If you’ve ever had the slightest bit of desire to learn to paint in oils, or acrylics, or water soluble oils, than this might be the most important website you’ve visited all day….

Here’s why:

“YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO PAINT.”

Hi, I’m Darrell Crow and I’ve carefully put together a fantastic set of art instructional videos that are guaranteed to teach you how to paint beautiful landscapes and seascapes.

So if you’ve ever thought about painting, but didn’t know how, thought you had to born with talent, or just wanted to learn the fundamentals, the basic techniques of painting, this website is for you.

A little about me.

I’ve been teaching brand new beginning painting students for over 30 years. I’ve taught over 3,000 workshops in person and over 6,000,000 people on-line.

The system of painting I teach works.

And I’ve taken all of my experience, techniques and tips and condensed them into simple video lessons that will absolutely, positively teach you to oil paint.

I back up my video lessons with personalized help via email, telephone, newsletters, web videos and on-line student art painting forums on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc…

This is very important. Not only will you have access to the internet’s best art instructional video, but you’ll have access to me. What other instructor on-line will do this?

“When I first began painting I wanted instructions that were easy to understand, clear, step-by-step, and easy to follow.

I wanted a solid set of art lessons I could easily reference for the rest of my life.

Furthermore, I wanted access to help.

I knew I’d get stuck. I wanted someone to whom I could show my paintings, ask questions, give me solid feedback, and help me with the next steps.

I wanted a systematic (logical) approach in learning painting that would work. I wanted to learn the fundamentals, the basic techniques of painting landscapes and seascapes.

Painting the instructor’s paintings was fine, but I really wanted to paint my own masterpieces.

I did a lot of traveling for work and my family and I traveled for vacation. Everywhere we went, we took photos and I thought they’d make a great painting.

So I wanted to learn the basic techniques. I wanted to be able to learn how to paint from photographs, how to mix color, and how to arrange objects in my masterpiece rather than constantly struggling with how to paint a tree or a mountain or a cabin.”

I had hoped to find this kind of help in either books, or videos (VHS/DVDs)

But they didn’t exist.

I bought plenty of books and videos, but they all fell short of what I required.

Quite by accident one weekend, I met an excellent acrylic/oil painting instructor who lived about 65 miles away. He also informed me that the type of help I was looking for in books and videos didn’t exist either. He’d also searched his whole life for this kind of help.

“Every Tuesday and Thursday night during the worst commuter traffic imaginable, I drove 65 miles one-way to take lessons from Jessie Martin.

I hated the 3-hour drive, but I loved the way Jessie taught. I spent 3 years taking classes from Jessie twice a week.

I did well and after just a few months, people were actually begging me to teach them. I didn’t think I could paint all that well, but boy, everyone who saw my work swore otherwise.

Thus my teaching career was started and I went all out to help family, friends, co-workers and anyone with a desire to learn to oil paint.

One day, Denise, a student of mine, matter-of-factly says, “Darrell I want to take you home with me.”

I didn’t know how to respond, but Denise continued. “Yes sir, I want to take you home with me and put you up on a shelf. Whenever I want to paint, I’ll just take you down from the shelf and have you guide me step by step in painting and answer all my questions on painting landscapes and seascapes.”

I did a lot of thinking about what Denise had asked and decided to produce the Basic Techniques of Painting video series of instructions.

You see, Denise had the same problem I did. She couldn’t find the right art lessons that would guide her step-by-step in either book form or in videos.

Right then and there I decided I would produce the kind of video painting lessons that Denise, Jessie, and I’d originally tried to find.

In building this set of painting instructional videos I resolved that my lessons would

1. Concentrate on the fundamentals, the Basic Techniques of Painting

2. I would cover traditional oils AND acrylics AND water mixable oils. The student could easily choose which medium they wanted to use for painting.

