Understanding Hue, Value and Chromatic Intensity.  By Don Finkeldei.   We’ve all heard about hue, value and chromatic intensity but one thing most instructors don’t talk about is how these color properties relate in a well executed painting.

What You Should Know About Oil Paints.  By Don Finkeldei This article is about the qualities and properties of paint ,student grade vs. artist grade, unexpected results of mixing paint with different properties, mixing different brands of paint, and transparent vs. opaque.

Everything You Need to Know about Color and Light.  By Don Finkeldei.  A short, concise, and to the point explanation for a lot of things you didn't know.

Composition and Selection:  by Don Finkeldei.  There are many more factors to consider in composition than arrangement and balance of objects on a canvas.  Here's how to maximize the effectiveness of your painting.

Composition:  The Golden Ratio.  By Don Finkeldei.  The golden ratio has been used by architects, mathematicians, sculptors and painters for thousands of years.   The Ratio is  1.618 but how do I use it in art today without being a mathematician?  Here’s how.

The Art of Creating a Sense of Depth and Recession.  By: Don Finkeldei.  There are many factors that one should keep in mind to help build a sense of depth and recession in a landscape painting.

Glossary of Terms Used by Artists: By Don Finkeldei:  A glossary of terms used in art for beginning artists.

Video: Preparing a Limited Palette with pre-mixed Grays by Don Finkeldei.  Learn how to use a limited palette and pre-mix your own grays for each painting.  Click on th efull screen toggle at the lower right of the video to make the movie full screen. 

The Best Types of Oil Painting Canvas and Boards to paint on.  By Don Finkeldei.  A ranking of surfaces by the quality, paint handling characteristics, edge control and absorbency.

Making Canvas Boards  for Oil Painting.   By Don Finkeldei.  I use oil primed linen glued to masonite or board for paintings less than 24"x24".  In this article, I describe how I make them.

The Simplicity of a Limited Palette Approach to Painting.  By Don Finkeldei.  An overview of the concepts of a limited palette with premixed neutral and warm grays.

How to Mix Grays for Use with a limited Palette:  by Don Finkeldei.  This article describes how I premix warm and cool grays for use with my limited palette.

Limited Palette Methodology: By Don Finkeldei:  A structured way of thinking in terms of   temperature, value, hue and saturation using gray moderators. 

Advantages of a Limited Palette with Gray Moderators: By Don Finkeldei.  Using  primary colors of Red, yellow and blue with gray's mixed from the primaries makes painting simpler and easier to understand because it forces you  to learn the basics of mixing hue, value and intensity of chroma (color). 

Using Grays in your Oil Painting.  By Don Finkeldei.  How to achieve harmony, balance and reserve in your oil painting by pre-mixing grays from the primary colors.

How to Judge Values in Oil Painting.  By Don Finkeldei.  One of the hardest things for an artist to do is develop a natural  ability to judge values in a  plein air landscape scene and then translate that value to the canvas.

Painting Sky and Clouds.  By Don Finkeldei.  Some tips and rules to paint a realistic sky and clouds.

Painting with a limited Palette using the three primary colors.  By Don Finkeldei.  Using a limited palette to paint has many advantages.  Learn how I paint using only the three primary colors (and a couple variations when needed).

 Slide Show of a Painting in Progress.  By Don Finkeldei.  This is a slide show of how I progress through a painting from initial drawing to laying in the paint. 

Evaluating Values in Photoshop.  By Don Finkeldei.  How to evaluate values in your painting by using Photoshop to turn a color image of your painting to grayscale.  Doing this will greatly accelerate your learning curve

Varnishing Paintings.  By Don Finkeldei.  Some answers about varnish and protecting your paintings.

Plein Air painting by Don Finkeldei.  What you need to take when plein air landscape painting.  The preparation, equipment, supplies, weather precautions and planning needed for a successful outing.  I wrote this checklist as I was preparing for a plein air landscape painting trip.

 Do you struggle to find articles on the internet about painting techniques and digital imaging (or any other topic)?  Here's how to use what's called search "operators" to use with a Google search to find exactly what you're searching for and eliminate what you don't want.

Artists I Admire.  By Don Finkeldei.  A list of artists that I admire and some links to websites that have information on them.  I've collected information from all these artists.  I owe them all for what I know.

The Color Wheel . By Don Finkeldei:  This is pretty basic stuff  for experienced painters -- but -- you cannot be an experienced painter without nowing this.

Types of Light and Value Planes by Don Finkeldei: There are  4 value planes and 5 types of light that you need to deal with as a minimum in a landscape painting .  These are broad generalities - not an absolute rule.  Understanding the types of planes, different kinds of light sources, direction of the light source and how each type of plane is influenced by the light and how they relate to each other will help you create a more believable painting.

Pre-Painting Analysis of a Subject Before Starting to Paint.  By Don Finkeldei.  Before painting you should have a clear vision of the result.   This article contains a checklist of things you should know  before starting -- and things you should keep in mind while painting.

Paint, Brushes and mediums, By Don Finkeldei.  Some suggestions about paints and palate layout.  Also, some tips about brushes and mediums than can help you become a better painter.

Preparing the Drawing for an Oil Painting by Don Finkeldei: A loose, quick drawing on the canvas is better than a detailed drawing.  Make your lines very loose.

Preparing and Mixing your Paints. By Don Finkeldei:  Do your thinking on the palette.  If you  work out your values and colors before applying paint, you'll keep from mucking things up on the canvas.

Understanding Edges in Oil Painting, By Don Finkeldei: The degree of hardness or softness in transitions between boundaries of different  colors and values.

Creating a Website to Display your Art.  By Don Finkeldei.  Should you have a Website?  What's involved?  Can you do it yourself?  Can you maintain it without a website designer?  Lots of questions are answered in this article.