Corey Guerra Design, LLC

06/11/2026

Getting ready to start another painting...

One of my favorite parts of painting prep — making my own canvas panels. 🎨

Here, I start with an 8x10 birch panel, cut pre-primed canvas to size, and adhere it down with pH neutral PVA glue (archival grade). Press it flat, let it cure, and you’ve got a rock-solid painting surface.

Why bother when you can grab a pre-made canvas panel at the hobby store?

Those store-bought panels are typically made from cardboard or low-grade chipboard. Over time, the cardboard absorbs moisture, warps, and breaks down — and it’s acidic, which means it actively degrades the canvas and paint layers bonded to it. Your painting yellows, cracks, and deteriorates faster than it should.

Birch is dimensionally stable and naturally more resistant to warping. Pair it with archival PVA (pH neutral = no acid, no off-gassing) and your painting has a foundation that’s built to last — not just for years, but for generations.

If you’re serious about your work, the support matters as much as the paint on top of it.

What surface are you painting on right now?

Leave any questions in the post replies.

06/09/2026

She’s framed and ready to find a home. 🍋

Teal and Tart — oil on canvas 16x12
$800 (friends and family get a special price-DM me)

This one’s been one of my favorites since the first brushstroke. The contrast between the cool teal pot and the sharp yellow of the lemons just works.

If she doesn’t sell by the weekend, she’s heading to the Art House Gallery in Covington, LA — which honestly isn’t a bad consolation prize.

DM me to claim her before she goes.

06/09/2026

One of the most overlooked steps in oil painting? Varnishing. 🖼️

After all that work, varnish is what protects your painting from dust, UV light, and environmental damage. It also saturates your colors and gives the surface a unified finish — no more matte spots competing with glossy ones.

But here’s where a lot of painters get confused about when to do it.

Traditional damar varnish requires you to wait 6 months or more before applying it. Here’s why: oil paint cures through oxidation, and that process releases vapors as it hardens. Damar forms a hard, relatively inflexible film — if you apply it too early, you’re essentially sealing in that off-gassing. The result can be a cracked or cloudy varnish layer that bonds too tightly to an undercoat that’s still moving. That’s a problem you can’t easily fix.

Gamvar (by Gamblin) changed the game.

It’s formulated with Regalrez resin dissolved in odorless mineral spirits, which creates a flexible, breathable film. That means the paint can continue to cure beneath it without the varnish cracking or trapping solvents. You can apply Gamvar as soon as your painting is touch dry — often just weeks after finishing, depending on paint thickness (much sooner when painting in thin glaze layers).

Same protection. Same beautiful finish. Without the 6-month wait.

And when you’re ready to apply it, the Gamblin Varnish Brush makes a real difference. It’s wide, flat, and soft — designed to lay varnish down in thin, even strokes without streaking or leaving brush marks (I have tried multiple brushes and this is the ONLY one that consistently works). One coat goes on smoothly and evenly, which matters a lot when you’re working with a glossy or satin finish.

Varnish is the last thing you add to a painting, but it’s not an afterthought.

Protect the work. 🎨

06/09/2026

Selecting a frame for this bad boy this evening. Stay tuned…

06/09/2026

🎨 New book: Architecture of Light: Indirect Oil Painting in the Old Master Tradition

Discover the layered techniques the Old Masters used to create luminous, glowing paintings—from underpainting and bistre layers to glazing and final highlights.

Whether you're just starting out or refining your craft, this book walks you through the indirect method step by step, so you can build depth and radiance into your own work.

Each chapter builds upon the last and offers the "why" behind the "how" in easy-to-read language.

Now available for $36 on Amazon 👇
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2ZNL6ZL

Architecture of Light: Indirect Oil Painting in the Old Master Tradition

06/08/2026

Ever wonder how painters catch mistakes they’d otherwise miss?

Meet raking light. 🕯️

Raking light is when you hold a single light source at a sharp, almost parallel angle to your canvas. Instead of lighting the painting evenly, it skims across the surface, throwing every brushstroke, ridge, and texture into sharp relief.

