• Art Tips Tutorials

    These tips for artists are compiled here for your convenience — take with you for use anywhere, on your laptop, lunch break, vacation, Internet Cafe, wherever! No Internet connection neccesary. Make art wherever you are, with inspiration and guidance from artist/author/teacher Cathy Johnson, contributing editor for The Artist’s Magazine and Watercolor Magic, author of The Sierra Club Guides to Sketching and Painting in Nature, and 7 North Light books for artists. Downloadable versions for your convenience: The First 25 Art Tips!$9.99 The Second 25 Art Tips!$9.99 The Third 25 Art Tips!$9.99 The Fourth 25 Art Tips!$9.99

  • Tip #136 – Meaning-full Journaling

    Do you ever get tired of all the tips, challenges, images, classes that use a straight how-to approach? Like “Use this brush, dip it in that pigment, make this mark…”?  Or maybe a too-limiting “challenge” that really isn’t much of…

  • Tip #133 – Testing Your Paints

    Whether you’re a newcomer to watercolor an old hand trying new things (or overwhelmed by all the NEW offerings), testing our paints is a great exercise. Put them through their paces! See what they’re capable of, how they work on…

  • Tip #130 – Using Opaque White

    In many places (and a lot of shows you may want to enter), ONLY pure, transparent watercolor is considered acceptable. But as I wrote in my very first art tip here (and many since!), gouache can be a handy, creative…