3 Ways to Blend Oil Paints Smoothly

Welcome back to the studio folks! I'm glad to have you here! I've got three great techniques to share with you so you can achieve some really nice, realistic blends throughout your works.

A Quick Summation:

1. Wet brush blending as you go
2. Using a dry brush to blend your wet paint
3. Scumbling with your dry brush on a dry painting 

Check out my snazzy new vid for details and step-by-step demos. These are really easy methods that you can incorporate today! 

Go ahead and leave me a comment on the video or here and let me know how useful you found this vid, as well as any questions or techniques you'd like me to address in the future. 

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originally published October 17, 2017

Pencil Portrait Giveaway Alert!!

Hi there friends! I've got some exciting things in store for you! How does a free custom portrait lovingly created by yours truly sound? Not too bad, huh!?

I've just got one question for you: Are you on Instagram?

Because I am on a mission to get my custom portrait drawings in front of as many folks as I can before the end of 2017. I am going all out and teaming up with different super awesome mommy bloggers and unique lifestyle influencers all over Instagram to spread some portrait love in the form of promotions and even portrait giveaways. Woo Hoo! 

Just wanted to make sure that my favorite folks (ie. you, dear blog reader) got the heads up so you can get in on some of the goodness that's about to spring forth! 

So if you think you're interested in snagging a portrait of your very own, go ahead and pop over to my Instagram @caleighbirdart and give it a follow, which will be one of the requirements to enter anyway (Yay! One step down!), and keep your eyes peeled for my pencil portrait posts - hint, hint: especially the children's portraiture;) 

Bre's girls (from The Curious Hippy)

To kick this party off you can even go ahead and check out @thecurioushippy for a Giveaway this weekend!! Yay!

Bearded Hottie :: Pencil Portrait Drawing Demo

Hey-o friends! You know how I've been steadily improving my YouTube vids while sharing my artsy processes? Well here's another new-and-improved quickie demo with my fancy shmancy animated intro and even more cool copyright free music! Yay! 

Hope you enjoy seeing this bearded Cool Cat come to life as much as I enjoyed creating him!

Prints and original available here 

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originally published October 10, 2017

Art Studio Lighting Review :: Method Light

Hey friends, welcome back:) I've got a cool new addition to my studio that I'm super psyched to share with you today - brand new professional LED lighting featuring light-temperature control with remote! Wow!! 

You may be thinking, 'Ok great, Caleigh got a new lamp'...  but a Method Light is so much more than that!

Good studio lighting is absolutely essential for creating, photographing, and displaying fine art. Not only do artists need the light used while painting or drawing to be bright and even, but in order to insure that colors are seen correctly while mixing, cool neutral lighting must be used from start to finish. 

What's really amazing about the Method Light though is that it doesn't just stop at neutral, it actually has a large variety of warm or cool tones it can create from this one spotlight. For me, the slightly cool neutral is perfect for painting (as it would be for most realist artists) but when I use it on a model or still life instead I'll probably want the lighting to be a bit warmer and more inviting. The Method Light has a great range of warm-to-cool settings as well as dim-to-bright so pretty much any desired lighting can be achieved with just a few buttons on the remote control - neato!!  

So check out this review I created to demonstrate all the different lighting settings on me, blank white paper, and my latest painting 'Anastasia.' The range variety is truly incredible to see!

How's the lighting in your studio? You can use my fancy-shmancy new Affiliate Link + Code to snag your own Method Light with FREE Shipping and a FREE Clip-on Light Fixture (worth $25!). Yay!!

Get it here!

& Use the code CBHI17 at checkout

[Affiliate Note: When you use my special link it won't cost you a penny extra, but they will hook me up with a little somethin' somethin' which helps me maintain the cost of running my blog - a real Win-Win!!]

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originally published October 3, 2017

The Best Handmade Sketchbooks [Part One]

[Hey friends! I'm actually spending some time this week making my next set of sketchbooks so I figured I'd reshare the 'How To' I created last year so you can follow along with me. Check out my Instagram @caleighbirdart to see my newest books] 

Part One consists of binding a booklet that will be ready to be fitted into the cover, which will then be created in Part Two. 

Materials:

• scissors
• cloth
• sharpie
• foam board
• glue (book binding/Mod Podge/craft)
• paint brush (used for glueing) 

• Xacto knife/ cutting station
• ruler
• sewing machine OR needle and thread
• large art paper (5-10 sheets)**
• tracing paper (1 large sheet)
• thick rag paper (1 large sheet)

**On choosing paper: I say, go for whatever makes you happy. I am using multiple different colors of rich toned, high toothed charcoal paper since I never draw on white these days. But you should go to your locally owned art store and find whatever tickles your fancy - and of course feel free to mix it up! In order to prevent too much waste, try to get large sheets that are pretty close in size. 