3. No talent would be necessary in learning to paint,

4. No prior lessons or experience required.

5. Each lesson would be clear and easy to understand.

6. Each lesson would cover each technique step-by-step-by-step.

7. Each lesson would be to easily follow.

8. To further help my students, I would make myself available on-line to review their work and give suggestions.

9. I would answer their questions personally by email, phone, YouTube, Facebook and newsletters.

10. The Basic Techniques of Painting Series, while comprehensive, would be more than affordable by anyone, even if they lived on a small fixed income.

11. In fact, if anyone could afford $19.95, they would instantly have access to the best, most comprehensive, and popular series of art instruction.

12. Best of all, students would not have to drive 65 miles twice a week to attend these classes.

Three Reasons To Believe What I Say

Reason one: I assume you know absolutely nothing about painting and start with the basics, the supplies you’ll need, how to set up your painting area, how to clean brushes and continue all the way through the different core elements of landscape and seascape painting (skies, clouds, mountains, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, seascapes, trees, grass, bushes, rocks, and buildings) until you’re painting entire landscapes and seascapes.

Reason two: I am the private instructor that college art professors and high school art instructors go to when they want to build their technical skills in painting. The vast majority of my students, though, are beginners like you who simply have a desire to learn to paint. I have helped millions of people, I can help you.

Reason three: I have been teaching ‘Beginners’ for over 30 years with an iron-clad money-back guarantee. Today, nearly 6,000,000 on-line beginning students have signed up to watch and learn Darrell’s Basic Techniques of Oil Painting and learned how to paint. And you can ‘test drive’ his Basic Technique course to prove to yourself that, “Yes! You can paint!” To ‘test drive’ our style of teaching and the content of our lessons, simply click the play button below.

I created the Basic Techniques because it didn’t exist and I want you to have the best possible art instructions in your quest to learn to paint.

Most importantly, I want you to believe in yourself that you can paint.

From the very first video in this series, your experience will totally transform your concept as well as your belief in you. You will walk away with absolute faith that “Yes, you can paint.”

My first art instructor, Jessie Martin’s words of encouragement have become the inspiration behind all of my video art lessons and the drive to constantly help every student to mentally understand the concept behind each technique taught in my art instruction video series. If you have a “want to” no matter how much you “disbelieve,” you will learn to oil paint.

I can’t believe how my wife proudly boasts about my work and actively pushes my paintings to people she meets. My children, who are in their forty something now, admire my paintings and even have them hanging on their walls.

Preparation For Painting

This first video takes you through every aspect of preparing your canvas, setting up your workstation, learning what brushes to use, how to hold your brush, the use of color and how to load, and apply paint to your canvas. All about easels, palettes, thinner, mediums and more. This video is chocked full of valuable information. Here’s what each video of the Basic Techniques of Painting contains…

• Creating a Workstation
• Cleaning and Maintaining Brushes
• Overview of brushes
• Overview of paints
• Easels
• Canvas Quality
• Ovals on a Rectangular Canvas.
• Demonstration of Applying Black Gesso
• Demonstration of using Gesso for Background Color or Base,
• Saving What Canvas area
• Use of mediums
• Demonstration of Adding Background Color
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Below Links To See A short Preview of Preparation In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• for acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Skies And Clouds

Clouds are one of the easiest forms to make. Yet they set the mood, season and weather for our landscapes and seascapes. This video contains demonstrations on: —>

• Basic Light Blue Sky.
• Painting Night Clouds
• Using either a 1″ or a 2″ brush to make Clouds.
• Demonstration of using Fan Brushes to make clouds.
• Special Brush Cleaning
• More Blending Techniques
• Chock full of slow motions so you can master each step
• Demonstration of painting grey clouds
• Demonstration of painting dark clouds
• Demonstrations on painting storm clouds.
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Below Links To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Skies and Clouds In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Mountains

Struggle no more. Over the past 10 years I’ve seen students struggle to make beautiful snow-covered mountains. This video simplifies the process. Watch Darrell as he demonstrates painting mountain after mountain after mountain. This simplified process shows each explicit detail on how you can master your mountains.

