Tag: Monday Morning Art School

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: see your painting objectively

Home Port, 18X24, for more information, click on image.

One of the hardest things about painting is figuring out whether the painting is actually working while you’re in the middle of making it.

When you’ve been noodling at the same spot for twenty minutes, you’re no longer seeing the painting. You’re seeing the sum of your decisions. That’s when you need to step back and analyze the painting objectively.

The big picture

NC Wyeth is credited with the idea that a painting should compel at three feet and thirty feet. At a distance of thirty feet, a painting relies entirely on its abstract qualities to grab a viewer’s attention. At three feet, it should hold us with texture, edge quality, brushwork and narrative depth. Mastering both ensures that a piece of art is structurally sound from afar and intellectually stimulating up close.

Downtown Rockport, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard. Private collection.

Get some distance

Let’s start with the long view: step back. And I mean really step back.

If you’re painting in the studio, put the painting across the room. If you’re painting outside, put your brush down and walk many feet away. You want enough distance that you can no longer engage with individual brushstrokes.

At a distance, details disappear and the big things become obvious.

Is the focal point actually the focal point? Is the value pattern holding together? Is there enough contrast? Is your eye traveling through the painting, or getting stuck somewhere you didn’t intend?

Squint or take off your glasses. When you squint, small details disappear and larger shapes of value become easier to see. You can suddenly tell whether the darks and lights are grouped effectively instead of being distracted by every little color shift.

You’re testing the painting’s focus and movement. Where does your eye go? Where does it go next? Is there a motive line—an underlying thrust or energy—that carries you through the picture?

If you can’t move back without falling off a cliff, try taking a picture of your painting and holding your phone at arm’s length. It’s not as effective but it does work.

Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.

The elements of design are your checklist

When a painting feels wrong, don’t immediately start flailing around.

Instead, work through the basic elements of design. I teach formal critique as a way of developing executive function as an artist, but it’s really a discipline anyone can develop over time.

Look at line first. Where are the strongest edges? Are they leading the eye somewhere useful? Remember that a line in painting doesn’t have to be an actual drawn line. Every edge between two shapes creates one.

Then look at shape and form. Are your big shapes convincing? Do they have enough variation to create interest? Is the drawing solid enough that the forms actually sit in space?

What is happening in the positive and negative spaces? Are the proportions and placements creating believable depth? Sometimes the problem isn’t the object you’ve painted; it’s the shape of the empty space around it.

Then look at color. Separate hue, chroma, and value in your thinking. Is the color doing useful work, or are you adding brighter and brighter notes simply because the painting feels dull?

And finally, look at texture and brushwork. Are your marks supporting the painting, or are you fussing with them because you’re afraid to leave the surface alone?

Belfast Harbor, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, for more information, click on image.

Turn it upside down

Turning a painting upside down temporarily disconnects you from the subject. That’s invaluable.

A tree becomes a dark shape. A house becomes a rectangle. A person becomes a pattern of light and dark.

That makes it easier to see balance, proportion, shape, and movement without your brain helpfully supplying what it knows should be there.

You can also turn the painting sideways. If the composition still holds together, you’re probably looking at a sound arrangement of shapes rather than merely a recognizable subject.

Look for unity

Does everything knit together? A painting can contain perfectly good individual passages and still fail as a whole. One edge may be too sharp. One color may be too intense. One object may be too clearly described.

Unity doesn’t mean making everything equally important. Quite the opposite. You need hierarchy.

The focal point should have the strongest reasons for attention. Secondary areas should support it. Some passages should be quieter.

Ask questions instead of judging

Instead of beating yourself up and saying, “This is bad,” ask:

  • What problem am I trying to solve?
  • Where does my eye go first?
  • What is the most important shape?
  • Where is my darkest dark and lightest light?
  • What is the motive line?
  • Are the positive and negative spaces balanced?
  • Are my edges helping me create depth and focus?
  • Is anything competing with the focal point?
  • Does the painting have unity?

Those questions turn criticism into problem-solving, and that is what painting really is.

You don’t need to know whether the painting is good while you’re making it. You just need to know what problem comes next.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: draw what you see, not what you know

One of the hardest things about learning to draw is getting past what you know about an object.

You know a tree has a trunk and branches. You know a house has windows. You know a person’s eyes are roughly almond-shaped and that their nose sticks out from their face. You know that some dogs (including mine) have floppy ears while others’ ears stick up. Your brain helpfully categorizes and stores this information as you learn it, long before you think about drawing.

