Get the 101 introductory course to the wonderful world of oil painting. Oils have held up as the premier medium for artistic expression over the last 500 years. Oil paints give the artist the ability to create art in the widest array of styles and techniques possible.

Part two of Ellen Million’s guide to making art stuff yourself focuses on cards, transfers (t-shirts and mousepads), screen printing, bookmarks, and more.

Join Eugene Arenhaus as he takes a look at neutral gray and its cousins in detail, showing exactly why it does not live well with color. He will also discuss what can be done to fix problems with neutral gray, what subtle traps lie beneath the quiet water, and, ultimately, when and how to break the rules.

Epilogue Editor Rafal (aka McF) gives a detailed look at a rejected submission and the various issues that need to be addressed to help the image reach the quality Epilogue is looking for with this portrait.

Learn how blending modes work in Photoshop. This isn’t a step-by-step tutorial on how to replicate a particular effect, but rather an item-by-item description in plain English of each mode and how it works.

Join Leo Winstead as he deals with one of the basic elements of art- composition. Informal composition, where elements from left to right or top to bottom vary significantly, it is important to keep in mind that the entire image and not just the focus of the image has to be taken into account.

Epilogue Editor Patrick McEvoy shares some of his favorite art instruction books, why they’re his favorites, and some ideas about what to look for when deciding which books to add to your collection.

This time out, I would like to talk about a much underused PhotoShop filter - the Motion Blur. Along the way, we’ll find out how filters such as this one work so much better when used creatively in conjunction with other filters.

In this digital painting, Irene Bressel has come up with a dynamic scene, and spiced it up with some unconventional rendering, less detailed and line-oriented than her usual style. This sort of experimentation is always wonderful to see, and makes this piece stand out from the crowd in many ways. Unfortunately, while it has some very definite strong points, there are also some areas that could be addressed to make a stronger piece.

When it comes to rendering people, few things are as important as hair. Nothing stands out as much to the viewer as badly painted hair. On the other hand, if you do it spectacularly well, it may legitimately be the centerpiece of your painting. Usually, however, you just want the hair to fit in with the mood and composition of your rendering - an integrated part of the whole.