Painting is a method of remodeling the world into your own perspective and telling people what that world means to you. Though you try to paint something similar to what you see, you end up adding something that you feel belongs in the picture and with that your own interpretation of life.

When you begin to paint, your canvas and colors ready to work, you begin to think of what would inspire you to keep working on it for hours. Though you may try landscapes or portraits, you have to be sure that it is the subject that you want to work on till the end. Here, you can begin envisioning how you want your painting to come about and the message you want to express in every stroke of the brush.

A subject could be anything, from mere swishes and swashes of the brush to intricate images of people walking along the town square, depending on what inspires you to paint. There are millions of things around you that could be a good subject and it is how you paint it, how you express it in your own silent words, which make it really yours. Religion, nature, humanity, nudity, any of these topics could be your subject of interest.

When we talk of technique, there are thousands of art skills and techniques that you could try and test to see which ones suit your style. Art schools teach aspiring Da Vincis and Picassos the basic and modern painting techniques that continue to develop since the early paintings of the cavemen. It is a free art, but it becomes messy if the painter has no idea or skill on how to paint and create a good picture.

Once you learn basic skills and concepts in painting, then you will begin to see the progress with your art. A good painting should be aesthetically presentable, understood, and invokes emotion within the heart. We stop at every painting we see in museums, thinking they are nice, beautiful, and exquisitely done, without ever really looking into the painting and understanding what it is trying to say. Is it only beautiful because it hangs on the wall of famous museums and art exhibits?

No, we admire the painting because the image presented carries a message and an emotion that we too feel within ourselves. We are looking at what the artist sees with his eyes, what he imagines to be made known to the public, just as any author, photographer, or composer would do with his or her own art form.

So never feel limited when you want to paint and feel that you have to paint everything exactly as how you literally see it. When painting landscapes for example, you can always add a twist to a boring scene in front of you, expressing a different message than how most people would normally understand it. Let your imaginations run wild, be open to new techniques yet never forget the basics, and lay your emotions and perceptions of the anything that matters to you, on canvas.

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Painting isn’t really painting when you don’t know what materials to use for your artwork in the first place. The best paintings are brought to life when the artist uses paints that work well and that brings out the effect that he or she wants to emit in the painting. Nowadays painters are deciding which would be the best paint to use based on the safety and the quality of the painting material. They usually have two choices: they could either use acrylic paint or oil paint. The features of each make big differences on the output and have its own advantages and disadvantages, which puts it in a debate in the art and painting community.

Oil paint and acrylic paint have various characteristics and benefits that make it difficult to choose which one would be best for painting. Oil painting is basically one of the oldest mediums for paintings, dating back as early as the 13th century England. Its use was not actually for artistic purposes but for interior decoration. It has been used by famous traditional painters for centuries onwards and is still being used by modern painters in today’s society. The only disadvantage is that it is slow in drying since it consists of small particles mixed in linseed oil, wax stabilizer, thinner and a drying agent all in one. So if you are an artist who believes in the traditional use of oil paintings, be prepared to wait for months for your painting to be ready for placement in the frame. Depending on the amount of oil that you use for either a landscape or a portrait, the oil may take a long time to dry. What you can expect though from this tedious process is a painting that has been seriously worked on with much emphasis on detail and texture to make it the best that it can be.

Artists who want to get their paintings done faster than oils, on the other hand, are instead using acrylic paint. This type of paint has been used commercially since the 1950s and is a fast-drying medium, which consists of pigment mixed with acrylic resin plus mineral spirits. What’s fun about acrylic paint is that you can dilute it in water and it is water resistant when dried and put into canvass. If you are a really skilled artist, with careful mixture and measurement of the amount of paint to be used, your painting could actually resemble water color or oil paintings as well. Though it doesn’t take much effort to make and wait for a painting to dry, the quality of the work will have to depend on how well you use and mix your paints to come up with something exquisite. If you use acrylic just to get your paintings to finish on time for an art show or exhibit in two weeks’ time, then most likely they won’t have the same texture and deep essence that an oil painting, done with patience and sheer hard work, has.

