IF you watch the entire video you will hear me say that I am NOT against blending at all. I just advise my own students who are using my method (and there are 100s of ways to paint, all valid) to hold off on blending until the canvas is covered (for the object you are painting). So lay in your paint, before you start "fixing" and blending. I also say that you may not decide to blend at all, leaving things unblended entirely - OR if you wish blend away - but cover the canvas first. But many artists that I love do leave things unblended. But this just my personal taste.
I always pick up things I've missed when re-watching your video. I bought your "How to paint Realism Video" recently. I need to re-watch them again before setting in on the DMP Method. Thanks for sharing your knowledge of painting realism with us.
excellent video, down to earth ,and seeing the paintings at a museum ,i knew exactly what you where talking about, many paintings at museums are beautiful and detail and the metal tea pots are to die for, an as you get closer they look like messy buttery ,heavy brush strokes excellent video !!
Exactly, that is your personal taste to not blend, but for those of us that do, it does take work to blend and make it look for what it should. No one will tell me how to paint, that isn't your job. Your way is messy looking and takes too much paint and just not satisfying enough. Again, my take on it. If, anyone, wishes to be a good artist, then take the time to learn how to do things the long way, the hard way, so u learn to respect how much work goes into something. Then, if, u want to be more slack, do it this way, but I just couldn't do it like this, sorry. I take more pride in my work than this and some people get too caught up in the "teaching", that the power gets to them. Not all want to paint like you do. Enjoy ur painting but don't try to tell people, entirely how to do it.
Mercury Thunder it’s not about not taking pride in the work, a huge part of getting things “right” is being able to see how color works. This technique focuses on contrast, temperature, intensity and hue. Color theory is about relationships and compositions hinge on the visual balance of how contrast, and that of color in this case, plays a huge roll. It’s not about going further later to refine and dial-in specifics, but overworking what could be shapes of shifting values can de emphasize the gorgeous qualities of what makes great paintings work.
When I first started painting, I was using gouache and I used to blend everything, then I switched to acrylics and this time I couldn't blend at all, so I started using more and more tones, which lead to better paintings in general. Then I switched to oils and started painting with the mindset that I was still using acrylic paints and the results are better than I could've hoped for
@@nguyenphuonganh4453 I don't really try to blend in gouache mine would get overworked and the layer would get reactivated, rn I'm trying to get used to treating it like acrylic
@Joan Goldsmith at that point I haven't even touched colours yet, yet alone paints, I always liked drawing in graphite and paint was a completely new medium at the moment
Idk how, but I find ways to blend acrylics without even realizing it. Lmao, I also really only use acrylics when I have art block so really I just throw paint onto a random page in my sketchbook and see where it takes me.
I've always admired people who can achieve realism with rough strokes. I know someone who can do that digitally. I myself am a blender, but coincidentally recently started breaking away from the habit. Also, watching other great artists who are kind enough to share their wisdom on RU-vid, I've only just now learned to let go of wanting everything I make perfect. The drawing I'm absolutely most proud of, is one where I kept telling myself that it's just practice and that it's okay to fail.
"The whole point of this exercise is to finish with a very ugly painting that you hate, but your values are right" - he said this like those drunk people at bars trying to impart their philosophy in a wise way😄 but I loved his advice and think he is so right and it is freeing to approach painting like this. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
...oh, I was going to add: ...and the reverse is true too. and then your comment below, Paul Noel, it brought me back to painting and I have to think how does my reversal of the axiom work?! "People are too easy to get into the details and ignore the whole." to "People are too easy to get into the whole and ignore the details." Which, if I may say so is probably what I'd have been telling a young Sargent and I was his teacher. Think of all the masterpieces we'd have missed out on if Sargent felt compelled to refine the details. There is a lot of mastery with the hint. That's why I do say Sargent was daring - like that young girls face when Mark was saying how hard it feels not to go and correct it...because Sargent went almost too far and we are forced to take it or leave it...and who could leave the beauty that he showed us.
A tip for beginners (I wish someone taught me this when I was starting out). Learn warm and cool colors. This really helped me after I finally figured it out. Just know that there are warms and cools of every color. i.e. there are cool yellows and warm blues. PS, if you know this already no need to comment. Also learn the pigment database numbers, so you don't waste money on "false" tubed colors. Personally I mix my own colors from pigments.
Yes! I just started painting, but I’ve never really taken an art class or learned color theory. As soon as I started paying attention to the colors I was mixing and using, it changed my realism dramatically
Salkis Re The color database is a collection of colors based on the RGB (Red Green Blue) color model It provides a way to specifically identify and number a huge predefined set of colors as well as over 100 different grays. For example the universal code for black is 0,0,0 in RGB. Not to make things more complicated but these can be converted to hex codes, CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Key(black)) codes and numerous others. Do a google search and I’m sure you’ll find some more info. Basically the color database provides a way to name colors as well as provide a universal way for them to be replicated without trial and error. Hope that helps!
