Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
This is a painting from imagination and memory—memories of taking the late bus home after winter swim practice, or of fetching my son after school. And imagining being atop a high hill, watching my bus skitter home on icy country roads, to drop me off at the end of my road. I’d walk home the last quarter mile, my hair quite frozen and my spirits lifted.
Line-of-Action won’t make you a figure artist, but if you can’t get to a weekly model session, it’s the next best thing. The Anatomy Class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, 1888, François SallĂ©. Courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales. My son-in-law Aaron has the makings of a very fine artist. Yesterday, he snapchatted me …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: figure drawing for the busy person”
If a tire-kicker like me will buy a snowblower online, it’s time to retire my arguments against internet stores. Breaking Storm, by Carol L. Douglas This is the week when I hole up with my fellow painter Bobbi Heath and talk about our business plans for the coming year. The question I’m asking myself has …
When buying paint, it’s all about that base. My second-favorite kind of painting. I’m in the western Berkshires painting the interior walls in my oldest kid’s new house. She’s 28 and it’s her first house, and she’s very excited. So am I; like many artists, my idea of a good vacation is to paint walls. …
Our job as artists is to speak to the living, not to worry about what happens to our work when we’re dead.
Sometimes, what you think you’re painting is not at all what comes through. Other times, there is ambiguity or multiple tracks of meaning within the same painting.
Unless you can build the box, define the box and work inside the box you’re not thinking outside the box. You’re just being random.
Breaking out of a rut can be challenging, especially when you’ve built comfortable routines around your painting practice. But here are some specific strategies you can try.
Am I willing to experience the rejection and discomfort that comes from pushing limits? I don’t know, but it seems to me that growth demands it.
Instead of decorating your room with posters of famous art that sold for millions, buy original art that moves you.