Learning Techniques for Oil Painters

There are many ways to learn the tricks of the trade when it comes to oil painting.
For now I'd like to take a moment to talk about a system I use for gather information from today’s top artists from around the world, and I can do it all without leaving my house

Art magazines and art forums supply an endless amount of information on technique, composition, color mixing, mediums, palette, paint properties, proportion, value and much more.

The information is all right there at your fingertips. The problem is that its scattered all over the place from, article to magazine article and forum to forum post. Sure I can read an artists clever oil painting technique one day and in a month or two I'm still staring at the canvas trying to remember what the heck he was talking about.

So to conquer this problem I have been taking notes from all of them as if they were my teacher. I have note books and binders filled with very useful information on there methods and techniques.

For instance when ever I come across a useful idea in an artist magazine I immediately highlight it and then copy it to one of my note books. My note books are categorized for easy retrieval of this information when needed.

I have a note book for technique, color properties, color mixing, flesh palette, portrait painting, linear prospective, composition, value and so on. When I come across a new useful category I simply start a new note book and title it for that subject.

While on line I simply highlight the information that I want to retain then copy and past it to a word file labeled for that topic. It's amazing how generous accomplished artists are with this information and their words have been a great inspiration and help to me on my journey to learning how to oil paint.