Winona Wins Let me see if I can give you a quick uber simplified version of this theory. Th OP wasn’t saying to add blue to make the yellow cooler. You'll definitely want to grab a pen for this! Basically you can split the color wheel into 2 categories, warm colors and cool colors. Warm colors would include yellow, red, orange while the cool side would be blue, green, and magenta. Now take your paper and draw a large circle that takes up majority of the paper. Then draw a horizontal line that exceeds the sides of the circle splitting it in half. Now draw a vertical line that exceeds the edges through the center so you now have 4 equal quadrants. At the point of your vertical line label it Yellow. Moving clockwise label the next point from your horizontal line Red. Bottom of the vertical line is Blue the the last point Green. Now draw a circle on both sides of every line, a total of 8. Still with me? Now on each quadrant you want to mix the two colors closest to eachother two times, once with one of the point colors being dominant and then the opposite being dominant. For example if you took the quadrant between yellow and green the first color would be a more dominant yellow green and placed in the circle closest to yellow. The second would be a more greenish yellow and placed in the circle closest to green. Do this with the rest of the quadrants and you should end up with something like this (wish I would have found this before all the explaining!) www.justpaint.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Color-Circle-Split-Primary.jpg The warm colors are yellow and red, and any mixtures with the dominant color leaning toward one of those would be considered warm. There can be cool and warm colors of varying shades as shown on the greenish yellow (cool) and yellowish green (warm). This is obviously a simplified, very simplified model but I hope it helps!!
I'm a digital artist and I notice I tend to over blend. I admire other people's work (traditional and digital) who are able to use their brushstrokes economically. The texture in those pieces are so interesting. I want to incorporate that into my own pieces. So, even though this is meant for oil/ traditional painting, I definitely want to do this excercise. Thank you for making this video! it was extremely interesting and inspiring.
I struggle with over blending too in digital. I have been recently experimenting with brush settings that force me to not blend, like brushes that have hardly any transparency controlled by pen pressure, almost completely opaque or 100% opaque. It's tough on my eyes when i start out but it seems to work once I get used to it.
I’ve looked at a lot of paintings and wondered where I went wrong all the time, and it’s just my tendency to over blend from beginning to end hhh TT this video rlly opened my eyes
Thank you for encouraging us to paint “ugly.” My paintings look like photos as I must have some OCD to over blend. Will try to leave brushstrokes on my paintings from now on.
Just because you overblend doesn't mean that you have OCD. Coming from a sufferer of severe OCD that has now caused me 6 months of daily compulsions and crippling anxiety, don't use our disorder to describe something that you do when you don't have it.
@@phub4386 ppl say lines like i must be blind cause i couldn't see it, doesnt mean they are insulting blind ppl. Even obsessing over a lover is called OCD. There are different levels and types of OCD. People are too sentimental and defensive for no reason. No one is making fun of OCD so y come out so rude??
@@phub4386 obsessing over perfectionism is ocd so that is how ppl link perfectionism with ocd. For me it started out with perfectionism with art now i have started obsessing over it. I start having anxiety and insomnia if i make a mistake while painting and lose sleep over it. 🙃dont take ocd and compare it with others and evaluate how much ocd affect ppl. Not everyone has severe OCD. Just bcause someone has OCD doesnt mean everyone else who has it is to have the same symptom. Dont make a disorder into a cult, it makes it difficult for people with mild OCD or starting out OCD people fearful or scared because yall act so defensive and sensitive.
One of my biggest faults as a self taught artist, I do tend to want to see the painting look as good up close as it does from a distance. The result is that it ends up looking good close up but undefined and lacking depth from a distance. Still trying very hard to break this habit and step back more often as I paint. Thanks for making video as it certainly helped me to understand why I do it and understanding is the first step towards fixing a problem.
Thank you for bringing this up, I noticed the same thing on the books I have from the old masters.... and then I see modern "realist" paintings and they are almost too realistic that they look like photos and not paintings, they also look less mysterious or elegant and I always tried to figure out what it is! I think this is it, the old masters of realism made "paintings" that look real, not exact photographs, and it is my philosophy that human beings create a bond more with a non-human thing. For example, we see "photos" of people in pain or about war all the time, yet, they people ignore them, but if those same images were a "painting" its a different story. People like to see other people through a sort of "glass" that's why they go to movies..... yet all that its proyected in movies or even art, we can see on the street. So even with realist paintings I enjoy more seeing paintings that look real, but within a "painting" not those perfected ones that get confused for a photograph. My goal is to pain "ugly"..... ! like you said, thank you for taking the time to do this video.
