fbpx

Author: Carol L. Douglas

Posted on

The Seven Deadly Sins of Paintbrushes

Ravenous Wolves, oil on canvas, 24X30, $3,478.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I used to be a terrible abuser of paintbrushes. That’s a bad mistake, because brushes are expensive. If I wasn’t forgetting them in my plein air pack, I was dropping them overboard. And although I spent lots of time while cleaning them, I seldom managed to get them completely clean.

I’m reformed now, ever since my daughter Mary started making brush soap for me.

Before I talk about how to clean a paintbrush, let’s talk about what you shouldn’t do to them.

In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), 24X30, $3,478 framed, oil on canvas, includes shipping in continental United States.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Paintbrushes:

  • Not cleaning brushes immediately after use.
  • Not cleaning all the paint out of your brushes. Cleaning is easy for watercolorists, but with oils it means making sure the paint deep inside the ferrule is removed, or the brush will splay. That’s not fixable.
  • Using anything but clear, cool water to rinse your watercolor brushes. They don’t need or like soap.
  • Letting brushes stand in solvent or water while painting. It’s not just bad for your brushes, it’s bad for your technique.
  • Using brushes to scrub, dab, or any other motion that puts undue pressure on the bristles.
  • Storing brushes in a way that distorts their bristles.
  • Mixing oils and acrylic paints with a brush rather than with your palette knife. Not only do you not mix enough paint, mixing with a brush forces paint up into the ferrule, where it is hard to remove.

How to clean a paintbrush

Watercolorists have it easy. Simply rinse in clear, cool water, shake out the excess water, wipe down the handle, shape the bristles with your fingers and allow the brush to dry before putting it back in its case.

For oil painting, it’s easier for me to just show you:

Can you wash paint brushes in the sink?

“Will cleaning oil painting brushes clog up my sink?” a reader asked. I addressed that question in the above video, but the short answer is, you must remove all the solids from your brush with odorless mineral spirits (Gamsol or Turpenoid) first. If you do that, you’re fine. Otherwise, the soap and oil paint will form a thick emulsion that can, indeed, clog sinks.

Dawn along Upper Red Rock Loop Road, Sedona, 20X24 oil on canvas, $2318 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

A word about Rowan Branch Brush Soap

Our Rowan Branch brush soap is a vegan, oil-blend natural cleaning agent. It includes coconut oil, which I’ve found to be a particularly effective brush cleaner. My daughter Mary makes it for me in small batches, and we’ve just restocked, so it’s now available again for mail order.

“Your brush soap is seriously great. Better than Murphy’s or the pink stuff from Jerry’s. I can always get a little more out with yours,” said Mark Gale.

Mary has a small shop (the room behind her kitchen) and for a while, we’d run out of stock. However, she’s resupplied our inventory, so you can order new brush soap now.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

Is there a right or wrong way to do art?

Bunker Hill overlook, watercolor on Yupo, approx. 24X36, $3985 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Is there a right or wrong way to do art? That’s a question that artists have debated for centuries. Just to be slippery here, there’s no right or wrong answer.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres would have been baffled by Tracy Emin’s My Bed, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize. It’s just a dirty, unmade bed, surrounded by feminine detritus. (For the record, a quarter of a century later, I’m annoyed that it sold at auction for £2,546,500 when paintings by Great Britain’s greatest late-20th century painter, James Morrison, could be had for a few thousand pounds.)

For Ingres and other Neoclassical painters, My Bed would definitely be considered the wrong way to do art. To be fair, they would also have thought that Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh were short of art technique.

Aesthetics is a moving target. But that doesn’t mean that art operates in a value-free world, although some of the art world’s excesses might have you believe otherwise.

Clary Hill Blueberry Barrens, watercolor on Yupo, ~24X36, $3985 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The creative side of the argument

Art is ultimately a form of expression and communication, and each of us has a specific viewpoint and our own voice. Art history is full of rule-breakers who changed the direction of the visual arts.

In terms of personal expression, the only unbreakable rule is honesty in intention. Ironically, that’s one rule I find myself breaking all the time. It’s easy to give lip service to intellectual and emotional transparency, but just when I think I’ve gotten there, I realize I’ve thrown up another wall.

The Surf is Cranking Up, 8X16, oil on linenboard, $903 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The technical side of the question.

Within specific disciplines, there are standards of craft and technique. These include the fundamental elements of design, the practical business of getting your ideas from concept to execution, and theoretical aspects like color theory. I’ve had the occasional student who believed that learning these things limited their range of expression. In fact, not knowing art technique left them flailing around. The learning curve can be steep when you’re teaching yourself by experimenting.

Different disciplines suit different purposes, audiences and intentions. You wouldn’t play Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in D minor at your local dive, and Proud Mary wouldn’t go over too well at the Metropolitan Opera. Likewise, it would be peculiar to do encaustic in a plein air event, or completely abstract a portrait commission.

Quebec Brook, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Where does that leave you?

First, learn the rules, so that when you break them, you do so intentionally and with purpose. That means understanding why people have traditionally done things in the order they’ve done them. When you do break rules, understand the consequences.

Stay open to growth. We never want to become parodies of ourselves, and that requires accepting change.

I had an epiphany this week, which was that sometimes you have to wait a long time for epiphanies. They simply can’t be rushed. The only way through the drought is to keep thinking and working. Sometimes I just hate that.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: is artist self-doubt normal?

Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde River, $696 unframed, oil on Baltic birch.

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” (Vincent van Gogh)

If Van Gogh occasionally felt like that, what hope is there for the rest of us? But don’t give up quite yet; not only is artist self-doubt universal, it’s also a helpful part of our growth process.

Artist self-doubt is a sign that we care deeply about our work and are pushing ourselves creatively. Most serious artists, from students to professionals, wrestle with questions like:

“Is this any good?”

“Am I really an artist?”

“Who really cares about this, anyway?”

In fact, when you aren’t asking those questions, you’re in danger of becoming a stale parody of yourself.

Eastern Manitoba Forest, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Why we suffer from artist self-doubt

Almost everyone, in any line of work, has moments of imposter syndrome. That’s the feeling that you’re a fraud despite clear evidence of your skills, accomplishments or success. People with impostor syndrome often believe they don’t deserve their achievements. They fear being ‘found out’—even when they’re actually doing superlative work.

Artists carry an additional burden. Our work is inextricably bound to our innermost identities. Any judgment (real or imagined) of our work feels like a judgment of our selves. We can’t help that; we just have to recognize that the arrows of criticism are going to lodge deep. That goes for criticism from ourselves as well as from others.

In art, there’s no perfection. We reach points where we think, ‘wow, I’m really painting well,’ only to immediately start seeing other, previously-unnoticed flaws. That’s because the more we know, the more aware we are of where we can improve. (And people think art is easy.)

Lake of the Woods, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard, $1159 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Comparison traps

Social media has a lot to answer for, but its comparison traps are purgatory for artists. Just as young women are barraged with bleached, buffed, airbrushed, filled, enhanced images masquerading as women, social media throws up images of ‘perfect’ art to confuse and depress painters. It’s easy to feel inadequate by comparison, especially when you can’t even tell if the art is made by human hands.

Progress comes in fits and starts

For all artists, progress isn’t linear. Some months, the paint will flow off your brushes; you may spend the next two months wondering why you thought you could ever paint at all. It helps to know that this is perfectly normal.

Pensive 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $522 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

But here’s the good news

Self-doubt helps sharpen your vision. It makes you think. That pushes you to reflect, revise, and improve. Furthermore, the more you paint, the less you’ll be in the grip of artist self-doubt. Like all other forms of anxiety, self-doubt fades with action. Regular practice builds confidence more reliably than any amount of inspiration.

What I find helpful

I keep a sketchbook and do private work that I don’t share with others. And I have a community of artists (my students and my peers) who keep me from feeling isolated.

