Tag: editing

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Painter, you are not a journalist (I hope)

Marshes along the Ottawa River, Plaisance, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on image.

“Is it okay to leave out the…?” is a question I hear often.

Many landscape painters approach scenes like journalists. They try to report what they see. Every tree is accounted for, every ripple on the water acknowledged, every color matched as faithfully as possible. It feels responsible. It feels honest. It also feels boring as hell.

I’ve worked as a journalist and I know that reporting is far from passive. It requires cultivation of sources, incisive questioning and a quick mind. But painters can’t assume the reportorial pose. There’s a difference between a news story and a narrative. One is factual and one is poetic.

A scene is raw material, not a conclusion. A painting is an allusion, and sometimes an illusion. It’s far closer to a novel than a news story.

I’ve written this blog three times a week for many years. When I was younger, I could write poetically, but I’ve trained that out of myself in favor of concise accuracy. I frequently regret that and hope I never do it in my painting.

The Pine Tree State, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on image.

From seeing everything to choosing something

Good painting composers decide what matters and what doesn’t. They decide where the viewer looks first, and where their eye rests next. They decide how light is organized, how values are grouped and how color is bent to serve the structure. None of that is accidental, and none of it is guaranteed by the subject in front of you. That’s especially true in plein air, where the subject flickers and changes. If you’re merely trying to report what you see, you’re doomed to failure. The scene in front of you could change completely in the next fifteen minutes.

When you’re stuck in reporting mode, your paintings can end up with competing focal points, values that are true but not compelling and boring edges. All of that might be faithful to what you see but unconvincing as a painting.

A good painter can make a persuasive painting from any scene or subject. Sadly, the opposite is also true. It’s quite possible to make a terrible painting from the most wonderful scene or subject. I speak from experience here.

The Vineyard, oil on linen, 30X40. For more information, click on image.

Authors edit, ruthlessly

Painting teachers teach an exercise from John Carlson’s Theory of Angles and Consequent Values. It involves knocking the scene into four values. Inevitably, someone will assume that if four values are good, eight are better. Well, actually, three are better. Yes, value is a continuous band between dark and light, but the human mind craves patterns. That starts with simplification. When we drop meaningless, fine distinctions we oddly strengthen our painting.

Color is another area where factual reporting is counterproductive. Instead, think in terms of relationships. Warm plays against cool; saturated against neutral—all while being aware of color harmonies. Accuracy should be secondary to cohesion.

Eastern Manitoba River, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on image.

You’re not just making it up

This doesn’t mean you abandon observation. Quite the opposite. The first step in painting is to realize what compels you about the scene or idea. That requires a lot of seeing and thinking. Observe carefully but use information selectively. You’re not copying the scene; you’re interpreting it.

One practical way to break the reporting habit is to set constraints. Make a value sketch before you start. Identify clear focal points and commit to them. These decisions force you to prioritize.

In the end, a successful painting isn’t a record of what was there. It’s a record of what you thought and felt about it.

Registration is now open for the following Zoom classes:

Painting Water (almost full)
Monday evenings, 6-9 PM
June 1, 8, 15

Water is often the most mesmerizing part of a landscape—the way it holds the light, mirrors the sky, and breathes life into a static scene. Click to sign up.

Painting Clouds
Monday evenings, 6-9 PM
June 22, 29, July 6

If you’ve ever picked out shapes in the clouds as they drifted by, this class is for you. This short, 3-week session is a great opportunity to give weekly Zoom classes a try. Learn more.

From Field Sketch to Final Studio Work
Tuesday evenings, 6-9 PM
June 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, July 7

This 6-week course is designed to help you breathe life into those “unfinished” sketches littering your studio. Learn more.

Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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Put down the red pen

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

On Wednesday, I wrote, “Not creating is a safe position from which to operate. Your talent is inviolable, protected, a seed not open to criticism… That gives you the latitude to criticize other creators, as you are protected from criticism yourself.”

That relationship between nonachievement and criticism is famous in art schools, where bitchiness itself is often raised to a fine art. This video was a one-hit wonder but it captures the experience.

The Logging Truck, 16X20, oil on canvas, $2029 framed, shipping included in the continental US.

The best painters I know are also the most generous critics. They’re courteous and supportive of even the most tentative of efforts. They understand how murky and undeveloped radical new ideas can be, and they’re as curious as anyone as to how they will turn out.

“Put down the red pen,” is an editing maxim (from when writers used pens). It means that the editor should read through a piece first, with an open mind, before starting to make corrections. By coming at a piece flourishing your metaphorical red pen, you’re inclined to start rewriting the piece as you would have written it. That leaves no room for the writer’s own voice or goals.

The same is true with painting. We need to first step back and look and think. When we intervene too forcefully at the beginning, we supersede the artist’s ideas, style and voice. We take on the responsibility for refinement without asking whether that’s helpful or not. ‘I know better than you’ becomes our primary message. That might feel good (temporarily) to the critic, but it can be paralyzing to the painter.

Hostile input shuts us down

There’s plenty of science to tell us that the brain just shuts off at the first hint of stress. Comments that are perceived as personal attacks can set off a cascade of chemical events that weaken our impulse control or paralyze us with anxiety. We’ve all seen the Gary Larson cartoon (above) about what dogs hear when we yell at them. The same is particularly true of teenagers, and to a lesser degree, everyone else.

At my age, I don’t need to be diplomatic, but I do need to be kind. That’s not a moral imperative; I just want my students to hear me. One important way forward is to divorce feelings from criticism. I dislike comments that start with, “I feel…” What you feel about the artist’s use of line, color, shape and form is immaterial. What matters is what you think about those things.

Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24, $2318 framed.

Objectivity is our goal

Here is a framework for objective criticism. These aren’t my ideas; they’re standard criteria for design. Obviously, there’s room in critique for the subjective, since art is ultimately a personal expression. However, these questions can also be framed in non-inflammatory ways. “Does this evoke a response in you,” is a very different question from, “is this painting boring?”

It’s far healthier to learn to apply these standards of criticism to your own paintings than to cast around for approval from your peers (although we’ve all done it). Learning to critique your own work as you go will save you a lot of flailing around.

Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters