How to paint like the Old Masters using modern materials
I saw an Old Masters Academy’s student’s feedback, where she shows her before and after portraits, so I decided to share my progress as well. …
Thank you for the course and above all for explaining how to mix paints more efficiently; it was a big challenge for me, as I often mixed wrong colors and wasted a lot of paint.
I’m thirty-seven years old and a mum of two. My life is full of domestic duties and obligations. I also work part time in a nursery. What could be more routine than my life? I do love my family and my work, but honestly speaking, I had expected a different life for myself. …
…At my lowest point, a friend of mine from the college gave me a book titled Better Than College. This book has changed my life. I took it as guidance. I stopped playing the victim and started to find alternatives to college. One day, I stumbled upon the Old Masters Academy website. There, I realized that what I really want to do is not illustration but classical oil painting. This was a big shift in my understanding of art.
As a child, I had art lessons, and afterwards our family friend taught me to paint in oils. He was a good painter, but the techniques he used and taught me were very different from what I saw in museums. …
… Shortly after enrolling in the Old Masters Academy online painting course, my approach in oil painting started to shift. I no longer paint in all-prima. Even though this technique is fast and straightforward, I want to attain in my paintings a different feel, which is only achievable with multiples glazes. I’m still learning. It takes much longer to make one portrait with this new technique I learned in the Old Masters Academy, but the result is worth it. …
… I always thought that oil painting is for the professionals. That’s why I have never even tried to paint. A few years ago I bought a set of twelve oil paints and got ready to paint canvases of various sizes, but I never touched them, as I had no idea how to start painting. They were put aside in the garage till the right moment, and every time I saw them I felt guilty. …
… I am especially proud of myself that I managed combine my college study (my parents insisted on me getting the BPharm degree) with learning painting online. …
This is an old painting. I painted it two years ago as a gift to my daughter, who is depicted together with her newborn.
I must admit I do not have enough discipline to do all the exercises from the Old Masters Academy course. I skipped some of the exercises on color theory — I wanted to paint my children and grandchildren straight away — that’s why I started from painting technique lessons. …
