Author: Samantha Wilson

Painting an accent wall in your home can make a wonderful impact in any room. Whether the accent wall consists of a punch of color, or a mural – here are some tips that can help you to create a classic scene in a room in your home by painting an accent wall of falling leaves. The supplies that you will need to create this accent wall are latex paint to create the backdrop color for the wall, oil paints of varying fall and leaf colors, a paint roller brush, intricate paint brushes or leaf stencils and a drop cloth to protect the floor and furniture within the room from paint spatters.

The first step to painting an accent wall of falling leaves is to paint the background color. After the background color has been applied, and you have decided that the mural would be painted on, consider testing on pieces of art paper the leaves that are going to be painted. It can be helpful to purchase stencils from the local art store of leaves, in many shapes and sizes which can be customized with colors and brushes to adhere to the wall. ‘

Traditional leave colors vary from golden to orange to green with hues of purples and red. For this reason, leaves can be customized to many colors to match many different rooms. When purchasing the paint, consider oil to give the leaves a lifelike look. It is important to take the theme and color of the room into account when planning a falling leave motif on the wall.

As an alternative to painting the falling leave accent wall, there are many paper murals that can be adhered to the walls. Many of these murals come to be installed in one piece so that there are no visible seams and can be custom created, and printed to the exact size of the wall in which it is going to be adhered to. These are available to order on the internet, or at the local mural and home store. The online store www.murals4everyone.com offers many choices of falling leave murals, in their selection.

These murals are applied easily with a peel and stick application, and many are accompanied with a brush that can ensure that the murals are put on to stick, and stay. This brush ensures that no air bubbles are present behind the murals, and that the mural is going to be flush with the wall.

Another option to create falling leave murals are to consider peel and stick leaves. These decals offer the most lifelike look, with leaves looking as if they have fallen directly from a tree. Quality peel and stick decals are available at such websites as www.creativewallcovering.com and can be adhered to a clean wall that has been painted, and is ready to become the focal point of the room. These decals can be used with paint to create a mural with many different textures. Alternatively, you could create a mural of a tree with paint and use these decals as different texture, and technique within the mural.

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If you think the genre of floral art is limited to stodgy Victorian paintings of roses, think again. There is a certain charm to Victorian roses, and I have such a painting in my bedroom, but flower art ranges far and wide, from Picasso’s bouquet to Georgia O’Keefe’s calla lily or medieval mille-fleurs.

My life has been divided between Southern California and New England, and every time I move, I take my art with me. One of my favorites is a large, contemporary, very bright watercolor of jonquils and hyacinths by Tom Noble. This is the very antithesis of my Victorian roses, but it serves a different purpose. In my bedroom, I want things serene. The watercolor hangs in my office, and when I’m in SoCal, it echoes the sunny atmosphere and brings the outdoors in. When I’m in New England in February, it brightens everything and keeps the hope of flowers alive. And in both locations, it energizes me.

Floral Art to Suit Every Taste

This art can make any kind of statement you want. It can be rich and romantic, such as Fantin-Latour’s Flowers and Fruit. It can be starkly dramatic, as is any of Georgia O’Keefe’s work. It can be lush and shimmering, if done by Renoir or Monet. Whatever atmosphere you wish to create can be supported by floral art.

Some men feel that floral art is “too feminine” for their tastes. I would ask them to look at Joan Mitchell’s nearly abstract 1991 work Sunflowers or one of the many starkly beautiful paintings of plum trees by Yoshida Toshi. Floral art can make as bold a statement as any other genre.

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Faux Painting Tips can be really helpful in transforming rooms, to furniture or old items you’d love to recycle!

Painting your walls or other painting projects with pearlized paint is an great way to add an interesting, dramatic look to your finished project. Pearlized paint is easy to work with, but can present a few unique challenges!

As when working with any other paint, be sure to cover any areas you don’t want painted with tape and drop cloths. Mask off any edges and protect your flooring!

