint with an underpainting, all about choosing the best medium for you and more.

And you can do it all right from your own home with my home study course, The Insider Guide to the Secrets of Oil Painting.

Use coupon code: paintwell

and get an extra 15% off*

*The coupon code is available for only the next 10 people to use it.

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In this post I want to go over a couple of points that people seem confused about when it comes to my oil painting instructional products.

1) A gentleman from Australia told me that he can’t learn from me because he is in Australia and I am in the United States.

This is not right at all. I ship to just about every country that the United States post office will deliver to. I have shipped to well over 20 countries. That is one of the main benefits of the internet – you can learn from me wherever you are. You can communicate with me wherever you are.

I still think people think I am promoting a class I am going to teach in person. That’s not what my products are about at all. They are about learning in your own home, at your own pace, with the instruction you would like to receive from a top oil painting class. The problem is many of you can’t afford a top oil painting class, can’t get to the oil painting class when it meets, or just are not getting the lessons you so desperately want. As far as that last one…I refer to when class is more like an art class for a 3 year old rather than a true place where you learn a principle of oil painting for every class you attend.

2) Many people write to me and tell me what they want to learn from me. They tell me of their overwhelming desire to paint better. They tell me they want me to help them.

The answer – go buy The Insider Guide to the Secrets of Oil Painting.

I’m not sure if you don’t know I have a course for sale, or you are hoping I will teach you through email for free. But, I do have help for you, it’s my course so go get yourself a copy and download it immediately after you order.

3) What is the best way to start to learn how to oil paint?

Learn Your Supplies.

That’s always my advice. Learn what you have to work with. Your support (canvas, wood, paper, etc) to start with. There is a huge difference between the canvas you can buy in a hobby shop, rip off the plastic and start painting and a real good quality canvas.

SIDENOTE: Did you even know that your canvas, wood panel, etc was called the support? There is a very simple, yet huge lesson to learn if you truly understand that term. If you truly understand why they call it a support will improve your oil painting immediately.

What do you think is prepared better? Grandma’s homemade chicken soup that takes a day to make or the stuff in a can from campbells?

Also, you must learn about the paint itself. I suggest making some paint from scratch at least once, just so you can understand what it is that you are using. And before you roll your eyes and say “make paint? that’s so hard.”…No it’s not.

All you need is a jar of pigment, a palette knife and some oil. If you want to mix it more thoroughly you will need a muller and slab. But, many times I just use a palette knife and my palette.

How about your brushes? Do you know the differences in all the brushes you can use? How about mediums? Do you know what will happen if you add cold pressed linseed oil to your already mixed paint? How about if you add sun thickened oil? How about stand oil? How about damar varnish, how about venetian turpentine?

If you answered “no” this is one reason you aren’t painting the way you want to.

If you see an effect in a painting by Renoir, or Rembrandt and you want to duplicate that effect, it will be much easier if you understand your oil painting supplies.

When you have my home study course, start with the manual The Secrets Of Oil Painting Supplies Made-Easy. Read it over and over if you have to and you will have a thorough understanding of your supplies. Enough so that you will know how to use your supplies to help you, not hinder you.

It’s something you won’t find in oil painting classes. Many times you will just be told to bring a list of certain supplies to the class, but never given lessons as to what they are, how to use them or why you use them.

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