Impasto pops.
Sags show up.
Drips you forgot about say hello.

It’s one of the best diagnostic tools you have before finishing a painting — and it costs nothing.

But here’s the step most beginners skip before varnishing:

Oiling out.

As oil paintings dry, certain areas sink in — the paint loses its sheen and looks dull or chalky compared to the rest. This happens because the oil in those areas got absorbed into the canvas or underlayers. It’s normal, but if you varnish over it as-is, the varnish sits on an uneven surface and the results are inconsistent.

Oiling out fixes this. You wipe a very thin layer of medium over the painting, and wipe off the excess. It revives the sunken areas, brings the whole painting to a uniform sheen, and gives the varnish an even surface to bond to.

I use a 50/50 mixture of walnut oil and Liquin Original — the same combo I use as my painting medium throughout the entire process. That consistency matters. You’re not introducing anything foreign to the paint film; you’re finishing with the same chemistry you started with.

Use raking light after you oil out — if anything still looks dull or uneven, you’ll catch it before it’s sealed under varnish forever.

Two simple steps. One much better final painting. 🎨

06/07/2026

Time to find this painting a home. 🍐

Still Holding On | Oil on panel, 8×10, framed

$300 + shipping if you’re not within driving distance of me

Painted using the indirect (old master) process — thin layers built up over time, letting each one dry before the next. It’s what gives oil painting that depth you can’t fake.

If it doesn’t sell by June 12, it heads to the Art House Gallery in Covington, LA.

DM me if you’re interested. Happy to answer questions or get you more photos.

06/06/2026

Glazing is just controlled problem-solving.

Latest layer on this still life: I reinforced the shadows, pushed the background darker, and started cleaning up the highlights on the lemons. Also went back and revised that blue banding on the kitchen towel — it needed more clarity.

For the darkening, I mixed what I call the “color of nothing” — raw umber + ultramarine violet. Together they make a dark neutral that doesn’t read as any particular color, which makes it perfect for glazing into shadows without shifting the hue. Just pure depth.

Still more to go on the lemons, but it’s getting there.

06/05/2026

This is how color comes to life in a traditional oil painting. 🎨

It starts with a grisaille — a full value study in grey. No color, just light and shadow. You solve all the hard problems first: form, depth, edges.

Then comes glazing. ✨

Thin, transparent layers of color get applied over the dry grey underpainting. The grey shows through, mixing optically with the color on top. That’s what gives glazed paintings that luminous, almost internal glow — you’re not just looking at the color, you’re looking through it.

And I’m still not done. I need to scrutinize whether another pass of glazing is needed, then reinforce the shadows, and finally go back in with highlights and reflections to bring everything forward. 👀

Slow process. Worth it every time.

NOTE: My last post explained the use of Burnt Sienna to warm up the cool yellow of the lemons. I applied it to the most recent photos, and the lemons look delicious. Might need another pass in certain areas...

oilpaint realism atelier

06/04/2026

Look at the difference one more glaze makes. 🍋

The first image is the initial glaze on the lemons — transparent yellow with just a touch of burnt sienna. It’s there, but it’s sitting flat.

The second image is after a second pass of the same mixture.

Suddenly the lemons have weight. The color deepens, the form reads better, and the light starts to feel real. That’s glazing — thin layers of transparent paint that stack optically, like looking through tinted glass. Each pass enriches without muddying.

Here’s something worth knowing about yellow:

Cool yellows (like Hansa yellow or lemon yellow) lean toward green. They’re crisp, almost acid. Great for highlights and fresher light.

Warm yellows (like cadmium yellow medium or yellow ochre) pull toward orange. They feel sunny, heavy, ripe.

Right now these lemons are glazed with a cool transparent yellow — which reads as that bright, slightly green-toned citrus color.

Once they’re fully dry, I’ll come back with a burnt sienna glaze to push the shadows and midtones warmer. That warm-over-cool layering is what gives the fruit its sense of roundness and ripeness.

After all the glazing is done across the whole painting, the final pass is reinforcing highlights and deepening shadows — snapping the contrast back into place.

Slow process. Worth every layer.