Wet on Wet
the ugly stage is the best stage —

How to Actually Mix a Good Green

A loaded palette with greens being mixed

The colour that ruins more landscapes than any other — and the two-tube fix. Warm your yellow and blue, knock it back with a whisper of crimson, and make the chart once so you never guess again.

ColourTechniquesSignature
Read the walkthrough →
By Ida Vermeer · Techniques · 5 min read

Get your hands dirty

All techniques →
A transparent glaze layer over a dried underpainting Oil · Glazing

Glazing, Without the Mud

Thin, transparent layers that glow instead of going muddy — and the three places beginners lose the light.

By Rowan Vale · 4 min read Wet paint blended directly into wet paint on canvas Alla prima

Wet-on-Wet in Twenty Minutes

The direct method — painting into wet paint for softness and speed, and how to keep it from turning to soup.

By Rowan Vale · 4 min read A toned underpainting stage on a canvas Foundations

Why Underpainting Changes Everything

A tonal or coloured base coat that makes every layer above it easier — the quiet step that fixes half your problems.

By Ida Vermeer · 3 min read
try this today —

A simple colour-mixing chart

1

Two clean primaries. Bin the tube green.

2

Nudge yellow into blue, one step at a time.

3

Too loud? A touch of crimson calms it. No black.

4

Pin the chart up. That's your green, forever.

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Fresh from the studio

Start with the basics →
Four paint tubes, two brushes and a small canvas board laid out on a table Painting

Your First Canvas: Where to Begin

Four tubes, two brushes and a surface — the smallest kit that actually works, and the first thing to paint with it.

By Marlo Fenwick · 4 min read A close-up swatch of yellow ochre being mixed Colour & Materials

Yellow Ochre: The Quiet Workhorse

The unglamorous earth pigment that ends up in nearly every mix — why it earns its place on the palette.

By Theo Marsh · 2 min read A field scene painted in loose, broken colour Artists & Movements

What the Impressionists Knew About Light

Broken colour, coloured shadows and painting fast outdoors — the lesson from Monet and company that still holds.

By Sadie Okonkwo · 3 min read A sketchbook working out a composition Painting

Composition: Leading the Eye

Why some paintings pull you in and others slide off — the handful of ideas that do most of the work.

By Marlo Fenwick · 4 min read A working, cluttered painter's studio corner The Creative Life

In Praise of the Messy Studio

A tidy studio is often an empty one — making peace with the mess, and the setup that keeps you painting.

By Pip Halloran · 2 min read A limited palette of three or four paint tubes Colour & Materials

The Case for a Limited Palette

Three or four tubes will take you further than a boxful — how a limited palette makes a painting hang together.

By Theo Marsh · 4 min read
colour of the week —

Sap Green

Gorgeous, cheating, and a little dangerous. Great straight from the tube — until every leaf in the painting looks exactly the same. Use it, but mix into it: warm it, grey it, break it up.

More colour & materials →
Colour swatches and a mixing close-up
on the bench —

Makers we keep coming back to

Makers, merchants and colourmen whose materials have found their way onto our palette and into our practice.

psst —

One good painting idea a week

A technique to try, a colour to notice, a painting worth a second look. No spam, no dates, just the good stuff.

friends of the studio —

The noticeboard

The quieter corner of the pinboard — galleries, guilds and good people we're glad to point you toward.