Tips/Videos

UART Tip #51: “What I Do When a Painting Isn’t Working” with Lee McVey At times paintings progress effortlessly from start to finish. However, that painting ease does not always happen, so what do I do? The easiest thing to do is put the painting aside and never return to it. But sometimes, that feels […]

UART Tip #50: “UART Dark Tips” with Jen Evenhus Have you tried UART Dark yet?  If not, you have a treat waiting for you! And a bit of a learning curve when sliding that first stroke of pastel across the unique surface of UART Dark. The Dark comes in comparable surface grits as the regular […]

UART Tip #49: “UART Versatility” with Nancie King Mertz “The Provider” is a large piece (45×33.5) painted on #400 UART, which is my usual grit, bought by the roll.  This was painted as a childhood memory of “helping” my Dad on Saturdays at his grain elevator.  His hard work provided a college education for we […]

UART Tip #48: “Painting for the Season, Spring Painting from Photos and Memories” with Jeannie Rosier Smith Many of us are painting from photos right now but the more we can draw on our memory and experience, the better we can use those raw materials. Several years ago, I was part of an artist-in-residence group […]

UART Tip #47: “Free Yourself from the Photo Reference” with Christine Camilleri Using reference materials is a necessary tool for the artist. On the other hand, if I am creating a painting then a photo is part of my journey not the end. This photo of a grizzly bear is from my brother in-law who […]

UART Tip #46: “Steps for Creating a Pet Portrait in Pastel” with Lisa Ober Step One: Sketch Lightly sketch your subject using a medium-value, neutral color pastel pencil. Remember to place your drawing so that the bottom of the head of your subject is above the 1/2 mark vertically on the page. Try to balance […]

UART Tip #45: “Creating Soft, Luminous Skin Tones on UART 800” with John Middick In this article, I’ll discuss ways for developing realistic skin tones, correcting mistakes, and how to get rid of the “lines” in your surface. I’ll walk you through these steps while looking at a recent portrait drawing. I often get some […]

UART Tip #44: “Thoughts on Painting Snow” with Lyn Asselta Being new to painting snow, having moved to Maine after 35 years in Florida, I’ve spent a good part of this past winter looking out my studio windows, walking icy paths with micro-spikes on my boots, paying close attention to the way the light hits […]

UART Tip #43: “Loosening up Your Trees” with Barbara Jaenicke One of the most important skills I’ve learned that has helped me achieve a loose appearance to my paintings, specifically tree subjects, is to start with a large mass, and gradually work my way to the linear elements. A loose, drippy pastel underpainting on a […]

Is your UART paper curling? I bet you the answer is yes. Curling is unfortunately a natural occurence for all true sanded papers. Sanded paper is extremely susceptible to its environment and will not perform well in very dry or very humid conditions. It will curl in a convex way in dry conditions and concave […]

UART Tip #42: “Feel the Heat with an Earthy Tonal Under Painting” with Nancy Nowak “Beneath the Palms” was an experimental painting using Art Graph Tailor Shaped Pigments for my underpainting. Art Graph mimics the look of tailor’s chalk and is a water-soluble block of pressed pigment that richly tones your surface. My cropped reference […]

UART Tip #41: “Making Your Own UART Mounted Panels” with Lyn Asselta Because I do a lot of wet underpaintings, because I paint en plein air, and because I live in a humid climate, I find it easier to work with mounted UART paper. If done properly, there will be no “fighting” your paper at […]

UART Tip #40: “UART versatility” with Nancie King Mertz “The Provider” is a large piece (45×33.5) painted on #400 UART, which is my usual grit, bought by the roll. This was painted as a childhood memory of “helping” my Dad on Saturdays at his grain elevator. His hard work provided a college education for we […]

UART Dark Lightfast Testing with Judith I have enjoyed working on black surfaces for a while, but found it difficult to get the contrasts that I wanted. I was very happy to discover the UART Dark papers. Having previously found that some dark papers fade, before I started any serious work on it, I did […]

UART Tip #39: “Step by Step: Creating a Rock Painting” with Lee McVey I chose a photo taken many years ago during a workshop taught by Richard McKinley in Bend, Oregon. He took us to Spark’s Lake for one of our painting days. Spark’s Lake in the Cascade Mountains is a beautiful lake. I took […]

UART Tip #38: “How 10 Minutes Can Change Your Art-Life” with Jen Evenhus If I were to tell you that 10 minutes can improve your painting, would you look up from your phone, curious enough to ask – “how can 10 minutes make a difference?” As a visual artist, we just want to find the […]