I think this really depends on what kind of art you make and especially what kind of paint you use. Old great artists often used oil paint for their realistic paintings. Oil paint takes a very long time to dry, so you can easily still blend when you added paint to the whole canvas already. However, when you use acrylic paint or aquarell paint, which dries very fast, you have to decide what parts you want blended and what not quite early. I'm not an expert, just a hobby-artist, but this is my view on this topic.
This is probably the most valuable lesson I've ever heard in relation to painting and it's something I wasn't even aware I was doing. I've had a real problem with my work looking flat and lacking texture and I'm certain this is why. I definitely overblend and I get too focused on individual elements early on instead of the overall consistency of the image/values. Thanks so much, you don't find this sort of info in a book.
He said it himself, because they were painting from life. When we look at a photograph we can see all the details and tend to get caught up however back then they only had life to learn from
They had to paint quick to sell quick and buy more wine.... before it rained or the sun set or the boat took on water....and then they saw that it was popular and interesting
The best tips I got from my life drawing lecturer: "You don't paint IN the details; you paint OUT the details." and "You need to step back and LOOK at the model/painting. I mean REALLY look at it. Step back further." - I had a habit of immediately starting with detailing the piece I was working on, because, I had worked mostly with mechanic pencils, or, inks with fine tips. The problem with this was that I'd overwork certain areas, and I didn't really look at the figure as a WHOLE; therefore, the overall painting/drawing was rarely consistent.
Excellent advice. I recall reading about how Sargent constantly walked backwards and forwards, to and from the canvas, so that he could view what he'd done close to AND from a distance.
One of the best advice I got in a painting class, when I got to involved and carried aways with detail was , use your 8' brush...that's the real secret to good art. If it doesn't look right 8' away it's a failure.
I cannot thank you enough for making this video! I followed your instruction and the next day, I "allowed" myself to paint an ugly painting. To my surprise, it turned out to be one of my favorite paintings I've ever done! Since then, I have created many more and some are better than others, but they are always better when I follow the instruction in this video. Again, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!
This is very good advice I noticed when painting with gouache if I don't have my colors all down I can't add more layers or it'll get real weird -- with oils I think the super blended stuff can muddy things
I think it's fascinating. I look at old paintings from centuries ago that are painted in that style. My mind can't process sometimes how this sloppy style can result in such a cool painting. It's like magic and my mind is blown. :D
You just fixed my entire life... this feels like such obvious advice but I'd never worked this way or been told to work this way before, and I can't believe how much it improved my paintings!
Good advice, thank you. I recently did a (digital) still life of some fruit on a table. I spent like forty minutes blending and tweaking the grapes on the table, and then another hour smoothing out and tweaking the other fruits I was painting. After I took my nose away from the monitor after a few hours of hard work, I realized that my grapes were a cartoon purple, instead of the light cherry red they actually should have been, and that my shadows were flat across all the grapes, instead of varied like they should've been. Looking at the painting as a whole is common sense, but it's very easy to forget. You and a few other kind artists who share their knowledge on youtube have nudged me into ordering some oil paints. I'll keep your good advice in mind when I try my first oil painting. Thanks again for all your videos. Very nice of you to share. Cheers. =)
Sadky I am so conditioned to focus on details first that despite knowing about proper color blocking I am almost never using it, because working on the details first is so tempting! It's really hard to unlearn that habit, once you have internalized it so well, so I recommend newbies to avoid it as much as possible and start with the proper technique instead. Your works and especially your progress will be so much better, I promise. Because of my shitty habit I still can't judge values and colors well even after years of practicing (and i did my practice very wrong also), so let that be a lesson.
Thank you SO MUCH for all that you share. I'll need to rewatch them over and over again for full absorption . You're a great communicator and a wonderfully generous soul!
I just took an oil painting class in my town and I was frustrated because I just wasn't getting it. Now I come across this video by chance and I get it! Loud and clear! Great explanations. Thank you!
Your videos, method, and supplies make it possible for me to be a much better artist. Thanks for being such a great teacher! I have learned to trust you and your method.
