THE ART WORLD

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LETTERS, EMAILS AND COMMENTS

Painting holiday FAQs

Richard Pikesley, The Artist painting holiday tutor, answers some of your queries about joining a painting holiday

A painter’s journey

The path to becoming a successful artist is not always straightforward – Paul Brown shares his personal journey in the hope that it will inspire you not to lose hope

ART BOOKS

The regularity with which flower painting books appear

OPPORTUNITIES & COMPETITIONS

Check out the latest competitions to enter and make a note of important deadlines

PaintersOnline editor’s choice

Meet this month’s editor’s choice winner from our PaintersOnline gallery

CHARLES WILLIAMS’ MUSINGS

Manet and Cézanne

Portrait study in oil

David Curtis explains his technique for obtaining a likeness with a demonstration of his son in oil

Winter stream

Paul Talbot-Greaves reveals how to use layers of acrylic to add interest to a featureless landscape, in five easy stages

Enjoy success with interior scenes

Amanda Hyatt shows how to simplify interior subjects and shares her top ten tips as she demonstrates how to paint an interior scene in watercolour

Pastel basics

In the first of three articles, Robert Brindley discusses the merits of painting with pastels, including advice on basic techniques, and demonstrates a simple pastel landscape

DECEMBER

In the last article in this series, Geoff Hunt works up a studio painting from a plein-air sketch

Lips

Kathy Barker continues her series on portraiture by taking you through the basics of painting lips – including what to look for in terms of shape, colours and teeth

Why pattern is important

Capture your viewers’ attention by introducing pattern when designing your paintings, as Bob Brandt explains

Irises

Soraya French finds plenty of inspiration from irises – as she says, their shapes and colours provide an ideal opportunity to explore different compositions in vibrant mixed media

Developing an idea

Michele Del Campo documents a recent narrative composition from original concept to completion as he works through the various stages of the painting

The colours of winter

Paul Weaver finds the fluid nature of watercolour perfect for capturing the subtle greys and soft atmosphere of fog, mist and rain as he demonstrates here, with suggestions for mixing the perfect grey for your needs

Landscape layers

Robert Dutton explains how Royal Talens’ Amsterdam Photo Transfer Gel helped create new exciting directions and a more abstract approach in his mixed-media paintings