Here we go...

1 - Arranging the paper: Firstly, make sure that all of your big papers are the same size, including the tracing paper but NOT the thick rag paper. Once they are uniform in size, make sure that each paper is facing the same direction (some art paper has a 'front' or good side that has more or less tooth, depending on what you like), and the tracing paper is on top of the front side.

2- Cutting the paper: Cut your stack of paper carefully into four equal lengths using the Xacto knife and ruler. (You will most likely need to cut it in groups of three papers at a time in order to get a clean cut all the way down)

3- Cutting the Rag Paper: Once you have your page strips, use one to measure against the rag paper and cut out a strip that is 1/2 inch wider and at least two inches longer (you will trim it later to fit the book cover). The rag paper will be the element that is attached to the booklet and then glued to the book cover and holds the entire sketchbook together. 

4- Binding Prep: Fold and crease your booklets in half (excluding the rag paper) but keep each booklet as its own entity. Fold and crease the rag paper on its own as well. 

Now you are going to actually bind your booklets together and to the rag paper. I am a seamstress so I use my sewing machine for this, but I have included instructions on how to do it by hand. 

5- The Tricky Part: So now you are going to actually sew all of your pages together using the rag paper to hold them together; doing so one booklet at a time. Start out with the 'good' side of your paper facing out with the tracing paper outside of it. Then line the booklet up with the rag paper, the tricky part being that you want to actually line the spine of your booklet to a space about 1/4 inch away from the center, so that as you sew each individual booklet in, they are equal distance from the center.  

[Side Note: I feel like I should let you in on a lil secret... I am super NOT a perfectionist. I am all about just holding things together to see how they fit, or using a ruler to rip rather than cut paper... I am the queen of, 'I'll just eyeball it.' I've been sewing my own clothes for years, and I usually just hold stuff up to me and guestimate or upcycle or whatever. I personally love the warm feel of handmade, yet high quality, perfectly imperfect goods... so measure at your own leisure. (Ha! Off the cuff but I think it's my new mantra!)]

5b- Ok so you've just seen how you want to line up your segments for sewing, but if you don't have a machine, a needle and thread will be absolutely fine. Line up your booklet pieces with the rag paper one at a time like explained above,  and use this simple binding technique to affix them together. 

5b(cont'd)- Thread your needle and push it through the papers on the outside of the crease (the mountain side), then loop it through and push it back through the inner crease (the valley side). Knot the thread to itself and cut it. Repeat 4-6 times depending on binding size. 

The outside of the bound booklet

The inside of the bound booklet

Ta-Daa! You now have the inner leaflet of your fabulous hand-made-with-love sketchbook! 

Don't forget to tune in next week for Part Two, which will be creating and securing the cover. I personally think that today's tutorial is the more challenging one, so if you got through that, the rest will be a breeze! Go ahead and start looking for some unique fabric to adorn the cover, and check out last week's Inspo post to see some funky retro examples. 

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Do you know any good tips or techniques for bookbinding? Have you ever tried binding various papers together? Feel free to leave me a comment! 

Love to DIY?  Follow this Pinterest board for more high quality crafty art inspo

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originally posted: October 25, 2016

Oil Painting Portrait Demo - 'Anastasia'

Oh boy, have I got a special treat for you today! My very first full-length portrait oil painting demo - Woo Hoo! You get to watch me speed paint this lovely muse in about 1% of the time it took me to actually paint it - ha! I've been finding better and better copyright free music recently, so the soundtrack get's pretty jammin' too ;)

In case you were curious about my incredible Malaysian muse, 'Anastasia' is a delightful and inspiring person inside and out and I was thrilled for the opportunity to paint her as part of my ongoing Bohemian Goddesses collection, in which I lovingly highlight creative and confident women from all over the world with my portraiture. You can read my paragraph about the woman behind the painting here. 

oil on linen, 12x16 inches prints available

Hope you enjoy the demo today! Go ahead and hit that Subscribe button while you're there so you don't miss any future vids:) 

What's on my palette...?

Here's a list of every oil paint I used for the entire work, and below you'll see a few color mixes from specific sections:

• Cadmium Orange
• Burnt Sienna
• Raw Umber
• Magenta
• King's Blue
• Cobalt Blue
• Terra Verte

• Titanium White
• Mars Black
• Paynes Grey
• Naples Yellow
• Yellow Ochre
• Flesh Tint*
• Brilliant Pink

* Flesh tint is actually only used in the turban; it's an incredibly vivid pink color that would only work in tiny doses when painting skin tones. 

