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I paint mostly with oils, but I have ventured into the realm of oil pastels at times with some success with portraits. In fact, probably three of my most popular works have been oil pastel paintings (seen below). I recently came across this step-by-step pastel portrait link by Gwenneth Barth-White, and thought it would be nice to share. It actually more follows how I build up my oil paintings (though I’m much less deliberate and more emotional instead), but it’s still nice to see a good process. Enjoy: I painted quite a few oil pastel portraits over the years, but

My strongest work are my abstracts, but sometimes the figurative comes out in me and I produce some good landscapes, still life paintings, and portraits. I enjoy these more than my abstracts because of the challenge they present, but like anything they require practice. I came across these videos by Joseph Lorusso who shows us how he builds up his palette and uses it on canvas to produce a portrait. There are some good tips in here on figurative oil painting. I hope you enjoy. You can view both on www.artinstructionblog.com. The vast majority of my work is abstract, even

This page, with accompanying slideshows and photos, is the most comprehensive article on how to varnish a painting I’ve ever seen. It’s put together by NitpickyArtist.com, which has a lot of good technical info including advice on how to reduce glare, how to enter juried shows, or even info about table surfaces and easels. You may not want to follow this person’s advice all the way through, as it’s quite complex, but there are a ton of good ideas in here to use otherwise. It was the section at the bottom on how to clean a varnish brush that caught