UART Tip #37: “Creating Edge Variety Through Thick and Thin” with Barbara Jaenicke Just as with music, art would be rather mundane without a variety of rhythms. In fact, many aspects of painting deal with variety…shapes, values, colors, etc. But the focus of my pastel tip here is on variety of edges and marks in […]

UART Tip #36: “Texture Through the Use of Simple, Toned Underpaintings” with Lyn Asselta We identify objects by their shape and their form, but we also identify them by their textures.  Soft, rough, pebbly, smooth, spikey…we can easily imagine the way an object would feel if we ran our hand over it.  But, how do […]

UART Tip #35: “Socially Distant Painting During Covid-19” with Doug Tweddale To the artist, social isolation can be viewed as a gift of time and space to create art.   Even though I am now retired, I often chafe at the schedule I usually keep in my “normal world”.  Attending to the routines and events of […]

UART Tip #34: “Pastel Pencils or Colored Pencils?” with Denise Howard In my UART Tip #25, I said: “Why use colored pencil rather than pastel pencil on UART? Less mess, and the option to frame under Plexiglas instead of glass.” If you are experimenting with media, you might have found that answer insufficient to help […]

UART Tip #33: “Photography 101” with Bethany Fields As artists, we want the photographs of our work to look as good as our paintings! We all have mobile cameras and they are a wonderful tool for sharing across social media. However, they do come with certain downfalls. Have you ever taken a photograph with your […]

UART Tip #32: “Underpainting Methods” with Lee McVey Underpainting or toning my paper have become the foundation of my pastel painting. My underpainting methods have evolved over the years until I found my current favorite methods of underpainting in preparation for pastel painting on UART sanded paper. I started underpainting with pastel and Turpenoid on […]

UART Tip #31: “It’s All Just Shape” with Nancy Nowak One of the most important artistic lessons I have learned is to view objects as mere shapes. If I can forget about the label (a flower, a tree, a face, etc.) and just see it as either complex or simple shapes, I can draw it, […]

UART Tip #30: “Pastels Rounded, Broken, or Misshapen?” with Jen Evenhus There’s nothing better than opening a box of brand new Terry Ludwig pastels that are perfectly shaped with razor-sharp edges, just waiting for that first perfect stroke on your paper! Painting is hard enough without having to contend with sticks that have lost their […]

UART Tip #29: “Passing Fancy” with Nancie King Mertz This painting was inspired by 3 photos I took in NYC after my husband and I stepped onto the tram platform near the East River. I work from 4×6 photos if I’m not painting en Plein Air, and this design has elements from each of those […]

UART Tip #28: “Skyscape Painting: Some Useful Tips” with Christine Camilleri Why are clouds challenging to many artists? We know they are important because without them all we would have is an empty blue sky with no colors. Clouds are an integral part of paintings yet we are daunted by them. A cup has solidity, […]

UART Tip #27: “Painting Architecture that “Sings!”” with Jill Stefani Wagner Painting buildings in pastel used to overwhelm me. Perspective, focal points, straight lines, and proper values all seemed way more difficult when painting architecture. Probably because we can sometimes fake a landscape, but everyone knows when a house isn’t “built” right. And color. Buildings […]

UART Tip #26: “From Underpainting to Finish” with Susan Kuznitsky The subject for this demo is this very beautiful moment I caught of my dear friend Lora’s mother, Eileen. She is 92 years old, living with her husband and still creating gorgeous quilts. I love how timeless and ageless creating art of all types can […]

UART Tip #25: Blending and Smoothing Colored Pencils with a Stencil Brush by Denise Howard The first thing you notice when you try colored pencils on sanded paper such as UART is “Whoa! It eats pencils like crazy!” The second thing you notice is “Hey, I covered this whole area in no time!” The pro […]

UART Tip #24: Using Simultaneous Contrast by Lee McVey In his book, The Elements of Color, Johannes Itten says simultaneous contrast happens when you see any color, the eye simultaneously sees the complementary color, even if very subtly, even if it is not present. This effect will also occur between gray and strong chromatic colors […]

UART Tip #23: “How do I Deal with ALL that Green?” with Nancie King Mertz My students often ask this question when we’re together in a plein air workshop, and they often remark that they “don’t have the RIGHT green”.  My solution is to start with a cool underpainting on the furthest section of green […]

Portrait on UART Dark with Alain Picard – Part Two Master Pastelist Alain Picard demonstrates portrait painting on UART Dark premium mounted board. Check out part one here.

Portrait on UART Dark with Alain Picard – Part One Master Pastelist Alain Picard demonstrates portrait painting on UART Dark premium mounted board.