I recently went through about twenty years of sketchbooks. It was fun to see the places I’ve been. More importantly, I could track development over time. It’s helpful to reflect on how far you’ve come, not on how far you still have to go.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

What are the top three mistakes painting students make?

Apple Blossom Time, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Taking shortcuts

Students understand the importance of a painting protocol (which I’ve shared here for oil painting and here for watercolors). These include sketching, a grisaille or greyscale study and layering paint in a specific order, all of which they’ll dutifully practice in class. Then, in the excitement of the chase, they throw that out the window and go right to color.

Following a painting protocol helps you work efficiently and avoid costly mistakes. It’s just an order of operations, and it’s nothing I invented. Painters have been putting down paint in the same general order for centuries.

A painting protocol also gives you a framework to diagnose problems. For example, if a painting feels flat, you might revisit your value sketch to see how accurately you’ve maintained the original structure. This gives you a systematic way to troubleshoot.

I like to have students lay out their paints in the same order every time they work; after all, it would be hard to play the piano if I kept moving the keys. Throughout the process of painting, repetition helps build consistency. It makes it easier to track what works and refine technique over time.

Rachel’s Garden, ~24×35, watercolor on Yupo, museum-grade plexiglass, $3985 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Each medium has its own requirements, limitations and strengths. A painting protocol ensures you capitalize on them and not make the same errors repeatedly. It prevents technical failures.

Paradoxically, having a painting protocol frees you up creatively. You’re not constantly second-guessing your logistics, so you can focus on expression, composition, and meaning. Protocol is not about rigidity; it’s about making good habits second nature so that your technique supports, rather than hinders, your vision.

Home Farm, 20X24, oil on canvas, $2898 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Ignoring value and composition

Beginners are often seduced by color and detail, neglecting value pattern and overall design. But values and composition are foundational to painting. They’re what make a picture work before color or detail ever come into play.

Value creates form and depth. Without a good value structure, paintings look flat and uninteresting. And value controls focus, since the eye naturally goes to areas of highest contrast. By controlling values, you control where the viewer looks.

If the value structure is naff, no amount of beautiful color will save it.

Composition is closely related to value, but is the more general arrangement of elements in your painting: shapes, lines, values and colors. Composition is how you guide the viewer’s eye and communicate your intent.

Good composition leads the eye on a purposeful path through the painting. Bad composition leaves the viewer wandering or worse, invites him or her to move on to something else.

Fog over Whiteface Mountain, 11X14, $1087 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Coloring inside the lines

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had students do brilliant drawings, but when it comes time to move those drawing to their canvases, they revert right back to copying their reference photos. (That’s one good reason to paint from life whenever possible.)

I used to have a painting teacher who said, “You are all terrified.” Well, I popped her in the nose—just kidding, but it took more than a blank canvas to terrify me. However, there was something in what she said.  Students tend to play it safe, coloring inside the lines, using timid brushstrokes, and slavishly copying their reference. That leads to stiff, lifeless work and, worse, prevents real growth.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

A brief history of nudes in art

Musicians and dancers on fresco at Tomb of Nebamun, c. 1420–1375 BC, British Museum

We live in curiously divided times. Pop media is suffused with sexuality, but nudes in art are aggressively quashed in social media. Ten years ago, I didn’t hesitate to illustrate a blog post with my own figure paintings; now I hope the algorithms are fooled by ancient Egyptian stylings into not seeing the painting above as figures.

The ancient world

One of the earliest known examples of nudes in art is the Venus of Willendorf, a small Paleolithic figurine. It has exaggerated breasts and hips and although it is said to be a fertility symbol, its purpose is, of course, unknown.

In ancient Egypt, nudes in art represented youth, fertility, and servitude. Nude subjects were children and servants, while gods and rulers were depicted clothed. In nearby Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, where some speculate the Garden of Eden was located), nudity was linked to religion and sex.

Detail from tympanum depicting the Last Judgment from the Saint-Lazare Cathedral, Autun, France. c. 1120-1145. Courtesy Alberti’s Window

What were our ancestors doing?

