ANATOMY OF A STUDY | Practicing Painting like an Oil Master
Added 2025-07-29 16:23:06 +0000 UTC
Hey hey! I haven’t done an Anatomy of a Study in a while, but it felt SO good to slow down, open up a master painting, and just… paint. This time I studied a portrait of Queen Elizabeth by Winterhalter (the king of shiny cheeks and silky gowns). Here's a little WIP peek:
💡 What I Learned This Time: Colour Blocking > Rendering
One of the biggest things I re-learned during this study is just how powerful colour blocking is. I spent way more time than usual nailing down my base colours and values before touching any details and it completely changed the way the final piece came together.
Step 1. Blocking in 90% of the values and colour harmony first
Step 2. Pulling background colours into the figure for cohesion
Step 3. Saving those punchy details + final edges for the last 5%
I even used some new brushes I’ve never used before and even tested out that color wheel mixer for the first time (I get it now).
Want to watch the full 30-min annotated breakdown with voiceover?
I go over every step of my thought process and share all my brush experiments, rendering tricks, and the mistakes I fixed along the way.
Join the $5 tier to unlock it!
Thanks for being here! :) Let me know if there’s a master painting you want me to study next!