Above was my initial palette for painting the turban and I later incorporated that with the rest of the paint needed for her skin tones. Here are most of the mixtures I developed while painting 'Anastasia'. Yep, even the dark green and blue went in there. 

So I've noticed a lot of other YouTube artists answer questions or talk about certain topics while showing their speed demos. Leave me any comments, questions or topic suggestions if you'd like to hear my thoughts over future demos:) 

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originally posted September 26, 2017

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Hey Ma, I'm on Apple News!!

Well I just got a pretty great bit of news yesterday - my blog is now accessible all over the world on Apple News- neato! Look at me, I'm as important as CNN! Ha!

But seriously though, it's pretty cool 'cause I had to apply with ten blog posts and be accepted to be included within the general news feed. I'm not totally sure what the review process was, but I applied two weeks ago and all but forgot about it 'til yesterday. Such a nice surprise to hear that Apple finds my artsy little life "newsworthy";)  

I actually use a PC so the only way I can even access Apple News is on my iPhone, but you better believe as soon as I found out I was accepted I downloaded the app and subscribed to myself - yay! I even subbed National Geographic, the Huff Post, and Jezabel just for good measure while I was there.

If you'd like to see me occasionally in your Apple Newsfeed, just type Caleigh Bird Art in the search and I'll pop right up! Give me a heart and I'll do a little happy dance in my studio:) 

You can also sign up here to get a weekly blog post round-up sealed with a kiss right in your inbox... 

Do you use Apple News at all? Is there anyone I should be following? Leave suggestions in the comments.

I'm actually kind of psyched to have downloaded it so that I have a place to get news articles that interest me other than Facebook (which I am only on about once a week now!) - blah! Plus I can choose to follow only vetted sources, and not see those bs articles posted by super sketchy "americansforamerica.com"-type crap sites. 

Well that got dark.

Anyhoo, hooray!! I'm big news! Ha! See you in the funny papers, folks:) xo

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originally published September 23, 2017

Oil Paint Review :: M. Graham & Co

Hi fellow painters! I'm really excited to share with you my very first product review. I found myself in my fave local art store recently impulse buying a few tubes of paint when I realized I was scoring some great pigment that I had really enjoyed before. I don't always have the funds to be super picky or brand-loyal, but when I got home I looked through my paint stash and sure enough there were 3-4 other tubes of M. Graham that I didn't even register as already having.

Today I am psyched to share my findings when comparing M. Graham's oil paints to two other brands that I generally like. I'll show the thickness, smoothness, and concentration of this oil paint through a few simple tests that you can try at home with any new paint scores you run across as well. 

Spoiler Alert: I LOVE these paints! 

[UPDATE 4-4-2018: I am now an affiliate of Dick Blick art supplies so here are links to these featured M. Graham colors in case your local spot doesn't have them. Any DB purchase you make through my links goes towards supporting my YouTube channel. Thank you!
Naples Yellow
Terra Rosa
Colbalt Blue
Turquoise ]

Have you ever used M. Graham before? What kind of oil paints are your fave?

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originally published September 19, 2017 

Two New Goddesses :: II Kaya & Anastasia

Even though it feels like I've been movin' and shakin' and travelin' so much lately, I was still able to finish up my most recent Bohemian Goddess in pretty good time - yay! Go me! Plus I have my previous lovely to show off today too:)

Introducing......

Anastasia

oil on linen, 12x16 inches

$1385    prints available

'Anastasia' is an incredible Malaysian fashionista and makeup artist. I love that she wears her turban and hijab just like other women wear their hair - sometimes up in a bun, or flowing long, or loosely tied, and she even changes up where her 'part' would be. Anastasia is constantly trying new looks and hues on herself, and also does fabulously at styling her lovely friends as well. You can see plenty of Anastasia's unique makeup artistry and bold yet modest fashions on her Instagram @its.annekyn. 

And....

II Kaya

oil on linen, 12x12 inches

$1375       prints available

'II Kaya', @ii_kaya_ises, is an incredible Rastafarian queen from Trinidad who shines her bright light of encouragement on those who surround her. She is an ardent supporter of locally owned businesses run by fellow people of color and also vocalizes a powerful message of pride, spirituality, and celebration of nature and natural beauty. II Kaya inspires all who cross her path to spread love, share love , and be love. 

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originally published on September 16, 2017