Pearlized paint has a glossy finish. A glossy finish will emphasize any imperfections in your walls, so this type of paint is best used on walls that you know are perfectly even. If your walls have any cracks, bumps, or other uneven places, you will want to sand or spackle as appropriate before proceeding.

One way to tell if your wall has any of these imperfections is to inspect it closely with a light held very close to the wall at an angle. Even the tiniest imperfection will cast a shadow on the wall, making areas that need prep work easy to identify.

Once your wall is smooth and ready to paint, you will first want to put down a base coat in a solid color. The pearlized paint is fairly transparent, so your color will show through. If you are working over existing paint, you may want to touch up any areas that are stained, chipped, or otherwise in need or attention.

Let your base coat dry completely before moving on to your pearlized topcoat. Be aware that you should use at least 2 coats of your base color to ensure even application, and some colors may require additional coats as well.

Apply the pearlized paint over your base coat just as you would any other paint. Use a soft-bristled brush for applying paint to edges and corners. Applying the paint to the remaining wall with a roller is preferable to a brush, as a brush may leave visible strokes in the paint.

Optionally, you can drag the handle of a paintbrush or a wooden skewer through your paint in a pattern to create an interesting effect.

Pearlized paint is available in different colors, so be sure to pick one that compliments your base color. You can even paint different colors of pearlized paint over each other for an interesting effect.

For a more subtle look, you can dilute your pearlized paint with either water or a clear acrylic paint. (Using the paint rather than water will also give your finished project additional shine!)

You may find it helpful to do a sample board first before applying paint to your walls. Use a scrap piece of wood or drywall and apply layers of base coat followed by your pearlized paint, just as you would if you were painting your walls. A sample board will give you an opportunity to experiment with different color combinations and application techniques before moving on to your actual walls.

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There are many schools and styles of modern art, all of them exciting. If we define modern art as encompassing all of the twentieth century, we start with the Fauves and Matisse, the master of color. Indeed, one of the major movements of modern art has been toward color as the primary tool of the artist.

But it’s Picasso who really brought art into the new century with the birth of Cubism, which led directly to Futurism and abstraction. By breaking up the planes of the figure, Picasso opened the way for artists to leave representation behind entirely, and focus instead on the inherent emotion of color and abstract form. This chain of influence leads to the pure color theory of the minimalists and color-field artists.

Modern Art also Includes Representation

Another branch of modern art veered away from pure abstraction toward representation of a new kind. Rene Magritte painted perfectly recognizable men in bowler hats, but in the strangest of circumstances, such as the horde of them raining down on a town in The Fall. Dali, too, began with recognizable images, but distorted them into images of pure imagination. Botero, Lucian Freud and Balthus also used the human form as subject, each seeing it in his own unique vision.

We might consider Pop Art and Op Art to be the two extremes of representation and abstraction. Both movements look very dated today. There’s no telling what direction modern art may take as we enter the 21st century. All we can say for sure is that it will be different from what has gone before, and it will most certainly be interesting.

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Have you ever dreamed of learning how to master the art of painting watercolour animals? Well this article has been written with YOU in mind.

Everyday we see some beautiful creations of nature that we want to capture for ourselves be it a bird or a tree or a flower or a butterfly. A painter needs to be a good observant so that his paintings reflect the beauty of nature as it is. You can always drag your parents or friends to a zoo or nature park to see the amazing creatures which we call animals.

If you are an amateur painter you can start with drawing animals or birds by taking a reference picture. With practice once you are a pro in painting you can always rely on your imagination.

Now let’s be more technical. Selecting good quality paper, brush & water colors is very important. You can always take help of the salesperson in the shop. Quality of your painting depends a lot on these. Use both flat & round tipped brushes of different size from size zero to at least twelve. Select a good palette on which you can create various colors of your own by mixing various colors.