The Greeks adored the nude male body, which represented heroism, virtue, athleticism, and divine beauty. But nude images of women were far less common, and limited to goddesses, prostitutes, and scenes of violence or suffering. Respectable Greek matrons simply didn’t wander around naked.

Ancient Rome shamelessly aped Greek art and attitudes. However, nudity in Roman art also represented an artistic confrontation with the new religion of Christianity.

As Christianity made inroads into the old religions of Rome, the old forms of Greco-Roman art began to be seen as sinful. The only safe expression of nudes in art were the ancient myths of gods and goddesses.

By the Middle Ages, Christianity was the dominant factor in western art. While casual nudity was avoided, there were exceptions. In Judeo-Christian tradition, Adam and Eve were happily naked until they ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, they were ashamed. They could be painted nude as a cautionary tale. The infant Jesus could be painted nude because he was innocent of sin.

There were also naked depictions of the Last Judgment and martyrdoms of the saints, and the occasional symbolic nudes in Byzantine art and illuminated manuscripts.

The Renaissance meant a revival of Greco-Roman artistic ideals, which in turn led to an interest in mastering the human form. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and Sondro Botticelli sought to tie anatomical accuracy with spiritual or allegorical meaning. These artists struck a balance between the spiritual and temporal realms.

The Blonde Odalisque, François Boucher, 1753, courtesy Alte Pinakothek

By the 17th century, however, Baroque artists like Peter Paul Rubens and Caravaggio had tipped the scales to the fleshly, fleshy world. Rococo painters like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher turned toward voluptuous eroticism and fantasy.

But all pendulums swing, and once again, in the late 18th and early 19th century, artists like Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres returned to heroic, idealized forms, often referencing mythology. Romantic artists like Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix used nudity to express emotion, suffering, and passion.

Reclining Nude, 1917, Amedeo Modigliani, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

Our modern life

French Realists and Impressionists like Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, and Edgar Degas began to openly portray the nude provocatively. Courbet, in particular, was scandalous; in fact, he still shocks me.

Modernists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani deconstructed and dehumanized the nude. As the 20th century wore on, the nude became the battleground of both personal expression and sociopolitical challenge. That continues today, as the human form remains the locus for challenging gender norms, arguing politics, and discussing body image. That’s a lot of baggage for the poor old human body to carry.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: how does aerial perspective work?

Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling.

There are two kinds of perspective that artists use to create depth in paintings: aerial (or atmospheric) and linear. Linear perspective uses converging lines, accurate spatial relationships, size, and placement of objects to show things getting smaller as they recede into the distance. Aerial perspective creates the illusion of depth by simulating the effect of the atmosphere on objects seen at a distance.

The Vineyard, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

What creates aerial perspective?

Aerial perspective is caused by the scattering of light by particles in the atmosphere. As the distance between the viewer and an object increases, more air (and thus more particles like dust, water vapor, and pollution) lies between us and the subject.

Particle size affects how light is scattered. Fine particles, like oxygen and nitrogen molecules, cause the scattering that creates our blue skies and red sunsets. Mid-size particles, like dust, cause haziness, glare and that delicious golden light of afternoon. Big particles like water droplets, give us rainbows.

Country Path, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, $1,275 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The unbreakable laws of aerial perspective

  1. Distant objects appear less contrasty because atmospheric scattering softens edges and reduces the difference between highlights and shadows. Conversely, nearby objects have sharper, crisper shadows and details.
  2. As we go back in space, the first color to fall out is red, followed by yellow, with finally blue or blue-violet remaining. (In some circumstances, the distant horizon might be grey rather than blue.) That’s because the shorter the wavelength, the more efficiently the light is scattered. That means that warm-colored objects must be desaturated the farther back they are in your picture. When in doubt, hold something neutral up to the far object and check just how ‘warm’ it really is.
  3. Overall, distant objects are generally less saturated than close objects, again, because of the scattering of light. However, there are times when distant mountains appear to thrum with an intense blue-violet light. Whether that’s rationally true or not, painting that feeling is more important than painting reality.
  4. We don’t see fine detail at long distances not because our eyes are weak, but because the scattering of light makes the image blurry. So much for my dream of someday having bionic eyes.
  5. Certain weather conditions increase aerial perspective. Fog, humidity, dust, and pollution increase the scattering of light, making distant objects look even hazier.
Midsummer along the Bay of Fundy, 24×36, available.