• Paint far-distant mountains.
• Foreground Mountains
• How to Highlight snow-covered mountains and non-snowy mountains.
• Small highlighting techniques.
• The key to shadow lighting mountains and most everything else.
• Changing a Mountain After Adding Highlights
• Western Mountains
• Desert or Butte Mountains
• Demonstration of Painting Spectacular Moonlit Mountains.
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Below Links To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Mountains In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Water

We left no stone unturned when it came to showing you how easy water is to paint. This highly acclaimed video covers: —>

• Waterfalls
• Painting a Lake in Front of the Falls
• Adding Rocks in the Spray
• Making the Ocean Move
• Gentle Waves
• Foam Patterns on the Beach
• Painting a Powerful Crashing Wave
• Adding Glistening Lake Reflections
• Reflecting a Mountain into a lake
• Reflecting Bushes into a Lake
• Putting in Shorelines
• Painting Rain Puddles
• You gotta Love These River Rocks! Painting Stream and Bed Rocks
• Adding Water to Rocks
• Quickly Painting Cascades, Water Movement
• Putting Rocks on a Frozen Lake
• Ocean Motion
• Details of Beach
• Big Rocks in the Ocean
• Lighthouse
• Adding Pylons
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Below Links To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Water In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Trees

I only wish I had this Video when I was learning

• Evergreens
• Highlighting Evergreens
• Slow Motion
• Highlight Colors
• Oval Brush Evergreens
• Slow Motion Oval Brush Evergreens
• Oval Brush highlighting
• Two-Inch Brush Evergreens
• Dead Trees
• Birch Trees
• Large Forest Trees
• 1-inch Brush Highlights
• Background Trees
• Grandfather Tree
• Palm Trees
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Below Links To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Trees In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Bushes, Grass and Ground Cover

• Setting up the Palette
• Mixing & Applying Base Color
• Adding Grass to Base Color
• Loading the Brush, Touching the Canvas
• Create Bushes with 2″ Brush
• Highlight Bushes
• Snow Covered Bushes
• Half Round Bush for Grass & Bushes
• creating Bushes with 1″ Oval Brush
• Sea Grass
• Upward Stroke Grass Technique
• Flowers on Bushes
• Snow Scene with Bushes & Foothills
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Links Below To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Bushes & Grass In Medium Of Your Choice

1. for traditional oils
2. For acrylics
3. for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Rocks and Boulders

Landscapes and Seascapes are greatly enhanced with simple details. In this video we walk the student through adding rocks to enhance a scene or make it the focal point of the painting. All aspects of making beautiful rocks and boulders are shown.

• Four Basic Shapes of Rocks
• Simple Shape
• Mountain Shape
• Small Shape
• Boulder Shape
• Adding Rocks into Foliage
• Beach Rocks
• Rocky Coast
• Gorge with Double Waterfalls
• Cliff Ledges
• Stone Ledges in Foliage
• Rocks to Separate Layers
• River Rocks in Banks
• Snow Covered Rocks
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Links Below To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Rocks & Boulders In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Cabins and Buildings

This video shows the beginner how to paint the basic cabin and a host of other buildings. i.e. How to paint a barn, a covered bridge, several buildings next to each other, lighthouses and more.

• Understanding Perspective
• Basic Cabin
• The Three Point Checkup
• Adding on to the Cabin
• Log Cabin
• Far Distant Buildings
• Two Barns
• Dock
• Windmills
• Covered Bridge
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Below Links To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Cabin & Buildings In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Learn To Paint Seascapes

An exhaustive coverage of painting the basic seascapes, beach and a crashing wave sporting a transparent eye.

• Preparing the Canvas
• Anatomy of a Seascape
• Sky and Beach Colors
• Blending, Hypnotizing
• Distant hills, and landforms
• Putting Movement into water
• The Basic Wave
• Working the Dump
• Foam Patterns
• Detailing the Front Wave
• Detailing the Sides
• Foam lines on the Beach
• Foam Lines on the Sea
• Adding Rocks on the Beach
• Adding Rocks in the Wave
• There are two hours of lessons for oil painting, two hours of lessons for acrylic painting and about 1 hour of lessons of water-mixable painting

Click Links Below To See A short Preview of Learn To Paint Seascapes In Medium Of Your Choice

• for traditional oils
• For acrylics
• for water mixable oils.

