Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
It’s not an emotional response or mere fault finding. Skylarking 2, 18X24, available. This week I begin a new online class dedicated to critique. Since it’s a totally new idea, the shape of this class is evolving. However, the plan is that students will bring work they’ve done on their own for analysis within the group. The hope is …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: what is critique?”
We’re all proponents of loose-is-more, but there are times when you have to be able to hit it right. Cremorne Pastoral, 1895, Arthur Streeton, courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales. There are few details, but the ones that are, are very accurately painted. Detail and precision are not in style right now. “The artist …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: paint with precision”
The human brain has an unfortunate tendency to skip over the parts of a plan it doesn’t like. Desert long view, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $696 unframed. I never expected to be flying back from my workshop in Sedona with four wet canvases, so I only brought a two-canvas PanelPak. Whoops, bad planning—but it was …
Two things I learned teaching my workshop last week. Kamillah Ramos at the Grand Canyon. I start each class and workshop by handing my students protocols for painting in oils and watercolor. “If you follow these steps,” I tell them, “you will understand how to paint.” These instructions are not unique; they’re how most successful …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: Creativity loves constraints”
“It’s not about measurable facts, it’s about what you know in your gut is real.” The only thing I’ve managed to paint this week has been this 9X12 demo. Painters and photographers know there’s a dead period in the middle of the day. The long raking shadows of early morning or the beautiful golden light of afternoon …
COVID kicks like a mule, which is why I failed at my goal, and why I’m just getting this information out about my next session of classes. Oops. I set out two weeks ago on an impromptu excursion with my son to West Yellowstone, Montana. We would look at geysers in the snow, and celebrate …
Think of it as getting a painting lesson from the masters. Great Springs of the Firehole River, by Thomas Moran, 1871, is one of the paintings my students will be copying this week. Courtesy National Park Service. If you visit art museums regularly, you may have seen students set up to copy masterpieces. Or, you’ve …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: why copy a masterpiece?”
I’m flailing around in the undergrowth in this new-to-me medium. In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), oil on canvas, 24X30, is heading to Rye Arts Center for the month of March. Last fall, I made the commitment that I’d spend a day a week this winter writing a painting book. That should be easy; after …
Continue reading “It was the best of tomes, it was the worst of tomes”
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, …
Forget the fairy-lights; a good nocturne follows the same rules as any good painting. Hunter’s Supper, c. 1909, Frederic Remington, courtesy National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Nocturne is a term appropriated by James Abbott McNeill Whistler from music. Whistler used it to title works that evoked the sensation of nighttime or twilight. It didn’t mean just any …