That’s useful for recognizing and navigating the world. It is counterproductive for drawing it.

When you’re learning to draw, it’s important to forget what you know and concentrate on what you see instead.

Here’s a simple exercise to help you make that switch.

Copy an abstract shape

I’ve illustrated this post with six abstract shapes. You can use these, or find an abstract shape somewhere around you. It might be a shadow underneath a chair, the interstice between two branches or a patch of light on a wall. What it shouldn’t be is an object, i.e. anything that can be named.

If you look at a shape and say, “That’s a maple leaf,” your brain will immediately start throwing up facts about maple leaves. While they might be true, they can also lead you astray. While all maples have lobes spreading from a point, there is great variety of leaf shape among the acers.

If you can look at a leaf and note that it has three, nine or 13 lobes, that it’s got serrated edges and deep veins, and that it is not symmetrical but its left side is slightly larger, you’re well on your way to drawing what you actually see.

Your only job is to reproduce shapes

Look carefully at edges. Where do the lines turn? Are the curves gradual or abrupt? How wide is the shape at the top compared with the bottom? Where does one side stick out farther than the other?

What is the height-to-width relationship? Use a ruler if that helps. Is the shape twice as tall as it is wide? Does the little notch on the side occur halfway down or closer to the top?

When you’re done copying the shape, compare your drawing to the original shape. How close did you get? The more you practice, the better you’ll be.

This sounds almost absurdly simple, right? That’s the point.

Your brain is sometimes too efficient

When you see something familiar, your mind fills in what it expects to see. That’s why children draw symbols for houses, people and trees long before they can actually observe them accurately.

Adults do the same thing; we just have more sophisticated symbols.

We know what a mountain should look like, so we draw a mountain instead of the particular mountain in front of us. We know what an eye looks like, so we draw our idea of an eye, and on and on.

An abstract shape gives you nothing to recognize. You have to look carefully to draw it.

It’s just a shadow, but it tells you a lot about what’s around it.

Now try it with reality

The next time you’re drawing, find three shapes that aren’t objects. That may be the shape of the sky between two objects or the shape of a shadow.

Draw these shapes carefully while consciously avoiding labeling them in your mind. If they are right, you’ve probably captured something important about the scene, even though you never drew an actual object.

Drawing is not a mechanical exercise; it’s a way of thinking. The more you discipline yourself to see in abstract shapes, the less your brain gets to superimpose what it knows on what’s actually there.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: you don’t need more art supplies

Blown off my feet, 16×20, click on image for more information.

Today, I’m a spare buyer of art supplies. That’s a big difference from thirty years ago. My daughter says that the best gift anyone can give me is to come to my house and take something away, and often I think that goes double for my studio. It’s full of stuff I no longer use, or worse, never really used.

Painting or procrastination?

I’m not against good art supplies for painters. Quite the contrary. I’ve written about why quality supplies matter, especially when you’re learning. A bad brush can make a simple task frustrating. Cheap paper buckles and repels paint. Bad materials make it impossible to judge your own progress, because a lot of the problems are the materials, not you.

But there comes a point when buying art supplies stops being preparation and becomes a substitute for painting. You can’t buy your way into good technique.

Rachel’s Garden, ~24×35, watercolor on Yupo, museum-grade plexiglass. For more information, click on image.

The fantasy of the perfect setup

It’s easy to believe the fantasy that your next purchase will solve the problems in your painting. We’re taught that from an early age—this shampoo will give you better hair, this deodorant will make you popular, this car will overcome your lack of personality.

So, it makes sense to us that another new brush will give you the loose, confident marks you have always coveted. Perhaps a better easel will make you more comfortable outdoors. A new blue pigment is the key to mixing successful greens.

And as soon as that box arrives from Amazon or Dick Blick, you’ll be ready to get serious.

Pah

A competent artist can, in a pinch, make a compelling picture with crayons. New and better equipment and supplies are no substitute for better seeing, drawing, design, or practice.

I had a good talk with Lynn Lewis and Stephen Florimbi about brushes at Plein Air Litchfield. They’re both fans of Princeton Aspen synthetic brushes. As a teacher, I’m always on the lookout for good, reasonably-priced art supplies for painters, so I’m ordering some. But I know that new brushes cannot teach students to recognize misplaced values, awkward compositions, misread color or badly drawn lines.

