This is simply a list of things said , read or heard that I have found useful as a practitioner and teacher.
Painting
Wipe oil brushes with rags, don’t rinse in turps. Colour is cleaner if brushes are wiped, even if paint remains in brush.
Use a soft brush to paint wet in to wet. Bristle brushes will plow up wet paint
Use a limited palette.
Develop a system for laying out and mixing colour on the palette
If in trouble seek simple oppositions – warm /cool ,dark/ light.
Keep your darks thin and your lights thick
Don’t change shape, tone and hue at the same time ( keep the shape , change the colour etc)
When you move from one area to its neighbour, perhaps recording one form then another consider a link of colour or tone. Think about linking not isolating passages of colour and tone.
Value the slightest mark in a study if you are using to scale it up, say from a drawing to a painting. The entire surface of the study is important
Paint small objects from a distance so you don’t get dragged into unnecessary detail
Look for the big shapes in what you are painting because they often make the painting work.
Seek surprising views of your paintings - mirrors are useful
Sargent’s painting advice
Painting is an interpretation of tone.
Keep the planes free and simple, drawing a full brush down the whole contour of a cheek.
Always paint one thing into another and not side by side until they touch.
The thicker your paint—the more your colour flows.
Simplify, omit all but the most essential elements—values, especially the values. You must clarify the values.
The secret of painting is in the half tone of each plane, in economizing the accents and in the handling of the lights.
You begin with the middle tones and work up from it so that you deal last with your lightest lights and darkest darks, you avoid false accents.
Paint in all the half tones and the generalized passages quite thick.
It is impossible for a painter to try to repaint a head where the understructure was wrong.
Painting
Wipe oil brushes with rags, don’t rinse in turps. Colour is cleaner if brushes are wiped, even if paint remains in brush.
Use a soft brush to paint wet in to wet. Bristle brushes will plow up wet paint
Use a limited palette.
Develop a system for laying out and mixing colour on the palette
If in trouble seek simple oppositions – warm /cool ,dark/ light.
Keep your darks thin and your lights thick
Don’t change shape, tone and hue at the same time ( keep the shape , change the colour etc)
When you move from one area to its neighbour, perhaps recording one form then another consider a link of colour or tone. Think about linking not isolating passages of colour and tone.
Value the slightest mark in a study if you are using to scale it up, say from a drawing to a painting. The entire surface of the study is important
Paint small objects from a distance so you don’t get dragged into unnecessary detail
Look for the big shapes in what you are painting because they often make the painting work.
Seek surprising views of your paintings - mirrors are useful
Sargent’s painting advice
Painting is an interpretation of tone.
Keep the planes free and simple, drawing a full brush down the whole contour of a cheek.
Always paint one thing into another and not side by side until they touch.
The thicker your paint—the more your colour flows.
Simplify, omit all but the most essential elements—values, especially the values. You must clarify the values.
The secret of painting is in the half tone of each plane, in economizing the accents and in the handling of the lights.
You begin with the middle tones and work up from it so that you deal last with your lightest lights and darkest darks, you avoid false accents.
Paint in all the half tones and the generalized passages quite thick.
It is impossible for a painter to try to repaint a head where the understructure was wrong.
