Who are some of the best youtubers to search?

[AnnieA]

I agree with Derek (Dcam). Videos can be very instructive, but they have a very big drawback: you can't ask questions of the instructor. In addition, watching an excellent painter construct a painting in real life is very different than watching a video of the same painter, as time constraints mean some things have to be left out or glossed over.

[bobbybirds]

Originally Posted by Dcam

Bobby: there are lots of good youtubes out there.
Have you thought of going to a workshop, or local night school class?
Also, perhaps a college non-matriculated painting One course.
There is nothing like a good instructor to show you the real ropes.

You bet I have! I have a few things that make it a bit difficult but are not insurmountable. I live over 100kms from the city so getting in and home for night classes is tough. I run an automotive business full time so it makes is hard to always show up and make times. Weekends are really the only times I have available and at the moment I have not found any classes yet that would cater to my situation, but I am actively looking!

[Moises Menendez]

If you want to learn to paint with oils, you need to learn the basics of drawing first. You are young and have many years ahead for learning this beautiful hobby. Don’t do what happened to me. When I was a kid I was good doing drawings and won competitions while in High school. I became so cocky but I wanted to work in oil. I did not have knowledge about composition, values, materials, color theory, etc but I just wanted to learn ASAP without knowing the basics of drawing or painting. At the end I lost interest and found a new career.
Back in the nineties I decided to start drawing and painting and attended workshops, purchased videos, books and learned some but not enough. I gave up again and lost interest. About 13 years ago I decided to get serious and did pencils and pastel works, and finally around 2010 I learned the real basics of drawing, then continued with charcoal, then pastel, also ink drawing, landscape, and in the last year I’m doing still life using oil. I am now more familiar with composition, values, theory of colors, perspective, proportions, the Munsell color chart, media, Notan basics, etc, etc. I am feeling more confident now and I practice drawing and painting practically every day and I am enjoying it now more than ever despite working daily as a physician.
My advise is to be patient and learn the basics of drawing before you jump into the most complicated form of art, oil painting. Some famous old artist said if you want to be good at painting 🖼 you have to be good at drawing. I believe this notion is not imperative but it helps if you know the basics of drawing. Painting, in MPO, is more complicated than drawing.

[Ted Bunker]

Paul Foxton has a number of vids on Still Lifes, Hue-Value-Chroma and Munsell. Probably the best explanation and demonstration on Munsell. They were a revalation when I first saw them last year ...and worth rewatching.

Stefan Baumann has several series on En Plein Air, equipment, and painting as both technique...and the business of being an artist.

Josvanr has numerous demos on Still Life shapes, shadows and forms. His eggs, fruit and flowers are exquisite...

[MDerby]

Landscapes:
Babich Art
Portraits:
Yuehua He
Still life:
josvanr

[JCannon]

Moises Menendez tells a story somewhat similar to my own. I did learn the basics of drawing; it was pretty much the only disciplined thing I ever did as a youth. But later, someone whispered into my ear that all the professional illustrators worked from photographic references.

And that's the trap I fell into. Working for photos was ruinous -- at least for me. I literally forgot how to draw. I became so adept at copying a two-dimensional image that I could no longer visualize how complex three-dimensional objects worked.

Drawing is fundamental. And by that, I really mean that learning human anatomy is fundamental. For reason I cannot properly verbalize, learning how to construct the human body is the foundation for all progress. This skill teaches you how to draw anything and everything "from the inside out."

Look closely at the rifle and Bible in this wonderful J.C. Leyendecker illustration. I'm convinced that Leyendecker attained that feeling of solidity and depth because he could grasp how the thing was constructed. And he understood that because his anatomy teacher (John H. Vanderpoel) had taught him how to see everything as form.

Fortunately, there are a number of good YouTube videos devoted to this topic. In my opinion, the "Proko" series (by Mark Prokopenko) is the best. He's better than my college instructors, and I had some fine teachers.

Follow those anatomy lessons carefully and you will become a much better draftsman. (Draftsperson? Somehow, the politically-correct term doesn't feel right.) I am convinced that just about anyone who truly knows how to draw can become a good painter.

[ik345]

I agree with Raffless that nothing is better than a good,.classical approach book. I watched youtube videos, and then bought a couple of books. Huge difference.

But...I can't resist to post my favourite. Search for Oleg Buiko. Videos are in Russian, only a few are translated, but just watching is already a lot. Most of them are combined from two cameras, one showing the canvas, and one showing his palette. So you can see how does he mix colors, which I really liked. He paints alla prima almost exclusively.

[HaintBlue]

Michael James Smith.

A second-generation professional landscape painter. Maybe his stuff is high kitsch, but he can really paint, and he really thinks about how to intelligently demonstrate and instruct, and he doesn't hide all his secrets (if he has any to hide), like almost all others do.

Re the advice to "get a book," I have to say that in the past six months, I have looked at, and read to the extent I could stand to, somewhere between forty and fifty books on How to Oil Paint and have yet to find one that was fit to wipe myself with. Whatever their actual goal is, it surely isn't to teach painting. There are so many fundamental things they overlook or conceal or otherwise obfuscate that I doubt their sincerely of purpose, to put it kindly. I've thrown many at the wall as hard as I could in a fit of rage.

The thing about Youtube videos is that you can actually witness the important things the painter is doing, even if they don't occur to him to explain.

If all that goes by him in a book, you're sunk.

