It can be said that the pursuit of the knowledge about palette is endless and inscrutable. There are no rigid formulas, but depending on feeling and aura. Everyone has his own habits of palette, and someone else’s good experience may not achieve the same results for their different experiences and habits. Only through constant practice and form our own color matching skill from our own experience on painting, can the skill become means of convincing. The following points about basic color matching skill are for your reference:

1. The true color matching is not on the pallet, but on the canvas, because only the picture could tell you what color you need. Even simple blending several colors, the picture presented on the canvas is the final consolidated. If you mixed the colors excessive balance, the color would be monotonous and rigid.
2. There should not have too much colors, ten kinds or so is enough, such as white, lemon yellow, vermillion, acid blue, black and so on.
3. You can divide the colors into two parts when you put them on the pallet, one side is warm color, and another side is cold color. And every kind of color arranged from shallow to deep.
4. Color white, yellowish brown, terra rossa, brown, terre verte, emerald green, ultramarine and black are the basic color that common used in painting. They are also not easy discoloration.
5. Powder green and lavenderblush are the blending color on the face and body intermediate surface.
6. Learn to use ivory black, for it is as important as color white.
7. The color blending should accounts for a large area, while the color contrast should be small area.

If a painting stored properly, the color would not faded hundreds of years, on the contrary, the colored layer might cracked, dropped or discolored. So, how to protect your oil painting from being damaged? Here are some tips:

1. Coat two layer of natural beeswax that pre-dissolved in turpentine in the back of the canvas to completely prevent moist air from immersing in the painting.
2. Avoid direct sunlight for a long time, because ultraviolet rays would devastate the color and cause fading and discoloration.
3. Pay attention to the ventilation and moisture of the storage room, away from the bathroom and kitchen as far as possible, for the dust, lampblack would damage the canvas. Besides, the room should be maintained at a certain temperature and humidity, the wet painting should be dried slowly, avoided exposure, and otherwise the layer of the painting would be easy to fall off.
4. Avoid put two pictures together, because once the temperature rises, pictures may stick each other.
5. Roll up the picture with paper tube that more than four-inch and wrap it with plastic sheeting.
6. If there has dust on the surface

   it with soap and water, and then soaked up the water or use electric fan. Furthermore, some professional auction houses and galleries could also help you clean the painting.

7. If you have a lot of collectibles, you can use plastic cloth warp them up and stored them in wooden cases.

Letoile Lost was depicted a beautiful naked woman, she backed to the audience and her head turned slightly to the right side. She has a long curly hair, the holding hands was full of tension, while her body suspended in the air. Hands, body’s back and legs forming a beautiful curve. The bottom right of this picture has six females whose head shined the stars.

What Bouguereau presented in Letoile Lost was Titan Atlas’ seven daughters in Greek mythology who chased by hunter Orion, so Zeus turned them into seven stars. In this painting, Bouguereau focused on the seventh fairy called Melop, it was this seventh star that be highlighted in the close shot. However, the light of the star on her head relatively weak for she has love affair with a man in the earth, on the contrary, the other six stars sparkled at night in the distance.

Like Bouguereau’s other painting, Letoile Lost was painted based on the theme of mythology and allegory, which made he obtained a variety of awards and became the most famous painter in France. His works were high integrity that employed comprehensive techniques and good at presenting sentimental theme. The figures that he portrayed were very idealistic, and he used realistic brush painted unreal elements. The naked female in this painting hang in the air, its posture with classical sculpture style. We could see the painter’s superb skill in both the form and the handling of painting techniques.

Flower was a very favorite theme for artists. The Roses of Heliogabalus which painted by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema fully confirmed the judgment. This painting was based on the history of the notorious Roman emperor Heliogabalus who was very handsome, and renamed for his adoration for Phoenician god of sex Elagabalu.

This painting was one of the artist’s three masterpieces that painted for John Elton’s commissioned. It was a time when this famous civil engineers in charge of moving the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park to the suburbs Sydenham. He was very rich and has a large number of acquisitions

emperor on the throne and sat next to his mother and minions, observing the diners suffered by the petals. In this painting, Alma-Tadema integrated the man and rose petals together, which manifested his superb skill.

The western art center in 19^th century was in France, which dominated by the official academic. Admittedly, impressionist painters have significance discoveries on the exploration for the sunshine and the analysis of colors that enriched performance skills of paintings in light and color. They encouraged stepped out of the studio and sketched in the face of natural objects, which grasped the instant impression quickly to make the picture more vivid. So their arts belonged to the category of realism that pursued democracy, freedom and equality in the reflection of art.

