Learn Oil Painting
the way it was taught

Why most oil painting courses
leave you stuck

Most online painting instruction either drowns you in theory or skips it entirely. You watch someone produce a beautiful painting in real time, with no explanation of the decisions being made — the brush choice, the medium ratio, why they're working wet-into-wet here but letting it dry there.

MasterDemos is built on a different premise: the demonstration is the lesson. Every video is structured around a specific technique or problem, recorded with commentary that breaks down the why behind every move.

• —
  Alla prima technique — single-session direct painting, wet-into-wet, the foundation of most plein air and portrait work
• —
  Glazing and layering — building luminosity through transparent oil layers over dry grounds
• —
  Colour mixing — limited palette strategies, value-first thinking, avoiding muddy paint
• —
  Surface and ground preparation — linen vs. panel, oil grounds vs. acrylic gesso, how surface choice affects handling
• —
  Mediums and oils — linseed, walnut, stand oil, Liquin — what each does and when to use it

Who MasterDemos
is built for

You've moved past the beginner stage. You can mix a colour and get it roughly right. You understand the basic mechanics. But your paintings still don't look the way you see them in your head.

That gap — between competent and convincing — is almost always a technique problem, not a talent problem. MasterDemos is for painters who are ready to close that gap.

"The demonstration is the most direct form of art education. Watch an expert hand, and your own hand begins to learn."

Whether you're working from life in the studio, painting portraits on commission, or trying to develop a consistent plein air practice, the techniques demonstrated here are directly applicable to the work in front of you.

What separates good
from great painting

After studying thousands of student paintings and hundreds of hours of instruction, the patterns are clear. Painters who improve fastest share a few habits:

• 1
  They study technique in isolation — before applying it to a full painting
• 2
  They watch experts work — not just finished results, but the process of decision-making
• 3
  They understand the materials — not just how to use them, but why they behave as they do
• 4
  They paint often — with a specific technique in mind, not just hoping for a good painting

MasterDemos is designed around all four. Short, focused demonstrations you can return to before each painting session.