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Any scene or landscape that you encounter, which ignites that starvation for painting, should not be wasted. Landscapes change now and then that could have been recorded using a canvas, paint, and your brush, so you have to learn how to either replicate or distort the image into how you see and understand it the best way possible. If you want to specialize more on landscape painting, then you have the entire world as your subject. A mere dandelion in the fields could become something beautiful, majestic, and deep. The sight of a wooden shack under the large branches of a giant oak tree could make people laugh and appreciate the scene even more. There are so many things you can do with landscape painting and some tips and tricks can help you paint even better than before.

1) What Your Subject Is

Painting landscapes do not necessarily mean you have to paint everything that you see in the scenario. Refrain from wasting time by painting every single detail that you see in the landscape. Try to adjust and see what really strikes you in your landscape, how it makes you feel as a person living in this world, and how you understand the concept of it all. Choose which elements are strong in the scene before you, and use that to create the painting.

2) Imagination

Like I said before, in painting landscapes you have to use your imagination to make an ordinary landscape scene look original and unique. If you insist on doing everything perfectly alike, then you might as well be a photographer instead. Use your perspective as much as you can and try different ways in making a simple picture of a garden or a mountain look interesting. Using your imagination would give you all kinds of ideas that would make you an even more admirable painter.

3) Give Importance to Position

The landscape can be painted in all sorts of ways. You don’t really have to limit yourself to painting everything in the background to look like a normal landscape. You can always use elements or subject figures in the foreground to add more life to your painting. Try using the rule of thirds in your painting and play with the foreground of the image so that viewers of your painting, especially those with no background in art and painting, would appreciate and enjoy your work.

Being a landscape artist allows you to try out all sorts of possibilities with your work since you have the entire world as your subject. Except for scenes with famous buildings and monuments, try to tweak as many ordinary landscapes as you can and use your imagination to bring out your style as an artist. Don’t hesitate to try out things like buying green paints for the grass and trees, or doing a series of paintings. A lot of buyers of good art would love something that strikes them as unique, out of the ordinary and which catches their attention and the attention of everyone else.

Sebastian Marders loves writing about a variety of things and sharing the website that inspires each piece with his readers. If you would like to browse a selection of cheap fine art supplies, including cheap pre stretched canvas, and the Reeves acrylic paint set, then please visit.

Picassos Blue Period lasted from 1900 to 1904. During this period, he mainly did monochromatic paintings typically with colors like blue and also bluish-green. He did use other warm colors, but it was occasionally done. These paintings happen to be some of the most somber painting done by Picasso in Paris; a Spanish influence is visible in these paintings.

The Blue Period paintings are based on a theme which is melancholy. After the death of his dear friend Casagemas, Picasso was in a state of shock. It was an unnatural death, a suicide. His friend shot himself with a gun. That marked the beginning of Blue Period.

Picasso then was away from his family, unappreciated and unrecognized and also in poverty. He was going through the worst phase of his life and he later explained, “It was thinking about Casagemas that got me started painting in blue.”

The Old Guitarist, one of the finest paintings of Picasso was crafted during this period. It was a true realistic art with every emotion highlighted at its best. Some of the other famous paintings of that period are Portrait of Soler in 1903 and Las Dos Hermanas in 1904.

Picasso has been one of the finest painters on earth and it is difficult to live up to his creations, but we can still aim for it. If you really wish to draw in the same line, you need to follow certain rules that have been a part of Blue Period paintings.

When drawing a panting based on the theme of Blue Period, one should focus on the theme first. Choose a theme, sad, melancholy, sentimental, emotional and realistic. The paintings include characters like beggars, prostitutes and drunkards. The paintings reveal the pain and agony of the subjects involved.

You need to learn that color schemes are the crucial elements of Blue Period paintings. A slightest change in the colors can change the theme of the painting altogether. As said before, Picasso used blue to dark-blue shades. But why of all the colors did he choose blue? It was a deliberate choice as blue to him meant deep and calm, a great significance of despair and misery and intense hopelessness.

The gloomy effect and the state of melancholy can be well depicted by these shades. In some of his paintings you might note abnormality in color schemes, but if you take a look at the luminance you will see it’s perfect. Concentrate on these factors.

If the colors, it is also important to have the characters in place. You might choose to paint any subject, but you need to represent the emotional state of the subject very well, so that the viewer can connect to the feel.

You should have a look at some of the Blue Period paintings before you actually attempt one. Study the paintings and mark the fine lines and the minute detailing that helps in giving a feel to the theme. Other than colors, you need to focus on the subjects, their state of mind and their emotions as well. Make sure you are able to do justice to the Blue Period.

