Yes, You Can Oil Paint

Learn to paint portraits, even if you have absolutely no talent, none whatsoever.

My father painted portraits for years using the acrylic medium.

He’s pretty good.

I have several of his paintings and cherish each one of them.

He passed away about six or seven years ago. So his portraits are treasures now.

A curious thing has happened since then. I felt the desire to learn portraits. I don’t know if it was his influence or what. He influenced me to take up oil painting a long time ago. Now its my master passion.

I generally have 3 or 4 paintings going at once. One is always a tall ship, another a portrait and so forth.

I went to the Bob Ross School for Teacher Certification in teaching portraits. Three intensive one week courses. I learned a lot about faces. Eyes, ears, nose, lips, cheeks, planes, hair and so forth. John Thamm is a great artist and I learned a lot from him. His style is rather controversial. It takes some getting used to and not a lot of people like the style. But it was a good learning tool for me.

Then I met Valerie.

As I said, a lot of my students did not like Mr. Thamm’s style.

but they all loved Valerie.

So I went down to Florida last January and took my first 4-day workshop from her.

Oh my goodness!

That gal is tremendous. I cannot believe the paintings I did. And just to show you what I mean, compare the two paintings of my wife. One was done as a student of John Thamm, the other as a student of Valerie.

(John Thamm technique.) Valerie Stewart technique)

I’m now doing my grandchildren and doing commission work.

This is my grandaughter Sabrina using Valerie’s Style

This is the same Sabrina using John Thamm’s style.

Like I’ve said, I wasn’t displeased with John’s style, I just love Valerie’s style to pieces.

Here’s a couple more points of comparison…. First a couple of paintings I did when learning John’s style.

Now let’s take a look at a couple I did using Valerie Stewart’s technique.

My son Ben is the first painting in the second column and you just may see the photo I was working from in the background. I then tackled an Indian girl in one of my practice sessions. I then painted a self-portrait and am showing you one of the originals I worked from.

And I want to get better and better and better.

So I bought Valerie’s videos.

You might not be able to attend one of her workshops, but you can invite her to your own home with the magic of DVDs and learn to oil paint portraits. She’s a great guest. Just sits on the shelf until you’re ready. Doesn’t say a word until you press the play button.

Imagine what it would be like to hand your children or grandchildren a painting of them on their next birthday. The gleam in their eye, the beam in their smile.

My son was so shocked when I handed him his portrait. Now I have my other son and daughter begging to be next.

My wife just took a portrait into work of a young man I did from a photo I took at his high school graduation this past June. His father tried to speak when she gave him the oil painting of his son. All he had were tears of joy in his eyes.

Payment enough for me.

I like being able to make other people happy.

Imagine making someone you know feel that happy.

Valerie Stewart’s portrait series is now on sale, so smiles are now even easier to create.

Normally the price for the DVDs are just $197.00, but until Christmas, for another $20 bucks you can also obtain brushes and paints. That’s nearly a $100 savings. Now that’s a nice Christmas, especially if that little ole artist is you!