These are painting problems, and they require painting solutions.

Beauchamp Point, Autumn Leaves, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.

How many different color paints do you need?

Excellent paintings can be done with ultramarine blue, nickel-azo yellow, and quinacridone magenta, with the addition of white for oils, gouache and acrylics. I give you the other colors for convenience and to hit a few spots that these can’t reach. This palette is the same for figure, portrait, still life, landscape, florals; the same paints are used for everything.

There are millions of possible palette combinations out there. Sometimes I’ll have students show up with whole plastic cabinets full of paint. Watercolorists are the worst offenders, because of the romance of paint names. But if you read my supply lists, I have only between 9-11 paints on them, depending on medium. These allow you to get anywhere within the possible gamut, because they’re selected to be varied and hard-working.

I do review these colors regularly, because chemists are constantly testing paints for lightfastness and safety. Occasionally, I change what I recommend. Other teachers recommend different palettes, but they’re usually equally limited. If you have more than a dozen different paints in your kit, you’re wasting money.

Shopping feels safer than working

Shopping is comfortable and for some of us, it’s even fun.

Painting is not comfortable when you’re doing it right. We confront what we don’t yet know, which is infinite. We make decisions, discover mistakes and produce work that doesn’t look anything like the painting we imagined. It’s not comfortable but it’s deeply satisfying.

Dawn Wind, Twin Lights, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.

Use what you have

You will discover that limitation forces you to think more carefully. You’ll have to solve problems instead of reaching for another tube of paint. You’ll become more resourceful. You may find that the supplies you already have are perfectly adequate.

That doesn’t mean you should never buy anything new. But don’t confuse collecting tools and materials with developing skill. The best investment is time in front of your easel.

If you have money to spend on improving your painting, consider spending it on classes, a workshop, or time away from your ordinary responsibilities so you can work.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: the Ten Commandments of painting

Autumn farm, oil on canvasboard, for more information, click on image.

After decades of painting and teaching, I’ve realized there are rules that consistently make painters better. Ignore them, and you can spend years going in circles.

1. See accurately before you paint.

This sounds obvious, but it’s probably the hardest thing on the list. We are thinking creatures, so we easily slip into seeing not what’s in front of us, but in terms of what we think is there. A tree becomes an archetype of a tree. The sky is blue because we’re conditioned to think that way.

Stop naming things and start observing them. What is the actual shape? Where does the light fall? What is the proportion? What is the relationship between colors?

2. Design the painting before you render the subject.

A painting isn’t a collection of accurately drawn objects. It’s a designed two-dimensional shape. Before worrying about the windows in the barn or the leaves on the tree, decide where your big shapes belong. If the composition doesn’t work as simple masses, more detail won’t rescue it.

Autumn Farm, Evening Blues, oil on canvasboard. For more information, click on image.

3. Value is the backbone of painting.

Value is what makes a painting hold together. Squint at your subject and simplify it into light and dark. If those relationships work, you have a foundation. If they don’t, beautiful color won’t save you.

4. Think in masses and relationships, not objects.

Don’t paint a boat. Paint a dark shape against a lighter shape. Don’t paint a cloud. Paint the relationship between the cloud, sky, and land beneath it. Stop illustrating objects and start building a painting.

5. Big shapes before small shapes.

The temptation to fiddle is almost irresistible. We want to paint the little window, the branch, the flower, the ripple. Resist. Establish the largest shapes first, then progressively smaller ones. Fiddling with detail is a form of procrastination, resisting the bigger problem of structure.

6. Learn to draw.

Drawing is thinking. It teaches you proportion, shape, perspective, edges and spatial relationships. You don’t need to become a draftsman, but you do need to understand what you’re looking at.

Main Street, Owl’s Head, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on image.

7. Paint from life whenever possible.

Nature is inconvenient, fickle and highly changeable. Good. These encourage you to make decisions. Painting from life forces you to translate the 3D world into 2D space. You learn to see relationships instead of copying information. You learn what matters.

8. Use photographs as references, never as masters.

A photograph is a useful tool, but cameras flatten, distort, crop, freeze and interpret the world differently than our eyes do. Use photographs to remember information you’ve already gathered through sketching and observation. Then make a painting, not a copy of a photograph.