UART Tip #22: My Lighter/Darker/Warmer/Cooler/Brighter/Greyer Mantra with Barbara Jaenicke Okay, that title is quite the mouthful. But it’s what I live by when I paint. I’m often asked how I approach color in a painting, and if I subscribe to any particular color theory.  I wish I could give a short and sweet answer to how I use […]

UART Tip #21: Setting the Mood and Express Yourself with Christine Camilleri Mood is something that the artist can control by using certain things that help to convey a certain emotion. You might choose one or all of these things to help tell your story or to emphasize a certain aspect in your subject. For example, horizontal lines […]

UART Tip #20: How to Capture the City While Keeping it Calm with Nancie King Mertz This painting is from reference photos I took late in the afternoon while attending a benefit in a Chicago hotel!  We’re always looking for our next painting, right? The rush hour traffic was soon to start and the slanted light […]

UART Tip #19: Prepping for Snow with Barbara Jaenicke For any painting, the block-in is crucial. In this all important step, my goal is to begin with only a few shapes, and to connect shapes wherever possible to create movement into and throughout the painting. With a snow scene especially, I’m also concerned with setting […]

UART Tip #18: Blending and Softening Effects with Sanded Paper with Robert Palmerton Blending Effects One of the charms of UART sanded pastel paper is its ability to enable the pastel artist to blend several pastel layers into a uniform hue, and to build atmospheric effects (such as fog or streaks of sunlight), by applying […]

UART Tip #17: Drawing Short Hair in Colored Pencil with John Middick “How can I draw short hair that looks more realistic?” I’ve heard this question quite often from new and seasoned artists alike. It seems there’s a bit of mystery surrounding the process, so I want to offer my own perspective on achieving realistic […]

UART Tip #16: Creating the Illusion of Atmosphere and Distance in a Painting with Jill Stefani Wagner Introduction Recently, our local land conservancy highlighted farms that had been saved through their land rescue program to raise money to protect even more acreage. They requested Michigan artists apply to paint at one of their 40 sites and […]

UART Tip #15: Out of the Box Pastel Grays:  How to Spice Them Up with Christine Camilleri Grays enhance saturated colors, provide balance when there is much going on in your painting, are rest areas for the eye and are invaluable for shadows and showing form or structure. How do we achieve grays that are […]

UART Tip #14: Thinking Outside the Blue Box with Bethany Fields There is nothing more appealing than a bright “bluebird” day. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, the sky is clear and vibrant. Here in my home state of Texas, and particularly in my region, our skies are as blue as pure brilliant […]

UART Tip #13: Loosen-Up and Speed-Up Your Painting Session with Nancie King Mertz Step 1:  Whether studio or plein air, I always first map out a composition with directional “tic-marks” using vine charcoal. This ensures that each element I want to include has its space and prevents letting the subject “grow”, wishing for more painting […]

UART Tip #12: Making Your Mark with Barbara Jaenicke For the impressionist pastel painter, it’s important to allow the mark-making qualities of your pastels to take precedence over rendering precise subject matter. While we work hard to control the pastel medium, the really hard part is learning what NOT to control so that this luscious […]

UART Tip #11: “The Look At Stage” with Lee McVey Some artists finish their paintings and put them in frames right away. I suggest my students put their paintings in what I call “The Look At Stage.” Sometimes this stage will take a few days to a few weeks, but sometimes even longer. Have you ever […]

UART Tip #10: Drawing Fur with Colored Pencils – Step-by-Step with Ewelina Kuczera Long black fur can be tricky. In this tutorial I will show you my method and I will give you some tips on drawing on tinted paper. Here is a reference photo for the portrait – I chose this happy shepherd: 1. […]

UART Tip #09: Having Fun With the Underpainting with Susan Kuznitsky There are many ways and many benefits of using an underpainting on sanded paper to create a strong foundation upon which to add many glorious layers of pastels. The type of underpainting depends on the subject and desired end effect. This demo piece was […]

UART Tip #08: The Secret World of Edges with Jen Evenhus My world is amazing. I’ve lived it for more than 64 years and I learn something new every day. My art world is no different. It’s mysterious, intriguing, challenging and an endless source of joy. One of the ways I continue to learn is […]

UART Tip #07: Plein Air Tips with Lyn Asselta Over the years, I’ve gone from lugging 15-25 pounds of gear out on every plein air expedition, tousing a small backpack that, fully loaded, usually weighs in at under 10 pounds. It has not only been liberating, but it allows me the freedom to do more with much […]

UART Tip #06: Aerial Perspective with Lee McVey It’s a challenge to depict three dimensional space on a flat two dimensional surface. That’s where aerial perspective comes in. Sometimes called atmospheric perspective, it depicts the changes in the atmosphere as it goes back into the distance. Stated simply, as objects recede, they appear lighter, grayer or less […]