Brandon Nixon: Archive

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Mar 9th

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Mar 9th

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Jun 2nd

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Jun 2nd

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Jun 2nd

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May 2nd

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Apr 8th

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Apr 8th

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Well, It has been a while since I last posted! Can we say life has been BUSY! I am back at it now. Here is a little mini lesson that I pulled out of my latest Fine Art Experience lesson series on color theory. In this mini lesson I show you one example of how to use complimentary colors to change the impact of a painting. This is a good basis for you to go off and practice the different uses...

Feb 19th

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Jan 31st

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Jan 13th

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How is Your Education Going?

Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

Jan 6th

“Life is what happens after you make plans.”

– Unknown

Jan 5th

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Petrarch - The Creation of the Perfect Student! Part 4 In this episode of “Petrarch - The Perfect PAideia Student” I look at the angle of the light and the position of the viewer. I recruit the help of my son Zane to sit on his sister’s bed as I take many pictures from different angles to see how we want to orient Petarch to the window. Creating a portrait like this takes a lot of thought...

Jan 3rd

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Do You Understanding Color Theory? In this video I go through the process of creating color and value blocks. These are great tools to use as you study how light and shadow effect the value and hue (color) of an object. I am not smart enough to come up with this great stuff on my own so, I stole it! I got it from Richard Robinson, a New Zealand artist. He has put together some really great...

Dec 31st

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Working with Water Mixable Oil Paints I have had a lot of questions about the paints I use so I thought I would do a short video on the subject! Have you ever used water soluble oil paints before? Was the video informative? Let’s talk about it… Leave a comment below!

Dec 31st

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Petrarch - The Creation of the Perfect Student! Part 3 In this episode of “Petrarch - The Perfect PAideia Student” the team took all of the brainstorming ideas and pulled them together into a workable composition. There is much more planning to a portrait like this than meets the eye! There are a lot of characteristics that we have been tasked to build into this portrait and it is...

Dec 30th

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Winter Church House Study This is a quick study of a winter scene with a small church house. I have been studying Richard Schmid’s landscape paintings and he uses a very high horizon line in his compositions with very little going on in the foreground. I though I would play around with this in some of my paintings. I started by dividing the canvas into 5ths and place the horizon at the...

Dec 29th

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This is a quick study of an empty root beer bottle. I have started trying to paint at least one painting a day. I set the timer for 30 minutes and make myself stop when it goes off. This helps me to focus on capturing the essence of the subject quickly. This is a great discipline to get started with your own painting! As a matter of fact, we can do it together! Paint a painting a day and post a...

Dec 26th

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Petrarch - The Perfect PAideia Student - Part 2 In this episode we brainstorm how to represent the characteristics visually and come up with some really cool ideas. We also discuss what style we will use for this painting. Rembrandt meets David Leffel This is a very challenging project! Some of the ideas so far: - Loves the Lord - He will be reading an open Bible - Loves his parents -...

Dec 23rd

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The Portrait Project One of the hard parts about being a painter is when people request you to “paint something for them”, for free of course! If you are an artist you know exactly what I am talking about. The creator of PAideia, a classical education program, approached me with a request to paint a portrait of the “Perfect PAideia Student”. This fictitious student is to have the following...

Dec 21st

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This is a landscape oil painting done with Holbein Duo Aqua water mixable oil paints. These paints are great! They work like oils but cleanup with water. This painting was painted using a photograph my parents took from a trip they made this year to Vancouver BC. The Technique I used a vignette technique to help move the viewers eye towards the distant trees around the river bend. I really like...

Dec 20th

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This is a 36” x 36” painting of aspen trees in the fall. I used Holbein Duo Aqua water mixable oil paints. They are great work just like traditional oil paints but clean up with water! I painted this on a prepared MDF panel. Check out my blog on how I prepare my panels. I will be doing a lot more videos on how I use these water mixable oil paints in the future so stay tuned!

Dec 19th

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I will qualify this video post with the statement “I am a landscape painter not a portrait painter.” Therefore I am sure there are better ways to approach a portrait this is just how I did this one. If you have a different method I would love to hear about it. Post a comment below. This is a oil portrait of my grandfather. It was painted on prepared MDF panel (check out my blog last...

Dec 19th

“You already know everything you know, everything else comes from outside of you”

– Steve VanIngen

Dec 15th

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I have had several artist ask me about the panels I paint on, so I thought I would do a quick video on how I prepare them. They are 1/4” MDF panels. You can purchase these at Home Depot. They are sold in 4’ x 2’ sheets. I cut them to size with my table saw but you can have the folks at the store cut it to size for you for FREE! The process is easy: Step 1 - Cut To size If you...

Dec 14th