I'll look at some of those other Youtube guys recommended.

[Raichu]

I like mjs paintings (Micheal James Smith). His foliage is fenomenal.

[KEVIN$]

Originally Posted by HaintBlue

Michael James Smith.

A second-generation professional landscape painter. Maybe his stuff is high kitsch, but he can really paint, and he really thinks about how to intelligently demonstrate and instruct, and he doesn't hide all his secrets (if he has any to hide), like almost all others do.

Re the advice to "get a book," I have to say that in the past six months, I have looked at, and read to the extent I could stand to, somewhere between forty and fifty books on How to Oil Paint and have yet to find one that was fit to wipe myself with. Whatever their actual goal is, it surely isn't to teach painting. There are so many fundamental things they overlook or conceal or otherwise obfuscate that I doubt their sincerely of purpose, to put it kindly. I've thrown many at the wall as hard as I could in a fit of rage.

The thing about Youtube videos is that you can actually witness the important things the painter is doing, even if they don't occur to him to explain.

If all that goes by him in a book, you're sunk.

I'll look at some of those other Youtube guys recommended.

Thanks for the link!


Kevin

[Ted Bunker]

A couple more that come to mind;

Of course Mark Carder's Draw Mix Paint youtube video series for portraiture and still lifes. He's quite candid that his method is a learning method, not necessarily a work method. And it's infomative to go back months later and re-watch again, you suddenly catch the subtle nuances a-fresh.

Dianne Mize has several hundred "quick tips" available at In the Studio Art Instruction on youtube, mostly on oil painting but also studio tips..

And the utterly-fractal Handprint website of Bruce MacEvoy. You can lose yourself for hours there in the worlds of color theory, history, palettes, pigments and watercolor technique.

Also Dr. David Brigg's HueValueChroma website.

[Colorado_Ed]

Originally Posted by HaintBlue

Michael James Smith.

A second-generation professional landscape painter. Maybe his stuff is high kitsch, but he can really paint, and he really thinks about how to intelligently demonstrate and instruct, and he doesn't hide all his secrets (if he has any to hide), like almost all others do.

Re the advice to "get a book," I have to say that in the past six months, I have looked at, and read to the extent I could stand to, somewhere between forty and fifty books on How to Oil Paint and have yet to find one that was fit to wipe myself with. Whatever their actual goal is, it surely isn't to teach painting. There are so many fundamental things they overlook or conceal or otherwise obfuscate that I doubt their sincerely of purpose, to put it kindly. I've thrown many at the wall as hard as I could in a fit of rage.

The thing about Youtube videos is that you can actually witness the important things the painter is doing, even if they don't occur to him to explain.

If all that goes by him in a book, you're sunk.

I'll look at some of those other Youtube guys recommended.

Agreed. Maybe it’s my learning style, maybe I haven’t found the right book, but books on how to paint don’t generally work for me either. They always seem to gloss over the stuff I really need to know. Actually seeing someone do it works way better for me.

[HaintBlue]

Originally Posted by Colorado_Ed

books on how to paint don’t generally work for me either. They always seem to gloss over the stuff I really need to know.

They're just fraudulent.

There's no nice way of putting it. It's just laughable.

You know what they're like? All those big, slick food-porn cookbooks with all the lavish photography with exotic tablewear settings. Of course, there are numerous omissions that will keep you from ever actually producing those meals, but that doesn't matter...you bought the book and drooled over it. That's its object.

Painting books are at an order of magnitude below that, of course, usually just pretty crude exercises in petty painter ego. They all mindlessly copy each other while at the same time disagreeing about everything.

"You must always do X."

"You must never do X."

Take your pick of the subject. It's just sick.

OK, here's another fatal example: Mixing colors.

There are two things (at least) that you must know. The brand of paint and the proportions of colors. The "same" colors will look nothing alike from brand to brand, even in single-pigment paints. As an example, as I write this, I look over at a couple of actual paint swatches of PY35 "Cadmium Yellow Light" -- one from Weber, one from Lukas. The Weber looks exactly like Cadmium Yellow Lemon and the Lukas looks exactly like Cadmium Yellow Medium. They aren't even remotely close, and that's about as "standard" a color as you can get.

Proportions?

As a random example, one of these jokers says fleshtones are, "Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, English Red and some Ultramarine Blue." Um, so what? 25% of each? No, not even close. You'll waste $200 in paint (and paint waste is itself also always mysteriously praised as a "good thing") trying to find something that looks like human skin of any race. Hint: The Ultramarine Blue is added in truly minuscule amounts, like with the tip of a toothpick.

In nearly fifty books I have *NEVER* seen a single one that gives you those two simple points.

I have only seen one that gave the brand of paint the painter used (Carol Marine, Utrecht) and only one from some other guy who gave a meticulous breakdown of the mixing proportions of his unhelpfully unbranded paint.

This just makes you want to take these frauds and beat them bloody and senseless.

Literally.

[Ted Bunker]

Many of the more academic texts are generated by "hack" academic teachers who are pressured by their universities or art college committees to "publish" to get or maintain tenure. No-one cares if the book sells --or is any good-- it just has to be published ...or else. "Publish or Perish".

After a few years it's on the bargain tables at Barnes & Noble for Xmas clearance.

[Bardo]

Mark Carder has the most comprehensive program, he starts from the very beginning. Andrew Tischler picks up where Carder leaves off, as does Kyle Buckland and many others.