9. Develop a repeatable process.

Inspiration is wonderful but it’s no substitute for hard work.

A repeatable process supports inspiration. Painters have spent two thousand years developing technique for beginning, developing and finishing a painting. There are small differences in what good modern painters teach, but they’re based on the same fundamentals. Start there.

Apple Blossom Time, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on image.

10. Practice deliberately until the process becomes your own.

Painting more isn’t necessarily the same as getting better. Pay attention to what went wrong in your last painting. Identify the problem. Try something different. Try again.

Eventually, the things you once had to think about become instinctive. But don’t think you’re done finding problems to solve; that’s the enchantment and curse of painting.

11. Don’t be boring.

Follow the rules of technique, but make interesting decisions about the content.

Your goal isn’t to become a machine that makes proper paintings. Your goal is to learn enough about painting that you can make your painting—deliberately, intelligently, and with enough nerve to surprise yourself.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: best art supplies for beginners

Toy Monkey and Candy, oil on archival canvasboard, for more information, click on image.

I’m getting supply lists ready for my October workshop students. My watercolor students will be shocked that I’m actually going to suggest cheaper paper for color exercises. I generally say the opposite. Good materials matter more when you’re learning to paint than when you already know what you’re doing.

Nobody needs super-expensive brushes, paints, canvases or easels. But they need to be good enough to actually work. What are the best art supplies for beginners, and how can you tell where you should spend your money?

Hiking, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard. For more information, click on the image.

Learning to paint is hard enough without fighting your tools and supplies

If paint is weakly pigmented, you will never get the intensity you’re striving for. If it’s a ‘hue’ (a copy of a pricey pigment) you can’t mix to where you need to go. If a canvas is too cheap, it will suck up paint or feel unpleasant under your brush. Bad watercolor paper makes washes, lifting and dry scumbling dang near impossible. If brushes are badly made, you will never achieve the marks you’re seeking.

When these things happen, new painters often blame themselves. But they may not be the whole problem.

Where I do and don’t spend money in painting

Buy the best paint you can reasonably afford. 20th century pigments are cheaper and tend to be less toxic and more light-stable. You absolutely don’t need every color in the catalog. A carefully chosen paired primary palette of good paint is far more useful than a giant collection of mediocre colors.

Beginning painters buy too many different colors of poor-quality paint rather than a targeted few high-quality pigments; the net cost is the same, but the results are worse.

Many expensive pigments are, in fact, limited in application. The cadmiums are heavy and can be muddy. Others, like cerulean blue, can be mimicked quite successfully with less expensive pigments.

I don’t ever cut corners on brushes, but I don’t need a lot of them, either. I paint with a mixture of Princeton, which is reasonably priced, and Isabey and Rosemary brushes. You need fewer brushes than you think—a handful of shapes in different sizes.

And, for heaven’s sake, keep your brushes clean! Letting them harden up is a total waste of money.

Generally, I find that I’ve finished a painting using only two or three brushes. But good brushes teach you about pressure, paint handling, edges and brushwork.

Toy Reindeer with double rainbow, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, for more information, click on image.

Painting surfaces.

A properly prepared surface makes an enormous difference. This is particularly important for students because you’re trying to learn how paint behaves. Oil painters can add a coat of gesso to cheap boards, or make boards themselves. Sadly, watercolor students really need to buy good paper from the outset.

Quality, not quantity

Artists have been making excellent paintings with battered equipment for centuries. Some of the tools I’m using were my father’s. Once you know what kind of easel you want, look at Facebook marketplace; I bought my good Gloucester-style easel there. But beware of bad field easels available on Amazon; they’re a complete waste of money.

You can absolutely save money by making some things yourself. I sometimes make my own panels and many artists I know have fashioned their own wet-canvas carriers and brush rolls.

Prom Shoes 1, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, for more information, click on image.

Cheap materials are often expensive materials in disguise.

If a brush splays after your first painting, it was a rotten waste of money. Cheap watercolor paper may stop you from ever mastering washes.

I’m using up some burnt sienna oil paint I was given. It shocks me how much paint I need to equal the intensity of my regular brand (RGH). In watercolor, cheap paints will probably never give the intensity you seek at all.