I Askd.com offers a large variety of information - from how to draw to how to draw people.

The development of the frame is inextricably linked to that of architecture.

Frames, whether they are used for paintings, bas-reliefs or mirrors, were designed as integral parts of an architectural space where they often had a harmonizing function against doors and windows.

Not only did the frame design evolve with the evolution of architectural taste, but the frames often changed at the same pace of interior decoration, which in turn changed to respond to the taste of time.

It did not matter if a “Salvador Rosa”- style frame of the eighteenth century was appropriate for a 16th century painting of the Crucifixion, or if a portrait of Velazquez was shown in a Rococo English frame, the paintings have always inadvertently lived in the same environment of a piece of furniture that belonged to a different period and the frame itself was the connecting element of this harmonious coexistence.

Understanding the materials and techniques used in the making of frames is equally important as their proper classification and dating. The work of construction and carving that took place inside a workshop can be found under a decorated surface and is often a unique and distinctive element of a particular historical period and region.

These activities inside a workshop characterized a frame’s style belonging to a particular area and period in a distinctive way, rather than the school’s influences of the same architectural area and historical period.

In no part of the world was this more true as in Italy during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance; a period that was extremely important for the variety of styles in the frames’ production compared to the formal standardization prevailing in any other place and period.

However, for all their decorative richness and unlimited variety of models, the frames in the Italian Renaissance were characterized by a simplicity and efficiency in their structural and ornamental organization, mainly determined by the inherent properties of materials and resources that were used to make the frames.

Furthermore, when talking about the Renaissance Italian frame, we must consider some of the technical problems faced by the artisans of the time as well as the means and procedures they adopted by the same to deal with these.

Early Italian panel paintings carved within their own frame from a single piece of wood. The design was centered on the panel, leaving a border around the perimeter with an internal beveled edge. The practical purpose of this early frame was mainly to protect the painting, as the painter could rest his hand against this border without touching the painting itself.

This same border was then painted, usually red, to isolate the central figure from the surroundings, then gilded and often decorated. Over time the delimitation of the painting became more difficult, given the resources available at that time and considering the increasing sizes of the painting which meant that the quantity of wood to remove grew, the operation became less practical and too expensive.

At the same time it became easier to create mouldings with angles to apply directly to the panels, creating the same result but more efficiently. These strips were shaped according to the geometric profile of the frame continuing along its length, with the decorative function to emphasize the subdivision of the object, or to mediate the transition between two surfaces set at angles, such as the prominent parts.

The mouldings could be smooth or carved with decorations, mainly botanic or geometric motifs. This procedure created a uniform base for the subsequent layers of plaster and isolated the decorated surface of the panel and its frame from movements of the wood. In altarpieces where one panel was often not enough and they needed to glue together several panels, the frame and its elements had the dual function to decorate, but also to support the structure.

In addition, the large altarpieces that were commissioned to an artist living in another city had to be made up of assembled parts that could be taken apart to facilitate transport; and once rebuilt such structures maintained a high tolerance to the movements of natural wood.

The altarpieces were plastered, decorated and then gilded. Such techniques continued to be the norm for the construction and design of frames, especially in Tuscany, through until the middle of the fifteenth century. While in Tuscany the Gothic style remained rather austere, the designers and carvers in the north of Italy felt the French and German influence. It was in Venice itself that for the first time they created a completely independent and self-supporting frame to hold the painted panel. This was the first decisive step towards the modern concept of the frame, built to hold a piece of art, and not as an invisible part of a piece of art.

The Gothic frame was replaced in the second half fifteenth century by the tabernacle frame for private votive images. Some of these frames took inspiration from Brunelleschi drawings.

In Tuscany throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth century the participation by some of the main architects and sculptors in the design and manufacture of frames became more and more frequent. Ecclesiastic architecture always had a decisive influence however, even outside of the religious and liturgical context, the style of painting and the frame evolve through different lines.

The tabernacle frames were used in a private devotional context to contain sacred images, while for secular subjects such as portraits and rural scenes they preferred a different type of frame that had no liturgical reference; for this purpose the so-called “cassetta” frame was born. Its form derived from the tabernacle, but different because it had the same profile on all four sides.