Things that aerial perspective can’t or won’t do

Aerial perspective does not mean that faraway objects are always lighter. The lightness or darkness of any passage depends on the local color and on where the sun is shining at that moment. There are many situations where the foreground is lighter than the background.

Aerial perspective isn’t just about dabbing blue hues on the mountains; it’s about carefully marking out a gradual falling off of reds and yellows, and observing shifts in detail and saturation.

You don’t get out of learning linear perspective just because you understand aerial perspective; the two work together to create a sense of depth. “But there’s no architecture in my painting, Carol,” you say. However, rocks, trees, fields, roads, clouds, and everything else in nature also obey the rules of linear perspective, so perhaps you should take one of my classes or workshops and really learn it.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

I should have named this art show ‘Sentimental Journey’

Waves of Mercy and Grace, 30X40, oil on linen, in a simple black wood frame, shipping and handling included in continental US, $6,231.00

My cousin Antony lives in Australia. The last time we saw each other was in 2008, when his boys were mere striplings. That’s a long flight, so you don’t just go for a week. I got to spend a lot of time with Oscar and Gus and their best bud Tim, including hours at the beach. They scampered up rocks like mountain goats and flopped into the water like seals. I painted a study of them, and then this larger painting from that study.  At the time, I was interested in the subject for aesthetic and symbolic purposes. Today, it reminds me of all the sweet days I’ve spent at the beach with kids. It’s the centerpiece of Letters from Home, which opens tomorrow at 4 PM.

Intimate storytelling

The new puppy, oil on archival canvasboard, 8X10, framed, $652 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

I picked out paintings for this show based on their nostalgic appeal, as if they were letters from our universal ‘home’. When I put them all together, I realized there was some intimate storytelling involved. Take, for example, this little painting of a family walking their puppy on the beach. If you’ve ever had a puppy, you know you don’t walk it so much as coax it along. It’s a universal experience that every dog-lover knows, and the details don’t need to be spelled out.

When my twins turned sixteen, their greatest ambition was to work at Seabreeze Amusement Park. Of course, only Laura got a job there; Julia got the consolation prize of working at a nearby big box store. What Laura quickly learned was that running the kiddie rides is hot, thirsty, dull work. As soon as she could, she too got a job at the same big box store.

Tilt-A-Whirl, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

But none of us ever stopped loving the Tilt-a-Whirl. I painted it live, en plein air, just as I painted the carousel at Saranac Lake. It’s just a trick.

Spring Allee, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1594.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Spring allee runs off the Erie Canal just east of Gasport, NY. It’s just a footpath running through scrub, but my friend Bill and I used it as a long cut when trail-riding some 50 years ago. Our horses are long gone, but I bet I can still pick out the trailhead.

Sometimes the story is less direct

There’s a painting of a black walnut leaning against a stone wall in this show. It’s certainly representative of New England. For me, it’s also a memory of using Jonathan McPhillips as a windbreak in gale-force winds.

The Late Bus, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.00 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Sometimes intimate storytelling isn’t based on a real place as much as an idea. The Late Bus is about going home after school from swim practice. My kids went to a suburban school and were walkers, so when my son had swim practice, I waited for him along a busy street. But I swam for a rural high school, and the chlorine, the frozen hair, and general feeling was just the same. This was just my way of capturing that feeling.

Opening Saturday, May 31, 4-7 PM
Carol L. Douglas Studio/Richards Hill Gallery,
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME, 04856
May 30-June 26, 2025
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5 PM

An important PS

Julie Hunt is my student from Alberta, Canada. She is in an online show called Crops Diversity Canada. The work is stunning, but only up until the end of this month, so take a few moments to browse it now!