Great comment to place all values of entire painting before blending. It really makes sense to do that then stand back to see what's needed. Really like this approach,thanks. Jim
I’m so guilty of blending. I want to go for the painterly look. I think you encapsulated, in one 12 minute video, on how I can do this. Can hardly wait to get started. Thank you.
this is such solid advice, I've always had an issue with how muddy my work looks because I over blend to the nines! I also add detail in the beginning which I've learned is something you should savor for last! Thank you for your tips and videos! I need to make a piece that I absolutely hate now ;)
One of the most valuable lessons here. Picking back up oils after years away, I will take this to heart and my first new painting I will def use this approach. Such a useful tool! Thanks Mark
I just love this guys teaching methods he's the only person I feel a connection with, all the other tutorials on RU-vid have lost me after 2 min of viewing
Excellent point an excellent examples. This video nailed it imo and for me came at the perfect time as I just finished penciling my still life and really struggle with blending. I had every intention of this being my most beautiful painting but instead will use it for this exercise. One point you made really stuck out to me and it was regarding painting from a photo. I find when drawing or painting from a photo I get absorbed by the detail where as when I work from life not so much. I will do this exercise and post it to the forum. Thanks for your time and this video.
Thanks very much. It took listening to a fellow Texan to awaken me to the fact that I have literally destroyed the last 46 years worth of my assertive brushwork through blending and then over painting. I taught Oil Painting for 28 years and helped launch a lot of good artists into the world of art making and have retired to my studio. Grateful for these few minutes of excellent advise that remind me that my first painting was my finest! Haha! Onward and thanks again Los
I want to thank you for such a helpful advice! even tho I use digital art as a medium, (painting in photoshop) this tip was super helpful! my values are never accurate because of blending, and it frustrates me to no end as no one was able to explain what I wanted to hear, nor did they understand what problems I was having. B/C of letting my value go loose I was able to see the over all image better and the end product looks complete and not muddy and there was no blend needed!
Thanks for this... I'm in the habit of sitting inches from my painting, for hours on end, and forgetting to get up to stand back and have a look at it periodically. It causes me more hours of trying to get it perfect then is needed.
Overblending is as much about making sure you have the correct color and value to begin with. If those two things aren't correct, you're left with three choices: remove the stroke, leave the stroke or blend it. Most of us simply can not just 'leave it'.
Not Known I only took 1 painting class but im am more of an illustrator and printmaker. I am relearning painting now, I love these videos and seeing all the tips and having feedback from painters. I have tons of respect for fellow artists and am grateful that everyone is on here, where would we be without RU-vid?
Well said, hytte majer :D .... I just bought four student-quality stretched canvasses .... going to see if I can do as well on them as I have been on cardboard and styrofoam board. Very frustrating to screw up on better quality material, and produce 'masterpieces' on junk. I'm cursed :(
Incredible info that you can glean from and incorporate into your art - no matter what the style or subject. I highly recommend Mark’s lessons -especially his colour mixing.
I LOVE Mark's videos - informative, generous, inspiring, practical. But this video doesn't say why blending is bad; it only shows why it's not necessary for a realist effect (citing Sargent). As a fan of highly rendered art (Ingres, Bouguereau, Marvin Mattelson), I'll throw out why OVER-blending is bad: (1) if you have two adjacent areas of different values and you over-blend, you destroy the value separation, weakening the 3-dimensional illusion. (see Mark's video on letting white paint creep into your shadows causing the same problem) (2) same with color - if you over-blend two adjacent patches of different colors, you combine the colors into one and lose the color variation, making for a less interesting painting, and in the case of human skin, less realistic skin tones. Painting alla prima, blending is particularly risky for that reason. I paint in layers myself, so I try to get the color variation with successive layers of translucent paint interacting, rather than trying to mix the 'perfect' color in one go, as would be needed with pure alla prima painting.
matt ellrod I agree with your comment. The problem is there is virtually NO advice or instruction on how to blend anywhere on the net or on RU-vid except for a useful video by Florent Farges.
Omg yesss haha I know I'm so late to the game but even as someone who tries to paint in a detailed, realistic way it is so important not to overblend, to "make it pretty"! I work with watercolour and yess it's better to layer targeted areas than to "blend", it gives really clean, bright colours.
I was a over blender when I was starting at watercolor. I still have a little of that habbit but I think its getting better. I love to see a video about it!
Such an insightful teacher. I've only been painting for a few years and I'm learning a lot from your videos. The more I paint, the more your videos are helping me. Thank you so much
Golden advice there, Mark. Thank you again. Also, I have a question. i've been always struggling with flowers. Specifically the petal order. I can draw a sketch of a flower without a problem, but once I use oil paint, I lose my ability to discern petals from each other, and they all end up misplaced, regardless of my values being almost perfectly correct. Are there any tips on painting flowers, because my mother really loves flower oil paintings, and I wish I could paint some for her.
