Tag Archives: artist

Nature Scene Backgrounds in Portraits

I have long been fond of including nature scene backgrounds in my portrait oil paintings. I think this preoccupation started with my enjoyment of Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting; like with many painters, his show provided some inspiration for me to start painting in the first place. He always made painting seem more accessible, and to someone without training or

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Three Year Painting Anniversary

It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years since I started learning to paint! I first picked up a brush back in September 2022, and since then I’ve painted 260 portraits. Although my pace has slowed considerably from that somewhat insane first year pace (averaging more than 10 a month), I’m glad I’ve continued to steadily continue this hobby.

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Ragamuffin Cat in a Basket Oil Painting

Although I mostly focus on portraits of people, I also practice animals occasionally. I’ve mostly painted dogs and cats, and the most frequent professional model I use is our family cat. The featured oil painting in this post is of our little Ragamuffin cat sitting in a basket. This was painted alla prima in somewhere between an hour and 90

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Practicing Specific Weaknesses | Portrait Oil Painting

I tend to practice and repeat specific themes when it comes to portrait painting. This seems to manifest itself most often with concepts or features that I view as weaker areas. Earlier in my painting journey, probably for the first 150 or so oil paintings, I honestly really needed to practice everything. So, I didn’t narrow in as much on

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Cotton vs Linen Paper for Oil Painting

The vast majority of my oil paintings are done on Strathmore 400 series oil paper, which is a treated linen that feels somewhat rigid like canvass. I am very much a creature of habit, so part of it is that I’m used to how it feels and how paint acts on it. But it’s also pretty cost effective, and storage

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Expressive Eyes and Subtlety in Portrait Painting

Almost from the start of my quest to learn to paint with oils, I’ve been captivated by expressive eyes in portraits. It’s something I’m drawn to just when I’m admiring paintings by other artists, so I naturally gravitated to wanting to learn how to emulate the same effect. Unfortunately for me perhaps, I learned quickly that it requires a subtle

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Oil Painting of Sunlight Through a Window

I think some of my best paintings come from a very loose approach and relaxed mindset. I can’t always achieve that, but I love when it does come together like that. In this piece, I really wanted to explore some bright and interesting color mixing, pushing on yellows and greens and light reflecting through windows. It was fun to paint

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Woman in Green Dress Oil Painting

The subject of this post is another figure study on 12 x 12 oil paper. I’ll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I’ll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another brief writeup on the topic, materials used, and some other

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Farm Scene Oil Painting, Woman on Sitting on the Ground

The subject of this post is another figure study on 12 x 12 oil paper. I’ll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I’ll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another brief writeup on the topic, materials used, and some other

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Figure Study with Natural Subject Stance

This painting is one of my favorites – it features a woman in a nature scene that has a number of aspects that are appealing to me just from an art-enjoyment standpoint. I like the figure pose and natural standing position the subject has, as well as the impressionist-inspired landscape around her. I had a lot of fun with this

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Bright Light Depiction in Oil Painting

My latest painting is another figure study on 12 x 12 oil paper. With this one, I tried to really emphasize a bright light source behind the subject. I think I was able to accomplish this for the most part, but I can see it’s something I need to practice a bit more. I’ll follow my standard format here, which

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Last Painting of 2023, Oil on Paper

Perhaps I’ve finally found the solution to my massive blog post backlog. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m almost comically behind on sharing art here – about 8 months and 110ish paintings at this point. It’s such an odd notion, considering how much of a proponent of blogging I once was. But, as an experience artist once advised,

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