Figuring out the best art supplies for beginners means figuring out where it’s safe to cut corners, and where it will hurt. This is where a good teacher is invaluable. As a student, you’re investing in something more important than materials: your ability to learn. Give yourself materials that support you, rather than hinder you.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: moving from ‘I feel’ to ‘I think’

Painting from my trusty pickup truck on Bay View Street (courtesy Camden Public Library).

When I teach critique, I start by asking the artist, “what was your goal in making this painting?” I finish by asking the group, “What did you notice first?” and “How does this painting make you feel?” In between are questions based on the elements of design: focal point, line, value, color, balance, shape and form, rhythm and movement and texture.

Let’s start with the messiest question.

Curtis Island, 24X30, oil on canvas, painted for Camden on Canvas. Available.

How does this painting make you feel?

Before you know the technical mechanics of a painting, you know how it makes you feel. You may feel calm, unsettled, energized, curious, melancholy or delighted. If you feel nothing, then there’s no communication. That may on the artist, or it may be that you’re simply not interested in the message. For example, I am utterly unmoved by Frida Kahlo, although millions of people love her.

That first response is valuable, but don’t stop there. For painters, the informative part of art analysis is moving from ‘I feel’ to ‘I think.’

Painting at Curtis Island overlook (courtesy Camden Public Library).

Start with your gut

Your sympathetic nervous system, not your brain, is your first responder.

What happens in your body when you first see a work of art? Do you lean in or pull back? Want to engage, or are you repelled? Does your eye settle somewhere immediately? If so, where?

Don’t worry yet about explaining it. Just let the feelings wash over you.

Now ask why

Perhaps the key to why you feel peace in a painting is its broad, open composition, warm color, soft edges and low-key value structure. Or you might feel energized because the composition is dominated by sharp radiating lines, with clearly divided values.

Your feeling is the door. Art analysis walks you through it.

Artwalk (morning on Bay View Street), 24X36, oil on gessoboard, painted for Camden on Canvas, private collection.

But let your eyes lead

Don’t rush to explain what you’re seeing. In a class setting we are pushing to get through the process in the confines of a class schedule. That has one failing, which is that sometimes we need more time to simply look. For the painter, time is the most important tool in our kit.

We need to put down the brush and step back. We need time to wander through our own work.

  • Where do our eyes go first?
  • Where do they go next?
  • What do they keep returning to?
  • Where do they stop?

Your eyes are doing analytical work even when you aren’t consciously thinking about it. A painting’s composition, value structure, color relationships, edges, shapes and directional lines all influence how we move through an image. So let your eyes see before your verbal brain starts constructing an argument.

This is particularly important for painters. We often see something before we have the vocabulary to explain it. Trust that first response, and then investigate it.

From feeling to evidence

The goal of art analysis isn’t to prove that your first reaction was correct. It’s to discover what in the painting produced it. I know this is difficult, but in time it will become second nature. Hearing that voice inside your head will lead to better, stronger paintings.

Your response is part of the evidence

Your response matters, but it becomes more useful when you can explain it.

Start with ‘I feel,’ and let your eyes wander. Then ask ‘why’ and move from there to ‘I think.” That movement—from instinct, through observation, toward understanding—is one of the great pleasures of making and looking at art.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: why loose brushwork in painting?

Ravenous Wolves, oil on canvas, 24X30. For more information, click on the image.

There have always been painters who embraced rough, broken marks. However, at the end of the 18th century, painters like Francisco Goya and J.M.W. Turner began a permanent break from the polish of strict academic painting. Where did loose brushwork in painting come from, and is it still relevant today?

A quick note before we get into it

Claim your spot in Painting Water, Monday evenings or Painting Nocturnes, Tuesday evenings. Both are 6-9 PM, starting the week of August 17, 2026, which is today.

This is my last Zoom session until I get back from Sedona Plein Air at the end of October. That’s because I’m teaching and eventing non-stop until then.

I upload videos of these online classes and you have access to them for as long as there’s YouTube. That means you can review them if you need a refresher or have to cut out early.

Brooding Skies, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.

The Industrial Revolution

The 18th and early 19th century saw the development of steam power, textile mills, canals and railroads, making muscle much less important. At the end of the 19th century, electricity, petroleum, steel, chemicals, telecommunications and the internal-combustion engine were introduced. That gave us assembly lines, automobiles, electrical grids, telephones, skyscrapers and mass consumer goods.