+Phantom Zephyr Ⓥ I´m not an expert but I think your problem comes from contrast. Contrast is what differences one petal from the other. Check this website, it might help you: www.craftsy.com/blog/2014/09/how-to-paint-flower-petals/
+Phantom Zephyr Ⓥ Difficult to say without seeing your work, but generally most students tend to use far too much paint, applying it with too much impasto. This creates a thick mushy layer that is very hard for beginning painters to handle. I suggest using full-bodied paint, in VERY SMALL amounts, applying it very thinly, just enough to fully cover the canvas. You should NOT see virtually any brushstrokes as you go along, as you are using such little paint and are applying it with great control. I also recommend using small round brushes and working finely. A student must master the brushwork and the nature of the oil paints at a fine level first. Once accomplished, the leap to working more broadly is much more easily attained. Hope this helps. :)
Perceiving the correct value of something that has very intense color (high chroma), as with flowers, is difficult. If you work from photos turn it black and white to see the true value of the color. And step back from your work often to see if you are losing the values as you paint (perhaps by over-blending).
This helps very much, Tractus Intentio. NOW I see that I was more or less trying to BUILD the flower. Ah, yes, so obviously WAS overblending as I tried to push that paint around. And then my petals were misshapen if shape persisted at all and when all was lost to remove the excess with a trowel, and start over. I was actually thinking of, in cartoon form when the old couple to up to a Sargent. and she says, "See, I told you it was a paint by number!" This becomes more funny as time goes on and we see how distinct blocks of color IS the task and solution at hand. And for Sargent to "keep stepping far from the painting" I said, he was squinting and asking himself "Just how damned detailed do I have to get??!! And so that master knew when he captured the essence and he would let you squint too and see the beauty and the daring.
I love the look of looser brushwork up close and in the style of the old masters. Those paintings are so beautiful in their own right and I appreciate the traditional method of applying color, but I don't think creating a really polished painting with great detail is necessarily bad. Isn't it a matter of taste? Times move forward, other styles evolve... My background is colored pencil but I've fallen in love with oils recently so breaking my usual habits, would be so hard! However, I can appreciate both styles and whilst I'm still a newbie, I think for the moment I will continue to practice a more modern approach. This is very interesting though - quite a skill in itself. New subscriber here so thanks for uploading your videos 😊
Rachel Blackwell But with colored bencil you have no choice but to blend to achieve realism there's even a pencil that is a colorless blender painting it's not so sometimes less is more sometime it's the overall piece and not any specific nuance that deserves attention but it is all preference beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I will! Txs for being so clear on this. Your perseverance in transmitting these basic trues in order to let us amateurs develop and discover true beauty - not perfection - is admirable. You instruct like you paint. No messing around but to the point and clearcut. Txs!!!
@@ankitparkhe2773 Have you found out yet? There are some old videos about the color checker and how to make one and use one on this channel (posted 7 years ago).
That actually is a good idea! I've mostly painted with pastels this year, but recently decided to have another goal at oils. Because I was blending less with pastels, I blended less (still too much) with oils.
Sir, I would love to watch your videos from the very beginning. Please advise. I also did not understand the Colour checker. I Guess if I watched from the very first video I shall be able to follow your method accurately
Thank you so much for this!!!! I’ve been watching your videos for a while now and you’re such a great teacher. I’ve been taking visual arts for years now and I’ve never been taught this. I’ve always overblended and focused on the painting looking ‘pretty’ but I now know better. Thank you!!!!! So much!!
Here is possibly one of the most sincere open and honest teachers I have come across. I have taught, and been taught , I have an MFA and though I primarily teach plein air landscape painting I have used his approach for many years . There is no ego in his approach as he is secure in his own skin. A willingness to share everything he knows is the overall message. It's nice to see young people come along with such willingness to share
i had never heard of one of these either, but just looked it up b/c i wondered the same thing. he has another video talking about color checkers, it was linked to from the manufacturer actually: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TuZ0t5FR9f0.html
I've been doing a portrait and Im glad I came across this video. I get worried about blending. But it shows so much more personality in this type of painting.
This is what I've been trying to articulate for a while, I always hated photo realism paintings and gravitated towards thick brush strokes that give the illusion of perfection from a distance, it's the whole point of a painting
Your instruction was just put into action, this past week! What a difference!! AND I think I was more in more “control” of the whole image. Blending, as one paints, seems to increase mistake making and redoes...also, blending as I painted, would reveal heavily worked spots on the canvas. I couldn’t get past these issues until this past week! Thank you for sharing!
I love this video because this literally puts into words what I am struggling with... I do realism but I always thought it was "too perfect" (now I know the term is over blended).. when try to explain to others in the past they dont get it