The generation of impressionist was the inevitable result of the development of western painting. Since the 16th century, Venetian school of painting started concentrated on the depiction of light and color, especially Titian, Vermeer, and Velazquez and so on. Their works were attractive, such as Vermeer who was good at depicting the sunshine, and can be described as a pioneer of Impressionism. Turner and Constable, the English landscape masters, tried to make their paintings full of sunlight and air, which awarded the painter who open sunroof of Impressionism. In addition, Courbet has been called “the father of Impressionism”. Depended on the exploration and success of those masters, Impressionism was inevitably emerged.

But for the suppression of the official academic, their creative works could not be exhibited at the official salon, so they co-hosted a “defeat salon exhibition” in 1863 that was being attacks by academic classicism. Instead of losing heart, they held another exhibition in 1874. Impression Sunrise was one of the exhibits. After two years, the second exhibition held in the name of Impressionism exhibition. Since then, impressionism ascended art circles in France, spread to Europe and impacted the world.

The line does not exist in the nature. When children use the color strokes to paint the villain, he is making the abstract art creation, because the line is abstracted from the image, or more precisely by adding the image in the eyes. When people want to describe things, they always tend to interpret the nature in form of lines, which seems to be the human nature. Prehistoric cave people, aborigines in Africa and Australia, Indians before Columbia discovered the new world, the original human adults as well as children perform the world by using the lines.

Pure lines are the typical elements of sketch, so one might consider the articles in painting tutorial should not include the content of lines. But for the technique, pencil, pen, oil pen and drawing knife have the same characteristics, any of which rule more or less could also apply to other tools. Many masters show some effect in one way or another with lines. In fact, the line is one of the basic elements in painting. The painter excels at using the lines regardless of the other, who also can become the master: Ingres and Paul Klee are two typical masters.

The expressive force of lines

Drawing technique is what the painter uses lines. People who study the handwriting learn to judge a person’s character and emotion through a word. This also applies to the painting. The drawing can reveal the painter’s emotion and personality, and attempting to disguise them is not an easy task. The painter should learn to use the pure lines to show his mind. The masters attach great importance to this. In order to test your ability to express the emotion, I suggest you use a pen, and the soft tipped pen is the best to draw some lines on the paper and respectively show these feelings: anger, jealousy, hatred, anger, despair and serenity. Show these lines to your friends and look whether they can feel the emotion that each line shows. If you do have the feeling when drawing these lines, then the lines will be more convincing, because the mood and emotional expression lines are not easy to forge.

Chinese philosopher first discovered that the painter’s emotion and personality will be revealed imperceptibly in the painting. Until the 17^th and 20^th century, the West also appeared the similar theory. So I emphasize the importance of drawing here not aiming to show the difference. The drawing technique can also be used to represent object. So, for the performance of running horse, of course, using the fearful and quick strokes is the most appropriate. Many masters, especially those in the 17^th century, seriously studied the expressive force of drawing

The lines representing the texture

Another effect of lines is the performance of texture. For example, in the paintings of Renoir, the women’s face is often deliberately softened, even fuzzier than the cat’s nap. The reason why Renoir used this line was not only to show the women’s skin texture, but also expressed his feelings: soft, warm and delicate. He was using the lines to convey such feeling.

The lines representing the rhythm

The line also has an important role that you should know, that is the manifestation of the rhythm. Line marks the boundaries of space and also marks the time demarcation. In other words, when your eyes move from one place to another place, segmentation of regional lines controls your sight. If there are a lot of lines, the pace will slow down. On the contrary, it will be faster when the sight gazes over a flat color gamut. The artist can control the speed by using the expression methods of this rhythm to enhance the excitement of the vision.

The famous German painter Paul Klee said “go for a walk with lines, which illustrates an important aspect of the lines. The line can be an independent factor of drawing and has its own life, style, and personality. If you can handle it, then you have the most competent tamed slave.

After five hundreds years practice in western painting, it was proved that linens that closely thick, well-distributed and have no node and pore were the most suitable material can be used as canvas. Bocklin, Swiss romanticism painters, once said, without the basic comprehension for painting material, we are the slaves of material. Professor Max Doerner said, for the artist, what matter was not the chemical composition of materials, but the application performance.

Material technique is the foundation of the art of painting, while the spirit of the work implement and aesthetic value are the artist’s challenge. In most instances, painters lack relevant knowledge about the material and the judgment of identification. If the painter wants to use material correctly and effectively, he must understand and follow some basic principles on selecting painting materials. Only the artist completely grasps different materials features, can he laid a firm foundation for the development of personal style and the permanent of his works.

Canvas is an integral component of art, and it also embodies the spiritual and aesthetic values of work. The special texture, apparent and background color of canvas play important role in achieving the purpose of creation. Absorbency, elasticity, sense of stroke and adhesion is the important requirement to complete the creative process, while durability, stability and powerfulness support and protect the paintings.