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

Getting ready for my art gallery opening

Opening Saturday, May 31, 4-7 PM
Carol L. Douglas Studio/Richards Hill Gallery,
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME, 04856
May 30-June 26, 2025
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5 PM

Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

One of the sharpest women I’ve ever known is Lois Giess, former President of the Rochester (NY) City Council. She once told me, “All action is change, even inaction.” We were talking about an expansion project that ultimately failed. Indeed, that moment proved to be the organization’s high-water mark.

I think that’s true of both our everyday and artistic lives, which is why I’ve been harping about calling and meaning so much the past few weeks. I haven’t made any kind of fuss about it in my blog, but I’ve been ill since I got home from Malta on April 20—first with COVID and then with an asthma backlash. It’s taken until last week to get my medications straightened out so that I feel well enough to work a long day. I was overjoyed to realize I was right back into my usual optimism and energy as soon as they were fixed, and I’m deep in preparation for my art gallery opening.

Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed.

What’s changing?

I just built the gallery last year, so there’s little that needs repair (although I did find a spot of rust on the door, darn it). However, we’ve changed the supports for the awnings, gotten new display cabinets and beefed up our security. The old security system was mainly my dog, who barks anytime a car pulls into the driveway. However, sometimes they’re just turning around, and he’s not great at telling me that. Now I can see them on my phone.

My husband worried that the old awning supports were so low someone might back over them. I thought they were hideously ugly. I’m completely full of myself about our solution, which involves a five-gallon bucket of concrete set inside a very pretty ceramic planter, with viney things set to climb up the poles.  

I started feeling better at the same time as the rainy season broke. That was great because you can’t really do that kind of work in cold rain. While I’ve had all the parts (and artwork) ready, I am just getting things installed this week. That’s rather pushing the limit for my art gallery opening this Saturday.

Main Street, Owl’s Head, oil on archival canvasboard, $1623 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The things artists do instead of painting

My friend Björn Runquist has been counting the days of rain in May; at last report we were up to 47. As you can imagine, the overgrowth of weeds has been tremendous (as have the mosquitoes). That meant I had to divert some energies into weeding the foundation plantings. I have just enough hausfrau in me to believe that visitors would be so appalled by the weeds, they’d turn on their heels and walk out.

I was a dedicated gardener until plein air got in the way. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the meditative quality of pulling weeds.

Best Buds, 11X14, oil on canvasboard, $1087 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

And a reminder about this art gallery opening

Letters from Home opens on Saturday, May 31 from 4-7 PM, at 394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME. As my Uncle Frank says, be there or be square.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: why do you make art?

Camden Harbor from Curtis Island, oil on canvas, $2782 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

On Friday, I promised I’d write about calling in art, but it’s not an easy subject. Narrowing down your calling is a deeply personal process. Still, there are discrete steps you can take to bring clarity. Think of the process as a blend of introspection, experimentation, and alignment with your values and natural inclinations.

Why do you make art?

When I’m feeling glib, I say I’m an artist because I can’t do anything else. It would be more practical to ask:

  • What subjects or themes keep coming back in my work?
  • What emotions do I try to convey or experience through art?
  • What subjects energize me the most?

Tracking the answers to these questions will help you figure out why you make art, which in turn will help you understand your calling. It’s rare that I suggest doing this in writing, but for this exercise I think it is helpful.

Mature Eastern White Pine, oil on birch, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

What are your core interests in life and in art?

Looking at your past work:

  • What medium do you gravitate to? Is that shifting over time?
  • How is your style of painting shifting over time?
  • How are your painting topics shifting over time?
  • Do these topics/mediums/topics satisfy you, or do you feel like something is missing?

Take the long view here. You may not see much difference in six months, but if you’ve been painting for decades, you might be shocked at much has changed. I certainly am.

