This was a difficult set of courses to name. I could easily have called this series "color" or "drawing", but that would miss the essential point of the lessons. When trying to make things look real, a lot of artists think the problem is that they don't have enough skills in painting and mixing the right color. That is not the problem - it is most likely that you are not seeing things clearly. This set of course units shows you how to focus on seeing, not on painting, and to bring more realism into your painting. Only by mastering the skills in this series of courses will you ever master color. This course is the essential companion to the courses on color. Here are some of the topics you will find in these courses:

• Seeing values: the most important skill you need for achieving realism in your work
• How to see color using block studies: an essential skill for learning color harmony
• Color mixing: strategies for mixing just the right color
• Atmospheric perspective: the key to giving your landscapes depth (it also applies to still lifes and figure work)
• Itness: how to capture the true feel of a place or scene

This art instruction also includes a very important course of study on how to become a 'colorist' – in the true sense. That is to say, an artist who captures the beautiful colors seen in nature and represents them faithfully (not an artist that randomy splatters bright color everywhere!). There are no quick fixes in this module, but it will set you on the right track for becoming really good with color.

The six units in the observation series are all about how to see accurately. The realism in your painting comes from accurately depicting in paint what you see in front of you. You do not need to learn how to paint trees, skies, rocks, water, and so on, you need to learn to see trees, skies, rocks and water. Once you see it, painting is easy. When a student says "I can’t seem to mix the right color," the problem is always in an inability to see the color. Not only is realism affected by your ability to observe color accurately, but so is color harmony. The color of sunlight together with the effects of atmospheric perspective and reflected light often (but not always) produce a natural color harmony. If you can observe this harmony accurately, then your painting will have automatic color harmony. The color problems in our paintings are often our left brain taking over and telling us what the color should be as opposed to what we are actually seeing.

Buy all six Observation courses at once and save $40 off the list price! Full price for all six courses would be $90.00, you pay only $49.95.

The Observation package includes:

• Observation Unit 1 - Values
• Observation Unit 2 - Atmospheric Perspective
• Observation Unit 3 - Color
• Observation Unit 4 - Land & Sky
• Observation Unit 5 - Water
• Observation Unit 6 - Itness