The second half of the 20th century brought computers, electronics, telecommunications, robotics, satellites and the internet. Now we’re grappling with artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, sensors, robotics, biotechnology, autonomous vehicles and, of course, the Internet of Things. Rapid change makes us edgy, but it’s important to remember that those prior phases had the same effect on the people who lived through them.

Art responded to each phase of the Industrial Revolution in unique ways. But with each of them we saw more of the artist and less of the subject in artwork. Visible brushstrokes said, “this was made by a human,” in a world which felt increasingly standardized.

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

Impressionism and plein air painting

Plein air painting was an important part of Impressionism . Because conditions outdoors shift so fast, plein air painting rewards economy. Plein air painters learn to ‘set it and foret it.’ That produces fresh, economical marks.

Plein air painting is the biggest and most influential painting movement of my lifetime. Its mark-making isn’t going out of style any time soon.

Modernism

Modernist painters increasingly treated the painting as an object in itself, rather than a reflection of reality. Painters like Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh used brushwork to create both emotional tone and structure.

Modernism emphasized subjective vision over realistic representation. The disillusionment and anxiety of the 20th century, with its endless wars, meant that this vision was often fragmented, dark and distorted. In Abstract Expressionism, loose brushwork often was the subject.

Photography

Once photographs could record appearances with accuracy, painting lost its practical purpose, which had been to record people, places, ideas and events. Painters were forced to ask, what can I do that a camera can’t?

Loose brushwork was one answer. This helped shift painting from representation into interpretation.

Certificate of authenticity

Your brushwork is as individual as your handwriting. It’s one thing technology can’t (yet) duplicate. And it’s why we value loose brushwork in painting more than ever; the physical act of painting is imbedded in the work.

Brushstrokes record movement, speed, pressure, hesitation and decision, just as handwriting does. It has become a dominant part of modern style; we recognize the person in the mark.

Brushwork signals confidence

Bravura brushwork suggests decisiveness, mastery, speed, physical engagement, risk and freedom. These are things our culture values, so we find loose brushwork in painting far more exciting than carefully-blended marks (although there is room for both in a good painting).

Athabasca River Confluence, 9X12, click on image for more information.

Looseness isn’t the same thing as good painting

Bravura brushwork only works if the painter knows what each stroke is meant to accomplish. Otherwise, it’s mere sloppiness.

Loose brushwork has to sit on a base of careful drawing, good composition and well-considered color. Great painters with flamboyant brushwork have a wealth of technique supporting their apparent spontaneity. They know proportion, value, edges, color relationships, anatomy, perspective and composition well enough that they can hit the right mark on the first strike (which is what alla prima means).

The big question

If looseness is now the language of serious painting, is there still anything rebellious or exploratory in being loose? Does looseness still matter in the 21st century? For me, the answer is yes but I leave you to make that choice yourself.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: how cameras undermine painters

Thomaston, ME, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard. Click on image for more information.

Stand anywhere outdoors and you’re flooded with information. Each leaf catches light differently. Every building has windows, trim, shadows, reflections and textures. Each cloud changes by the minute. You try to capture all this, and you quickly get lost.

You’d think this would be easier when working from photos, but it’s actually worse. That’s because a camera and the human visual system don’t see the world the same way.

A quick note on weekly classes before we get into it

Claim your spot in Painting Nocturnes, Tuesday evenings or Painting Water, Monday evenings. Both are 6-9 PM, starting the week of August 17, 2026.

I upload videos of these online classes and you have access to them for as long as there’s YouTube. That means you can review them if you need a refresher or have to cut out early.

Beach Roses, 10X10 on sealed Baltic birch, for more information, click on image.

How the camera undermines painters

  • In real life (IRL), your eyes are making tiny jumps (saccades) several times a second. Your brain is suppressing unimportant information automatically. A photograph can’t do that. It records everything with equal indifference.
  • Humans have foveal vision. That means we only focus on what’s in the center of our sight. In contrast, photos make everything equally available. IRL, we naturally spend more time looking at the central points than at the edges of the scene. Our perception and memory is organized around those important shapes. In a photo, every square inch is equally accessible, and we tend to paint every square inch with equal attention.
Along Beech Hill Road, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more information.
  • Cameras don’t have true depth perception. Our binocular and peripheral vision, along with our head movements, give us a true sense of distance. We instinctively group objects into foreground, middle ground, and far away. Photographs compress the three-dimensional experience into a two-dimensional rectangle, taking away our ability to edit spatial relationships in our paintings.
  • Nature moves constantly—leaves shimmer, clouds drift and water laps in tiny waves. Our brains average these changes into impressions. A photo of the surface of gentle water will show a series of long elliptical shapes. But nobody perceives water like that; we see tiny lapping wavelets. Look at a closeup of a leaf; the background is blurry. That’s not how we see it IRL, where our eyes jump focus many times a second.
  • I take pictures of interesting things only to get home and realize that my phone has edited the charm right out of the scene. The camera is as interested in the scrub in the foreground as it is in the sky in the background.
  • Photos are bossy. We trot right along behind them, copying assiduously. Working from life encourages interpretation because the scene is changing too quickly to copy literally. We have to make choices.
American Eagle in Drydock, 12X16, for more information click on image.

