Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
Itâs been said that a painting needs to be compelling at three inches, three feet and thirty feet. Thatâs simple enough, but how does the artist make that happen? Erosion, 9×12, by Carol L. Douglas, available through Ocean Park Association. Looking at a painting from a distance (or on the tiny screen of your phone), …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: why does composition matter?”
Diagonals keep us interested because theyâre harder for us to âsolveâ. The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog, 1894, Winslow Homer. Courtesy of Memorial Art Gallery. Winslow Homerâs most successful compositional motif was the long diagonal. He used it with great success from the beginning of his career right through to his mature Maine seascapes. …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: a simple exercise in composition”
Itâs easy to throw all the weight to one side when painting on the coast. Hereâs one way to fix that. Roger Akeley’s solution to the coastal composition problem. A few weeks ago, I got a message from student Roger Akeley. Roger had arrived at a drastic solution to the composition problem bedeviling his painting. …
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Drawing is the cheapest and most liberating of all media. All you need is a sketchbook, a mechanical pencil, and a straight-edge.
Bravura brushwork is a sign of self-confidence and competence in an age beset by anxiety and doubt.
If youâre âflailing and failingâ too much, your painting problem boils down to this easily correctable error.
Simplification and organization are critical to the success or failure of painting, and they stress the beauty inherent in most objects.
The greatest ability we have in painting isnât our technical skill (as important as that is) but our human intellect, both rational and emotional. The 20th century movement towards content-free art is over, because it can be done better and faster by machines. It doesnât matter if youâre painting abstraction or landscape; start thinking about what the higher meaning of your work is. If itâs not there, you can be replaced by a computer.
Lobster pound, 14X18, oil on canvas, $1594 framed includes shipping and handling within the continental US. Thereâs an old saw that goes, âvalue does all the work and color gets all the credit.â I tend to not repeat it because value is just one aspect of color. Itâs like saying âmy arm hit that ball …
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Being technically accurate frees up your subconscious mind to analyze and interpret what you see. Main Street, Owls Head, 16X20, oil on gessoboard, $1623 unframed. Observation I once took an artist on a long loop to see all my favorite painting sites here in midcoast Maine. “But there’s nothing to paint,” she wailed. She was suffering …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: the four steps of landscape painting”