During the Renaissance in Italy the frame which had the greatest success and development was the “Sansovina” frame, which derived its name from the Florentine sculptor Jacopo Sansovino. Nevertheless, this frame became popular in the Veneto region and in particular in Venice. The characteristic that distinguish the “Sansovina” is the profusion of overlapping and intertwining scrolls.

Instead, in Tuscany, the “Tondo” frame became the most representative of that period. The key characteristic of this type of frame is its round form, as well as special features not found in other types of frames; for example, the round form has no axial orientation, leaving the artist free to define the upper and lower parts through decorative elements, or to use continuous decoration, or to impart a sense of rotary movement.

The popularity of this round frame is seen everywhere, in domestic, religious and civic environments, and in the sixteenth century the round became popular even for portraits.

The Renaissance craftsmen were particularly sensitive to the different properties of the various types of wood according to their different structural or decorative uses.

More economic and lower quality wood, like poplar and spruce or pine, were used for secondary frame’s parts, like the back or simple carvings; whereas linden, which is more compact, was used for more complex carvings. These types of lower quality wood were gilded. On the other hand walnut wood, rarer and more expensive, was used on un-gilded frames or parcel-gilt “luminolegno”. Pear wood was often a good substitute for walnut both for its color and for its grain, but also because it was easily accessible.

Towards the middle of the sixteenth century ebony started to be used often embellished with gems. Oak was quite rare in Italian frames, while the chestnut and elm were often used for their structural capability rather than decorative one.

Before being gilded the frame was covered with plaster and bolus, for this reason the carvings were rarely finished in details; frames with large carvings had a layer of yellow bolus on the surface and red bolus on the prominent parts, in fact red bolus created a better effect during the burnishing, therefore it was placed in the most prominent parts. The frame was then gilded with gold-leaf finish on the complete surface, except the under part of the top edge, where yellow bolus was visible, which was very close to the gold colour.

Maselli Frames is an artisan workshop in Florence, Italy

Over the years, online businesses have grown to unbelievable heights. So much in fact that many brick and mortar street stores and vendors are becoming obsolete.

In 2001 the Wall Street Journal reported many mom and pop stores in the optometry market were losing out big to web-based suppliers able to provide similar eyewear at half the cost to consumers, same with the travel industry, where local travel agents gave way to online behemoths such as Expedia and Travelocity. Seven years later, that trend has carried over to other markets such as the wall art industry.

OverstockArt.com, one of the web’s leading producers of reproduction oil paintings, has reported many of its buyers come from brick and mortar art galleries around the West coast. The company believes many of these private buyers turn reproduction work around in their stores for profit.

“It’s often hard to differentiate between one of our art reproductions and the original,” says OverstockArt.com’s Amitai Sasson. “That’s why we outsell a lot of our oil paintings directly to local galleries. Many clients that walk through their doors can’t afford million dollar originals, so they add our art reproductions to their collections, and append a few extra zeroes on the end of the price tag.”

Sasson says he’s not unhappy with the trend, but that consumers shopping in galleries should be aware of the tactic.

“Many of the galleries know that art purchase is emotional, spur of the moment decisions. People fall in love with the painting and take it home. However, it’s always good to check online before making a purchase,” he said, clicking through a list of some 20 or 30 street galleries his company has sold to in the past year.

Many Bush-era economy art connoisseurs are even turning to the online world of reproduction art instead of buying at galleries, simply because the price is good and the product is just like the real thing.

Mary Moon, a resident of Missoula, Montana has turned away from local galleries because gallery prices are just too high to pay right now. “I can buy four or five paintings online for the price of one piece at a local art gallery,” she says. “I’ve seen a lot of originals in person and the reproductions are very, very accurate. Of course they’re not the original, but they’re hand painted, textured and they look great.”

In gallery-style fashion, OverstockArt.com allows buyers to view art in the frame on a wall in cyberspace, and is now offering incentives like eco-friendly frames made from scrap molding and sawdust.

“It’s almost just as good as seeing it in a gallery, you can find the perfect frame to match your selection and you can even read experiences of past purchasers,” he said.

Sasson doesn’t believe the reproduction industry will ever completely take over the gallery market, but companies like Overstock Art will always offer a great alternative, especially when money is tight.