Let us now move to actual painting the animal. Select an animal which you want to draw. No depending on the animal you selected decide on the background of your drawing. It can be a backdrop of zoo, or a farm or a forest background. Always remember that your background should compliment you animal. It shouldn’t overshadow your animal. Most of the times select a transparent background if your animal is of opaque colors. For example, horse with farm as the background. Vice versa select an opaque background for an animal of light soft colors like for the cheetah or lion, have a dark green forest scene as a background.

Proportion is also another aspect that should be kept in mind. If the body of the animal is out of proportion then a horse may end up looking like donkey. Use a pencil or draw blocks if you are finding it difficult to draw in proportion. Don’t worry with practice you will be perfect.

Always to be on safer side outline the animal with soft pencil lines. As even you don’t get the right shape the first time you always have an eraser. You can run an eraser on the pencil sketch to lighten the pencil lines.
Paint the animal keeping in mind the direction of light source. Also painting shadow of the animal will give an edge to your painting. Do not outline the whole body of the animal with a dark color as black as it will give an artificial look to your drawing.

If you approach painting watercolour animals while remembering all these aspects then you can never go wrong. Paint some animals & frame them in you room & lo you can create your own virtual zoo at your own home!

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The Leonardo Da Vinci painting Mona Lisa is arguably the most famous work of art ever created. In a way, such fame has worked to its disadvantage. We have seen it so often, in so many forms, that we barely see it at all any more.

Three Da Vinci Paintings of Women

What makes one painting an icon for centuries, recognized everywhere by everyone, while another languishes in museums and textbooks, awaiting the attention of scholars? Mona Lisa is only one of several intriguing Da Vinci paintings of women. Ginevra de Benci, painted in 1474, is a striking combination of steely self-possession and delicacy. This sulky young woman with a cast in one eye and a surly expression, has a strong, very round head, and a physical presence of absolute solidity, emphasized by the dark, prickly juniper bush behind her. Yet her skin is translucent, utterly idealized in its delicacy. If her expression weren’t so unpleasantly human, she wouldn’t seem real.

Cecelia Gallarani, painted in 1485, would seem to be Ginevra’s opposite. This Da Vinci painting shows us a woman gentle and sweet, with an oval face, delicately pointed chin, and a wistful expression that is not quite a smile. The background here is blank, solid, which throws all our attention on Cecelia’s sweet face–and the fierce-looking weasel-like animal she holds and caresses.

There is little of mystery in Ginevra. She’s not letting anyone in, but one guesses there isn’t much behind those dull eyes anyway. Cecelia would be unexceptionally sweet if it weren’t for that odd unsettling animal, which seems almost to act as her familiar. Neither one looks at us, nor does Mona Lisa, painted in 1503. But we feel she sees us. The shape of her face, the pouchiness around her eyes make her far less idealized than the other two, and she wears none of Ginevra’s transparent bodices or Cecelia’s fillet and beads. Perhaps part of the appeal of this Da Vinci painting is that Mona Lisa, painted with twenty-nine years more experience, is a woman, not a girl like the others. Ginevra looks only inward. Cecelia gazes clear-eyed at the world, prepared for whatever she might see. Mona Lisa has seen it all, and she smiles.

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It used to be that art lovers had to go wherever the art might be in order to see it. But an online art gallery brings art to you, and allows you a far greater range of choices than you would otherwise have. If you yearn for surrealism but live in a region that specializes in clowns on black velvet, give thanks for the Internet.

An online art gallery makes art easily accessible to everyone. In the past, I have searched in city after city to find prints of particular paintings I loved, to no avail. But on the Net, if you know the title or the artist, you can find what you want in an instant. And even if you don’t know any facts about it, you can still browse in the vast art gallery of the Web until you find it.

An Online Art Gallery Brings the World to You

It’s not just reproductions of famous paintings that are available in online art galleries. You can also find art objects from around the world. You might discover an Inuit carving that you have to have, or a tribal mask from the Amazon basin.

Fortunately, when you do find something you must have, you can buy it online for less than you might expect. A virtual gallery costs very little to maintain, and the low overhead means savings can be passed on to you. So the Web not only puts more treasures before your eyes than ever before, but also makes it easier for you to own them.

