Resisting learning
Every one of us knows, in our heart of hearts, that we’re geniuses. If only we didn’t have the distractions of life, we could be brilliant at [insert discipline here]. Lobster Pound, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, available Yesterday, my student Terrie told our Zoom class about something she’d read in a composition book. “Wow, …
Monday Morning Art School: brushwork
Mark-making can be loose and gestural or very controlled. It’s personal, but it’s also something you can learn. Dining Room in the Country, 1913, Pierre Bonnard, courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Art. Bonnard used small brush strokes, intense colors, and close values. Brushwork is, on one hand, the most personal of painting subjects. It’s also (especially …
A paean to black paint
Avoiding black keeps you from some of the most elegant colors available in painting. Vineyard, 30X40, oil on canvas, available. Black can make a whole array of beautiful greens. One of the absurdities of 20th century art education was the injunction to ‘never use black.’ That limits artists from some of the most elegant colors …
Inside the blue line
I’ll be teaching in the Adirondacks on August 13-14. Be there or be square. Spruces and Pines in a Boreal Bog, painted at the Paul Smith’s VIC and long since gone to a private collector. I cut my teeth teaching workshops in the Adirondack wilderness, so it’s with great pleasure that I’ll be doing that …
Monday Morning Art School: deadlines
Sometimes it’s not fun. Sometimes it’s almost painfully stressful. What do you do then? Home Farm, oil on canvas, 20X24, Carol L. Douglas At my first plein air competition, I was a nervous wreck. “Come on, Carol,” my exasperated friend said. “Get a grip! You know how to do this.” At that moment, that wasn’t exactly true; …