Published Articles on Empty Easel

Pastel Tutorials:

How to combine oil pastel with chalk pastel

Creating a textured impressionistic painting with wet pastel sticks

How to create a highly textured pastel painting with acrylic

Using water as a blending medium for soft pastel

Choosing a surface for your pastel painting

Packing and shipping your pastel paintings


General Art Advice:

How to overcome a panic moment while painting



Advice for Artists Who Post Online:

Review: Redbubble.com (Online Print Service)

4 Reasons to Put Your Art Online (Besides Exposure)



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The Imperfect Butterfly

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When we're first learning to make art as children, we hear a few things that become familiar over time.  Skies are blue! Tree trunks are brown, leaves are green.  Butterflies are supposed to be perfectly symmetrical!

Well, if you take a long look around you, you'll notice that most of that well-intended advice was wrong.  Trees can have blue, purple, and green trunks-- or even red or yellow, depending on the lighting.  Leaves can be just about any color too!  Butterflies, while appearing symmetrical, aren't necessarily so if you look closely.  Most of the butterflies I paint from photos have damaged wings, which isn't noticeable to me until I take the time to examine the photos in detail.









So why do we hear the same advice being repeated to kids over the years?  What's the first question most people have when a child shows us a painting?

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Reason #10 to love soft pastels: they can be blended with water!

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You can also paint with wet pastel sticks directly on canvas, or press dry pastel sticks onto a wet paper or canvas to get a unique effect:
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