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The role of American paintings in the world of art has paralleled the role of the United States in global politics. Our earliest painters, such as Copley, Gilbert Stuart and Benjamin West, were largely satellites of Britain. In the late 19th century, Whistler, Sargent and Winslow Homer shook off European influences and began to create what seemed a uniquely American art. A century later, and until the present, American paintings stopped being labeled and simply became “art.”

But American paintings didn’t truly come into their own until the rise of abstract expressionism in the early to mid-1900s. After Picasso, almost all great art was American art. Georgia O’Keefe’s flowers became abstract images in the 1930s, and she was closely followed by Pollock, Gorky and De Kooning. (Though these last two were not American born, their careers were in America.)

American Paintings Dominate Today’s Art World

In the 1960s and 70s, American paintings, like every other aspect of American life, took a great leap past previously existing boundaries. One of those boundaries, between “high art” and popular culture, was exploded by the rise of Pop art. Though Andy Warhol’s repetitive silkscreens, Roy Lichtenstein’s comic book panels and the works of minimalists and color field artists such as Frank Stella and Helen Frankenthaler may seem to have little in common, they all force the viewer to toss aside preconceptions and see differently.

Today’s American art, and indeed much of all contemporary art, seems scattered and without focus. When asked to name a famous living artist, the best that most people can come up with is Thomas Kinkade. We can only hope and wait for the next great flowering that will define the early 21st century, and it seems a fairly safe assumption that it will be American.

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Contemporary art offers a wide and exciting range of choices. From the mysterious energy of abstraction to the jewel tones of contemporary landscapes, from the purity of color field paintings to the elegance of modern portraiture, it offers something for everyone. Take some time to browse among the online galleries to see what is being offered, and you’ll be delighted at the variety you’ll find.

Whether an original work or a reproduction, a good piece of contemporary art will add immeasurably to the warmth and interest of a room or office. Vibrant colors and vigorous forms are the hallmarks of today’s art. And don’t assume that all modern art is abstract.

Contemporary Art in Traditional Genres

If you prefer a more traditional genre such as scenic art, you can still find contemporary artists who are doing landscapes, seascapes, lighthouses and country cottages. But chances are that they will be more textural than older versions, with more emphasis on color and brightness. There are also those doing extremely dramatic and emotional work in this genre.

Portraiture, too, can take on a contemporary edge. Since the time of Manet, Van Gogh and Picasso, portraiture has relied less on absolute representation and more on interpretation of the subject. Again, texture and color come to the fore, adding something to the existing canon and taking nothing away. Whatever your preferences in genre, you can find a piece of contemporary art that will crystallize for you a new way of seeing.

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Take a cyberstroll through the animal gallery of any online art source and you will be delighted at the variety of offerings. From Matisse’s goldfish to wall murals of whales, from Beatrix Potter’s Flopsy to a wolf howling on a glacier, from a kitten in a hammock to a lion on the hunt, you can find an image to suit your taste. There are several categories of pictures to be found in the animal gallery: jungle animals, farm animals, birds and fishes, forest denizens and domestics, to name just a few.

The Animal Gallery Is a Great Source for Art for Children

I’ve always believed that children can enjoy “real” art just as much as images from fairy tales and cartoons. Isn’t Durer’s gentle, observant engraving of a hare just as appropriate for a child’s room as Bugs Bunny? The term Futurism means nothing to a four-year-old, but I’ve never seen a child fail to be amused by Giacomo Balla’s Dynamism of a Little Dog on a Leash.

How lucky we are these days to have the Internet! When my son was small, I searched galleries in every city I visited to find a print of Balla’s whimsical painting, and for Paul Klee’s The Red Balloon. I never found either one. Thanks to online galleries and poster shops, however, my grandson’s room is decorated with both.

Take your child with you to visit an online animal gallery and see what tickles him or her. It may be that faux-primitive painting of a big red cow, an up close and personal photo of an ostrich or a Japanese print of a cat. It’s never too early for art.

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