Here is a summary of the benefits you receive with the Basic Techniques of  Painting

• No Talent or Experience Required

  Darrell quickly dispels the fable that in order to paint one must have talent. You have enough talent to paint already if you can sign your name. In fact, Darrell believes that talent is nothing more than technique practiced over and over.

• Darrell starts with the fundamentals of painting, the supplies, how to use them and leads you by the hand, step-by-step until you’re painting your very own landscapes and seascapes. Not only will you be surprised by your paintings, but friends and family members will insist you’ve been painting for years and hiding your talents.

• Easy to Understand, Step-by-Step Instructions

  Darrell speaks your language. No high tech art talk. In everyday language Darrell explains how to mix all of the colors, how to load your brush, why you’re using that brush and how to stroke the paint onto the canvas. Everything is explained. You’ll know what to do. How to do it and why.

• Comprehensive Instructions

  Darrell has broken landscapes and seascapes down into 9 core learning blocks. For example, Mountains is one core learning block. The student is given over 2 hours of instructions in how to paint all kinds of mountains in different seasons and with different brushes. The Basic Techniques of Oil Painting Series of videos contains over 20 hours of comprehensive step-by-step-by-step instructions.

• Plus numerous of examples (painting projects) in which you can paint entire paintings from beginning to end. Darrell personally shows you how to paint each example.

• Innovative close-ups, repeats & slow-motion

  Our filming studios are fully equipped with the latest in sound, video and editing and we make liberal use of close-ups, repeating critical instructions and mixing in slow-motion so that the student is afforded every opportunity to learn. As one of our students said, “It’s impossible not to learn.”

• Instructions for both left-handed and right-handed beginning students

  Darrell forced himself to paint left handed so that he could show left-handed beginning students how to use the palette knife and brushes. Sometimes, its just too confusing for a left-handed student to transfer a right handed person’s instruction to themselves. Darrell has ample illustrations in both left-handed and right-handed demonstrations throughout the series.

• No More Watching The Back Of The Hand

  One of the cardinal rules of design for this series was to stop filming immediately when only the back of the hand was shown. It’s so frustrating to only see the instructor’s hand and not the brush and how its being worked on the canvas. It makes learning impossible. Darrell insisted upon multiple cameras and different angles to ensure the student can always see the action.

• Darrell Makes Himself Personally Available To You.

  You’re not just given a set of videos and sent off into the wild blue yonder, “Happy Painting.” Darrell not only wants you to learn to paint, but is personally committed to your success. These videos are only the beginning. Darrell publishes on YouTube, Facebook, and his own Newsletter additional help articles, help videos and answers to tons of questions. Over 1,000 articles are published to further your education and answer questions. There’s also a special forum or channel for Darrell’s beginning students that’s been set up on Facebook and YouTube.

• Darrell’s Techniques Are Transferable To Acrylics

  Many of Darrell’s student prefer to paint in acrylics rather than oils. Therefore the Basic Techniques of Painting now includes 20 hours of lessons for acrylics as well. You no longer have to make a decision which media you’d like to learn. Learn one, learn both, it doesn’t matter. Darrell has ensured that the same 20-hour video series that show how to paint landscapes and seascapes in oils are also taught in acrylics.

• Darrell’s Techniques Are Transferable To Water Miscible Oils

  Live in an apartment or with someone that has breathing difficulties. The fumes of traditional oils and solvents are often uncomfortable for those with asthma, breathing difficulties and those living in small quarters or poorly ventilated areas. Water Miscible Oils could well be the answer. Darrell has included within the Basic Techniques of Painting a series of video lessons that teach you how to paint landscapes and seascapes with Water Miscible oils.

Grandchildren love to come over to “Pop-Pop’s” house to paint.

I have never experienced the thrill or joy in creating anything like I do when I pick up a paint brush. I want everyone to experience this grand and glorious feeling. You can do this, just as easily as I did.