Category: Minilessons

PAINTING LESSONS WITH MARLA FAQ Special Thanks to our Facebook Moderator, Donna Berkley, for putting this FAQ together!   FREE RESOURCES   Q.  Do you have any free resources for pastel artists? Absolutely!  Check out the free mini-lessons on my

I’m a firm believer in planning out your paintings and creating thumbnails before diving into a larger, finished piece. They are one of the keys to successful painting and being consistent. But, one of the more frustrating things about painting

The thing about acrylics is that they are so easy and hassle free to use and at the same time offer up so many possibilities! This seems paradoxical of course. How could it be that something so simple is also

You can do little pencil or ink drawings as reference and practice sketches but if you really want to prepare yourself for handling various subjects and conditions in watercolor, get out your paints! Don’t try to capture too much detail

The visual world offers up infinite variety and challenges to the representational artist. Our imaginations pale next to natures’ variety! We have to choose, edit and compare. Before you can even put pen to paper, brush to canvas you have

I really believe anyone can learn to paint if you can hold a brush or a pastel and you can learn to see sensitively. It’s not about talent and it’s definitely not about having all the right stuff! Fact: your

I’ll bet there isn’t an art instructor that hasn’t spent some time preaching the benefits of doing thumbnail sketches and most students resist them. Why do we preach and why do students resist? Well let’s talk about the resistance first.

Sunrise is filled with promise. Sunset is often a time of reflection. Each carries its own poetry, emotion and opportunity for expression. But is there a difference other than the significance we let our minds attach to them? Technically, no!

Roads are arteries connecting us to one another. Without them, we’d be isolated from one another! They have meaning to us as we travel them to visit places near and far. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is just

So much of oil painting is mixing. Accurately mixing color depends on seeing color accurately. We need the right surface to mix color on. We also need to have a surface that allows us to mix paint to the proper