The Abduction of Psyche was depicted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, which was depended on Greek mythology. It was said that Psyche, the daughter of a king, was a beauty who worshiped as a goddess by citizens, which angered Venus, so that Venus decided to punish her that she has to married the world’s most humble person. However, small Cupid who famous as Venus’s son, fell in love with this pure and innocent girl, so he ignored his mother’s will and married with Psyche, which led to house confinement of him. To rescue her beloved, Psyche was required to complete an arduous task that is brought the beauty of the goddess of Death. After going through hardships, she finally found the small box that carried the goddess’ beauty, which was the death itself. Unfortunately, she could not resist the curiosity and opened the little box. At last, when Cupid escaped, only can he found the dead Psyche. He was so sorrowful that he leaned over to kiss his beloved. At that time, the miracle happened, Psyche brought back to life. After the catastrophe, Venus forgave them and they lived together.

In the mythological painting of The Abduction of Psyche, Bouguereau highlighted the subtleties of the human body with delicate brushwork to present the theme of love. What we could see was the lovers embraced each other, the soft and smooth body together with the purple tulle, added the sense of mystery of this painting. The man’s eyes looked to the right side, and the wings on his back brought them up. Under the embrace of him, the heroine seemed so happy and the look of enjoyment inebriety was fleshed. In a word, Bouguereau modeled poetic myth characters with his profound painting skills.

In today’s western countries, abstract art had already become a kind of spiritual needs. When people at a certain era produced desires in his heart, and born the spiritual needs with the time, the desires and needs would be materialized as a work of art through artists’ creation.

Art is an important component of spiritual civilization, at the same time, abstract painting became the western mainstream in 20th century has its historical reasons. It is approximately equal to ask whether the abstract painting is necessary and if the colorful flowers in garden are all necessary. Flowers are a natural product, while art is the product of society and history, and abstract art is just like a flower in garden of art, which limited by the history and spirit of the age. The continuation of the art of painting can not be separated with concretization, and the abstract painting still has the majority of the audience in a very long historical period, for this world is the world of figurative. In the current opinion, people’s desire for abstract art or the needs for minimalist styling, are inevitable response to busy life. With the expanding of material culture, people are tired for daily petty and the concrete world.

The artist, a group of sensitive man, flees and abandoned the mainstream of civilization for not fit to the life, while the painter hid themselves in the abstract art to look for a new path. This is a kind of instinct reaction and a conscious choice. Western painting as a didactic tool has been too old, and what was being said was always repeated overlapping, the rise of capital and the ravages of war have inspired angry cries from the bottom of conscience. Perhaps the world’s corruptions finally lead to the thoroughly disillusion for traditional figurative art, but abstract art would become a temporary breach and a new direction of thinking.

It is very important to correctly use the relationship between the light and shade and simplify the details in the depiction of moonlight scenes. When drawing on linen, firstly use the ivory black pigment diluted by the mineral solvent to darken the surface color and remove the dazzling white. This gray surface immediately shows the light weakened tone—neutral gray. After the establishment of the neutral tone as the reference, the next step is to concentrate on drawing out the main tone of the painting. At the beginning, draw a few big and important shapes (sky, the color block on the upper right, and the color block with no tone change) and a few visible light, no details. Finally, make the light in the sky and water and several high lights representing “moonlight” combine the beautiful and harmonious light-colored tune to represent the “moonlight”.

Step 1

Firstly, paint the warm neutral gray on the canvas and then quickly sketch out the main shapes and tunes. From the darkest part, paint the pier, boat and their reflections and mast. And then use the warm color pigments to coat the distant shore, ship and shadows on the sailing ships to establish the neutral tone. Use the mineral solution to wipe the stain to make its tone brighter than the sail, ship, and quay. In this step, the artist will roughly describe every object in the painting, but he has not begun to depict the details yet.

Step 2

As the dark tone is determined, then draw all the important relationships of light and shade in the sky. Too bright or too dark will change the effect of the whole painting, with the same basic colors (white, lemon yellow, phthalocyanine blue, cadmium red) to draw the water. Weaken the contrast of light and shade in the place far from the light source and highlight it in the nearer source. Thickly paint the white and lemon yellow to represent the distant moonlight in the water.

Step 3

After the appearance of the moonlight mood, focus on the whole painting. Maintain the big and simple blocks and adjust the color tone and color, so that the painting makes the shape and surface coordinated with each other without unnecessary details.

Step 4

Finally, increase the details like mast, character, and orange fence on the ship, thickly paint the moonlight in the near water and add some light in the small light lamp in the distance.