That doesn’t mean you can’t paint from photos.

I paint from photos frequently. However, there are ground rules:

  • I sketch the scene IRL so the big decisions are already made, including composition and focal points;
  • I have lots of experience painting en plein air and from life, which helps me understand the camera’s lies;
  • I start from my sketch, and finish by working from memory. Photos only come out when I need to check matters of light, composition, and detail.

Professionals don’t see more detail than beginners; they see more structure. That’s a learned skill. It improves through learning and repetition. One plein air painting will teach you something, but five consecutive days painting plein air will teach you a lot.

You’ll begin recognizing recurring patterns. You’ll notice that every successful landscape starts with clear value organization before color enters the conversation. You’ll discover that simplifying actually creates stronger, more believable paintings—not emptier ones. Most importantly, you’ll learn to trust your first impression instead of second-guessing every brushstroke.

That’s why I teach five-day workshops, and why I hope you’ll join me for one.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: nocturnes and water

Christmas Eve 2, oil on canvasboard, private collection.

I’d like to pretend that I am very systematic about my painting classes, but the truth is that I sometimes go haring off after rabbits. This one was set off by a student who loves nocturnes. I’m focusing on them myself right now, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

Since my classes end up oversubscribed on the first go-round, it makes sense to repeat Painting Water so those people who were shut out last time get a chance.

The bald facts:

Amazing Grace, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard, private collection

Painting Nocturnes
Tuesday evenings, 6-9 PM
August 18, 25, September 1

In this focused, three-week session, we’re going to demystify the night scene. If you’ve ever found yourself mesmerized by the night sky, this class is for you. Learn more.

“Surf at Marshall Point,” oil on canvasboard, private collection.

Zoom Class: Painting Water

Monday evenings, 6-9 PM
August 17, 24, 31

Light, surface, and movement are the three important elements in painting water. Class size is limited, claim your spot now! Learn more.

I upload videos of these online classes and you have access to them forever (or for as long as there’s YouTube.) That means you can review them if you feel you need a refresher or have to cut out early for some reason.

Why these subjects matter

Water and nocturnes are both subjects that are just a little mysterious. They’re also two of the most rewarding subjects to learn to paint because they teach lessons that carry over into every landscape you create.

Heavy Weather (Ketch Angelique), 24X36, oil on canvas, for more details, click on image.

Water

Water is often the most mesmerizing part of a landscape, which is why I paint it so much. It catches the light, reflects the sky, and adds movement and atmosphere to what might be an otherwise static scene. Yet many painters struggle because they try to paint every ripple. Instead, there’s an underlying structure, based on the physics of light. Once you figure it out, you’ll struggle no more.

In this class, you’ll learn how light, surface, and movement work together to create believable water. That’s true whether you’re painting a quiet pond, a bustling harbor or surf breaking on a rocky Maine shore. Once you understand the principles, you’ll never look at water the same way again.

Nocturnes

There’s something magical about painting after dark. I’m better at it before dawn than after dusk, although most people see it otherwise. Either way, the world is quieter, colors are subtler and every light source suddenly matters.

In this focused three-week session, we’ll demystify the nocturne. You’ll learn how to organize values and use color to suggest darkness rather than relying on blackness. You’ll create paintings filled with atmosphere and mood. If you’ve ever been captivated by moonlight, glowing windows or the last light lingering in the western sky, this class will give you the tools to paint them with confidence.

Both classes are taught live on Zoom and include explanations, discussion, critique and plenty of time for questions. They’re designed for painters who want practical, repeatable techniques they can apply immediately to their own work. As always, class sizes are intentionally small so everyone has an opportunity to participate.

