Showing up in NYC took some balls on my part and one slice of craziness. When I dropped in fresh from the sweet sunshine of “SoCal” (southern california) I did not know what to expect. I only knew that there was REAL art instruction here, and I wanted ALL OF IT! I was starved for some real painting instruction. I mean, everything I came across until now was peanut gallery caliber. Art instructors would exclaim “draw with your feeling” and “it looks too outliney”. It was this BS. that inspired me to drop out of the best Art Colleges in the country.
I craved to immerse myself into the classical tradition or art techniques. The roots of every great work I’ve seen in museums has been grounded in classical painting instruction. I awed at these works, burning a holes in it from studying the paint strokes so closely.
So I finally arrived in the heart of this sub culture of realists and I would need to prove myself. The private studios were the most selective and finicky, making them the hardest to get into. Then there was timeless watering holes that everyone knew about like The Art Students League. It was common to mingle with crazies who mumbled to themselves and started fist fights to settle easel arrangement disputes. They have let in a wider array of clients since its hay day, back when the greatest illustrators illuminated their hall ways with the same classical training that thrived in Paris during the turn of the 19th century.
One by one I started taking drawing lessons and oil painting for beginners. Pretty soon I was immersed in figure drawing lessons, portrait oil paintings, and realistic oil painting techniques from 9 am to 10 pm at night, in 3 different city districts 6 days a week.
I was having my own personal art instruction Reniassance in Manhattan.
I did whatever it took to get into these studios. I rubbed elbows with the fist fighters at Art Students League, I read oil painting books at night to get my bearings on anatomy for the artist I attended Frank’s lectures. I lugged around a 3 foot tall iron pipe armature with 20 lbs
of clay stuck to it. I dragged it onto every subway tunnel, through every 19″ turnstyle with my paint box in the other hand and a backpack stuffed with food, burly winter jackets, charcoal sticks, pencils, markers, and drawing pads. You could imagine I looked like a one man band covered in smeared clay, splashed paint and caked plaster.
I even snuck into the Graduate school to sit in on master painting classes. I know this wasn’t right and I wouldn’t not do that again, but at the time I was burning for these skills. I thought I was 100 years too late, like all the great masters who knew how to draw had passed away and I missed the boat.
When the graduate school added a steel turnstyle and electronic key cards, with heightened security I thought I was “game over” for sure. They could throw me in the slammer for sliding into these classes. Luckily I made a friend on the inside and he gave me his key card, so I could complete the next few classes with this master instructor.
That one class has changed the way I approach oil painting FOREVER.
Keep it fresh, keep it frosty,
Evan P
“Sorry to bother you.
I had a question and thought maybe i could ask for a professional artists advice/opinion..
Anyhow…I have been drawing for what seems like forever but recently i decided to jump back into the world of acrylic painting..
It’s been years since i painted as seriously as i draw…and i don’t think i’ve ever taken painting as serious as my drawing..
However,I want to paint,seriously..and i have been making every attempt i can to spare time to do so..
My question is this….
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I arrived to Los Angeles for the first time at 19, with big dreams, high hopes, and new beginnings.
My parents put me up to attend the most renowned Art College in the country. I got in “by the skin of my teeth”. This was my second attempt at Art College. I abandoned the first “Best Art College” on the other side of the country because my art was not improving despite a great GPA(3.9 out of a 4.0).
I was losing faith in our art education system, not to mention GOBS of MONEY with nothing to show for it…
My GOAL was simple: To get better at painting stuff. “Ya know, Actually be able to paint and draw what I see.” I wanted to get so good it hurt.
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I remember my first day of painting class like it was yesterday. i was a young freshman in college and very eager to learn to oil paint. I had my grandpa’s old painting box that my parents shipped to me my first semester. It was filled with random sticky tubes of paint and smelled like a factory.
Because there was no painting instruction for freshmen students, I asked permission to sit in on upper division painting classes. I hiked across campus with a raft of modge podge materials. I looked like I was going to go on safari. I lugged an easel, glass jars, paint tubes, visor, rags, tins, and brushes across 75 yards, and up 3 flights of stairs.
When I arrived at the studio door, my heart stopped. I was… Click here to read more...
Even though talent is an important thing in creating works of art, it is still not enough, if you don’t have the right skills. Painting, just like any other type of skill, has to be learned, tried, and developed. Finding good
oil painting lessons is essential, because you can acquire the vital skills that a painter should have.
The very first thing that a painter should learn is Click here to read more...
Oil paint usually comes in a creamy thick paste that you can buy in tubes. You can easily squeeze them out of the tube and then place your palette. The palette is used to mix the paint into a colorful spectrum. When you have made the right colors, you can then paint on wood or canvas with the the brush or painting knife.
The oil paint is different from the other paints because the texture that composes the oil paint is held together by the linseed oil. Linseed oil is better than other types of binding liquids. The linseed oil uses oxidation to dry itself. Once it gets oxygen from the air, the oil in the paint becomes a tough solid that will make the texture stay in place permanently.
The only disadvantage on this kind of property that will concern you as a painter is the time that it will take for your oil painting to dry. Oil paint usually takes a lot of time to dry, you will usually wait for about three days before you can apply another coat of paint over the top of another layer. However, the good thing about slow drying is that you have a lot of time to modify what you have painted. The painting will have enough time for the different visual effects to take place. This is very hard to acquire when you use other type of slow drying paints. Because of its slow drying ability, you will have the opportunity to remove parts that you do not like with the palette knife or a rag.
If you’ve painted in other types of mediums, you surely know the disadvantages that the slow drying paint brings. Once you put two colors on top of each other, you will ruin each of the colors if you do not know how to do it. Aside from that, it is difficult to work when the materials you are usually wet, you cannot avoid paint from getting on your hands, furniture or in your clothes. When you know the different techniques on oil painting, you will learn how to avoid these kinds of situations.
You can usually control oil paint for about twelve hours, starting from the time that you applied it. After twelve hours, you have to wait for another three days before you can make any type of changes.
You can apply several layers to an oil painting. One important thing to remember is that make each layer thicker than the last one so that you could avoid the paint from cracking.
Oil painting normally takes six months to dry completely, after that, you can already add some varnish so that you could protect your painting and make it last longer.