“Some people will always prefer to buy art in their local gallery, simply because it is an emotional buy; however, if they’d take the time and look through online, they might find the same paintings and a much better price,” Sasson states, . “A lot of people just want something that looks great that they can look at everyday and love. That’s what we specialize in – making that happen.”

Amitai Sasson of OverstockArt.com is a renowned art connoisseur on a mission to seek out and explore the beauty and passion of the art world. As an avid enthusiast of oil paintings, he contributes greatly to the industry with his writing. Read more on art and wall decor today!

Lighting a picture safely and effectively is just as much a work of art as a painting itself. It requires a professional understanding of the many nuances that characterizes specific artistic genres. Choosing the correct method and intensity of lighting appropriate to the work constitutes the line of demarcation between amateur art lighting designers and professional picture lighting consultants. This is of critical importance to the serious art collector. Because the value of art continues to increase annually, the importance of protecting works of art has become an equivalent priority to their proper viewing. Picture lighting differs significantly from the illumination of more durable subject matter such as bronze sculptures, crystal, and woodwork. Watercolors and oils, as well as textiles, historical documents, and ancient, painted artifacts will degrade, if not completely disintegrate altogether, if they are exposed to ultraviolet light and infrared heat. The intensity of lighting itself plays a factor in the safe lighting of pictures, documents, and museum pieces. Lumens per annum, a term referring to the cumulative intensity of light over long periods of exposure, can have deleterious effects on colors and canvases. For this reason, museums such as the Smithsonian institute configure their low voltage lighting systems with occupancy sensors that turn off the lights when special works are not being viewed. This specialized method of regulating both the exposure to light and its intensity are used to preserve documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Often, the sophisticated lighting systems go beyond the demands of the home collector. Generally speaking, highly popular, self-installing, over the picture lights are not recommended. In spite of their ability to evenly distribute illumination over the surface of a painting, the type of lighting they produce will severely damage or destroy the painting over time. This is because over the picture lights utilize incandescent or halogen lamps that generate infrared heat. This raises the surface temperature of the piece and causes the oil to crack. Since moisture content is a critical factor to the integrity of oil paint, constant heating and cooling of oil will result in moisture loss and disintegration of the oil’s constituency. One way to combat this is to minimize the wattage of picture lighting lamps and to extend the arm away from the surface of the painting to reduce radiant, forward heat. Some artwork lights even come designed this way, having long arms that extend the light out from the canvas and more evenly distribute it from top to bottom without creating a hot spot near the source.

An much more effective method of picture lighting uses recessed low voltage halogen accent lights mounted in the ceiling above the painting. The housing traps the majority of the heat, allowing only the beam spread to reach the canvas. Sophisticated fixtures such as the MR16 light source use dichroic reflectors that send the heat out of the back of the lamp. This creates a completely heatless form of home picture lighting and is well worth the additional equipment costs when one considers the preservative value it brings in return. Additionally, these lamps are designed with small aperture trims that minimize glare and eliminate distracting “white spots” that over the picture lighting is notorious for creating. Our professional consultants precisely adjust these lights to dispel frame shadows that often result from angle of incidence. This is a problem that many people who attempt picture lighting on their own often have difficulty solving. It requires professional science to correctly aim angles to avoid casting a shadow when beam spread contacts the surface of a traditional frame. Likewise, glare is caused by glass, varnish, or other reflective surfaces from that originates from often-indeterminable sources above eye level. Lighting designers know how to pinpoint these problem areas and make the necessary adjustments to resolve the issue.

For those interested in the most superb technology and least obtrusive form of picture lighting, the Art Projector is by far the best method of illuminating art. Art projectors install in the ceiling, assuming a position above eye level and normally remaining unnoticed by visitors to the room. An Art Projector lights a picture by casting a finely tuned spread of light over the surface of the painting. The beam itself remains invisible until it reaches the subject, where it shapes itself to meet the exact contour of the artwork and creates a “lighted from within” effect. Most professional art galleries prefer to use Art Projectors for picture lighting because of their near invisible presence and the special lighting effects they create that no other technology is able to duplicate.

Illuminations Lighting and Design multi-specializes in all forms of art lighting and maintains an outstanding reputation among residential, corporate and professional galleries throughout Houston and Greater Texas. Visit http://www.illuminationslighting.com/picture_lighting.htm and http://www.illuminationslighting.com