I hope you’ll join me for one—or both—of these classes. They’re two of my favorite subjects to teach, and I think you’ll come away seeing the world with fresh eyes.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: oil or acrylic gesso?

If we’re gonna talk about sinking, let’s start with The Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24. It’s the only shipwreck I’ve ever painted. For more information, click on image.

“Could you talk about the differences between acrylic and oil gessoes, primers and grounds and whether/how they might contribute to issues such as sinking in?” Beth Barger asked in response to Choosing the right surface for oil painting. She was referring specifically to oil painting.

The preparation of the surface affects both its archival durability and how it handles paint. However, the substrate itself is also a critical player, because of its texture, stability and durability.

Oil paint doesn’t dry; it oxidizes. That means the oil in the paint absorbs oxygen from the air. These oxygen molecules create a chemical bridge between the oil molecules, locking them together into a hard, firm bond. If something happens to deplete the oil between the pigment particles, you get color sinking.

The layers of your painting surface

Sizing is the first layer applied to a substrate when using oil gesso. In my youth, it was rabbit-skin glue. It stunk but did a good job separating the ground from the linen or cotton substrate and tightening the raw fabric to its frame. Today, it’s been replaced by acrylic sizing. I can’t get the tautness from acrylic sizing that was possible from animal glue, so I use acrylic gesso instead.

Primer seals metal or wooden surfaces and provides a stable foundation for subsequent layers. It’s slick, so gesso is often applied above it for tooth. When I paint on Baltic birch, I use three layers of Golden GAC 100 followed by Winsor & Newton clear gesso.

A ground is the actual painting surface—the layer your brush encounters. It determines the tooth, absorbency and texture of the support. The word gesso is often used interchangeably with ground, but that’s not always true.

Oil gesso is made with chalk or marble dust bound in siccative (drying) oil. It cures slowly but produces a non-absorbent surface that allows oil paint to remain open longer. Brushstrokes glide across it beautifully, and thin layers of color stay rich because less oil is pulled from the paint.

Oil gesso must be kept separate from the backing. Siccative oils create free fatty acids when curing. These create the beautiful, tough bond of oil paint, but they also rot fabric, paper or wood if allowed to touch them.

Acrylic gesso is acrylic polymer containing titanium white and mineral fillers. It dries quickly, is flexible, and works well on canvas, panels and paper. It doesn’t require sizing, it’s easy to use and remarkably durable.

While you can paint with oils directly over an acrylic ground, never paint in acrylics over an oil ground. The paint will delaminate.

Solvent evaporates, which leaves microscopic gaps between the pigment particles where oil should be. Whether those gaps happen because the fat-over-lean rule was broken or because the ground absorbed too much oil, the result is the same—a flat, dusty surface with dull color.

Sinking

Sinking happens when the ground absorbs some of the oil binder from fresh paint. The pigment remains, but without enough oil surrounding it, dark passages become dull and matte. It isn’t that the color has changed; the leaking away of the oil has left a microscopically-pitted surface that scatters light differently than oil in a tough bond.

That also happens (more commonly, in fact) when you’ve ignored the fat-over-lean rule and used too much solvent in the upper layers.

Acrylic grounds are absorbent and thus prone to sinking. Inexpensive pre-primed canvases with thin factory coatings suffer from this, and sometimes don’t have enough gesso to stop oil from leaching through to the backing.

That doesn’t mean acrylic gesso is bad. I use it. Be sure there’s enough gesso for a solid barrier with the background. Toning the canvas or adding a very thin coat of oil ground after the acrylic has fully cured can dramatically change how paint handles.

If running a rag with solvent over your (dry) painting causes the color to come back, your painting has sunk. You can bring it back with varnish; however, it’s best to avoid the problem in the first place.

To some degree, the ideal ground depends on your working method. When I did illustration, the highly-absorbent surface of Ampersand Clayboard was great for fast, detailed work. Today, I paint on toned boards or canvases, sketch in color masses with thinned paint and then build impasto. I like the slightly-absorbent grip of acrylic gesso. If you prefer the smooth slide of wet-on-wet paint, you might prefer oil primer.

As with almost everything in oil painting, there isn’t one perfect choice for a ground. There is only the surface that best supports your process.

Online classes start again soon!

I have just two workshops left in 2026! Reserve your spot:

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

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters