A quickie lesson in layering warm and cool paint

[Karin Wells]

I'll try to explain this again...

If you look, for example, at Vermeer....any Vermeer, he layered warm and cool paint to create "reality" in the manner explained above.

Lots of artists (with the exception of you and a few other lucky ones) are not able to make their paintings look "realistic" like the subject matter they wish to paint no matter how long they stare at a subject.

There IS a way to do it when the eye fails....why would you wish for so many artists to continue to produce unsatisfactory artwork when it is not necessary for them to suffer and fail at all?

As you know, there are many ways to paint a picture...and the one way most used is to try to directly paint what one sees. If that method worked all the time for all the people, the world would be filled with much more wonderful art.

If an artist finds that a way of working (even if it works for you) is not getting a satisfactory result, it would be silly to continue in that manner without considering another way of looking at things.

Painting what "you think you see" just doesn't work for everybody. Get it?