This blog is about brush strokes, the laying down of oil paint onto the canvas. There are two thoughts about this process, one with the form the other against. Gruppe recommends going with the form--this suggests the angle or direction of the rock or water in the example below.  Other artists suggest painting against the form, this provides softer edges and more intermixing of paint.
      Basically have a variety of thickness and direction, either one you choose. Let the dark shadow areas be very thin, even transparent to the viewer can go into the painting.  Oil paints are translucent-not opaque, like Vermeer you can create excitement and mystery by having areas transparent but counter it by thick, juicy paint strokes.  Avoid licking the canvas--this is overworking it to death  until you can't make out a stroke-suggesting insecurity, timidity, etc and, simply put,  is boring. Put a stroke down and leave it then move onto the next passage.  You can always scrap and start over if you don't like it.  Stapeton Kearns blog addresses this issue and a book by Emile Gruppe covers it in depth.  While the  seashore example below may look unreadable , far away it reads quite well.  The brush stroke, more than most aspects of painting process, describe your personality-strengths, weaknesses, successes, failures, etc.  That is why the fear of art makes so much sense (see Jack Whites book on this subject on pdf file online, excellent material). To summarize, paint like a millionaire ,  put down on your pallete what you think you need, then double it. Your work will improve, be more gutsy and exciting.  For more tips, see Silvioscorner.blogspot.com.  

Last week, I had the pleasure of painting at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. It was so exciting, priceless art work everywhere.   Architecture presents problems to many artists, the notion that one must keep in mind is the vanishing point--this area will keep all lines in perspective and it is an imaginary point where all lines intersect and disappear (usually off the canvas ).  Horizontal lines can be drawn straight by measuring with your brush to the edge of the canvas.  Colors, like in the painting below can be made up in the shadow section, with warms and cools.  The light has white and a touch of cad yellow to brighten it up.  Then look for the shapes and measure the width and height.  Simple huh, yet squint your eyes and scumble in the values and colors, then do all the lines.  Feel as though you can alter and change anything---oh, you can but stay loose and relaxed, big part of this painting. 
   Look for the lights and darks and always keep in mind placement of the sun or light--extremely important. Don't chase the light, once you establish your shadow patterns, keep them there.  Finally, your painting should have an entry and exit point.  These may be hard to find--my entry is the pink stairs coming up from right to left.  My exit point probably is the sky, fairly typical.  Also, avoid straight lines that parrellal the edge of the canvas.  The palm tree was straight up but to follow this rule, I slanted it in--better in that leaning out of the painting.  Have fun and paint !

   
Lot of people ask what is plein air or impressionism.  Started long time ago, just after Monet took to the hillsides and streets of France and began painting what he saw.  He proposed, contradictory to the current thinking, that the artist should go out and give their first impression of the object before them.  Often, the studio painter would create large paintings with models holding certain classical positions that often were traced back to the renassaince or earlier. The paintings had a stilted, staged look about them.  His contemporary, Pissaro, went into the back yard and began painting simple ongoing vignettes of life--a lady doing her wash by the well, a farmer plowing and so on.  Written sometime in the mid 1850's was a book on color theory proposing that complimentary colors would have the effect of creating vibration.  Therefore, the author suggested, by placing complementary colors, one next to the other like blue and yellow, the eye would tend to merge the two and create green.  Color became supreme and the impressionists painters were born, placing strong clean color next to each other. Sometimes creating masterpieces and other times creating bombs-  nevertheless, the world of art was highly impacted and impressionism earned its rank among the great schools of art over the last two hundred or so years. But a painting of a Ballarina, like Degas completed, was unheard of because they were simply holding their feet or smiling at one another.  Corot was a precursor to the impressionist movement, showing field workers doing mundane tasks.  The social milieu of the period was upheaval--Napolean III was losing  power and Paris was undergoing a political revolution.    Another event, development of the portable oil tube was instrumental in allowing painters to travel lightweight with their pochade box and paint on site or en plein aire.   Bazille and Manet are also credited with this movement as is Cezzanne and Van Gogh.  Facing discrimination by the male contemporaries, Mary Cassat and Berthe Morisot painted stuning contributions to this art school--all with a focus on light, color, and pseudo realism.  I had the chance of studying Renoir's portraits of a little girl--the face of completely flat in a skin tone with eyes, nose and lips lined in with a  pale blue.  This was simply unheard of and the results yielded beauty never before seen.