Dawn along Upper Red Rock Loop Road, Sedona, 20X24 oil on canvas, $2318 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Study your heroes

  • Who are the artists you admire deeply? I’ve listed mine here; who are yours?
  • What are the unifying characteristics of their work? That’s a harder question to answer. I’d say, for my list, there are three virtues: compositional genius, technical virtuosity and emotional truth.
  • What overlaps do you notice between their voice and your instincts? My work is just a pale imitation of these masters, but I’m definitely interested in technique, composition, and meaning.

Your calling should echo what you admire — not to copy, but to understand your own taste and values.

Experiment intentionally

If you’re still exploring, set short projects with specific constraints, like half-hour studies or daily short watercolors. Or, try working in a new medium or tackling a theme outside your comfort zone. Pay careful attention to what feels like a chore vs. what pulls you in and allows you to lose track of time.

Cypress Swamp in Spring, oil on canvas, $2782 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Pay attention to what resonates with others

This isn’t about chasing popularity, but rather what sparks strong reactions or conversations. Art is, after all, communication, and if your painting isn’t communicating something, what’s the point?

What do people say your art says to them? Often, others can put words to this more clearly than you can. (If nothing else, this can spark ideas for your artist’s statement.)

Where does skill meet meaning?

  • What kind of art would you make even if no one saw it? (For me, the answer is none; I think art is all about communication.)
  • What kind of art do you want to master technically?
  • What kind of art do you feel compelled to make because it matters?

Your calling lies at the intersection of joy, skill, and purpose.

For heaven’s sake, don’t rush

Your calling is not a niche; it’s a general direction.  We don’t find it like Where’s Waldo. We grow into it by staying curious and constantly resetting our compass.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

The death of an artist you’ve probably never heard of

Courtesy Positively Southwest Rochester

A fellow painter from Rochester passed away earlier this month. You aren’t going to read about him in an influential art journal, although his influence has been far greater than many of the windbags who are regularly profiled in the press. He was a modest man who used art for good in some of Rochester’s least-salubrious neighborhoods. When I die, if I can say I used art to do half the good work he has done, I will die content.

I met Richmond Futch, Jr. many years ago, when he curated a solo show for me at the art gallery at Bethel Christian Fellowship. As is often the way, I’ve been thinking about him recently. He was ‘painting in the spirit.’ This is a form of expression where the Holy Spirit works through the artist, often during a church service. “You can do it too,” he told me, but painting in front of a congregation was definitely not my jam.

People painting together at Richmond’s memorial service at Bethel Christian Fellowship. Photo courtesy Christina Vail.

However, that got me started drawing in church, a habit I continue to this day. My church drawings are now the core of what I’m thinking about, artwise. Richmond would be the last person to say “I told you so,” but he might be shaking his head at how long it’s taken me to come around to his way of thinking.

Richmond told me about his conversion experience. Deep in the grip of addiction, completely on the skids, he was getting ready to kill himself. “If you don’t have any use for your life, I can use it,” Jesus told him in one of those rarer-than-hen’s-teeth, Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus experiences. Richmond went on to faithfully serve his community for decades—art for the homeless, art for the community, art for kids in Haiti and, above all, patiently, kindly listening to people who needed hearing.

Richmond in Haiti, photo courtesy Sarah Brownell.

One of his friends, Sarah Brownell, wrote that he was “always thinking about how the people of Rochester could be touched and healed, especially the most vulnerable. You were a true champion of the poor, seeing and sharing their humanity, their goodness, their value and their talent.”

I’ve been talking to my class about the nature of calling in art, and I’ll write about that in practical terms on Monday. But I’ve wriggled around my own calling ever since my buddy Erla Guðrún Arnmundardóttir Beausang collared me last fall on the subject. I’ve had several kicks in the pants since then, and Richmond’s death is one more.

Courtesy Bethel Christian Fellowship

Richmond took his artistic talent to the streets of Rochester and used it not for self-aggrandizement, but to help others. Basically, it’s never a question of whether we can; it’s a question of whether we’re willing.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: