Tag: Monday Morning Art School

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Monday Morning Art School: why most beginner paintings fail

Inlet, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for details.

Most beginner paintings don’t fail because of lack of hard work. In fact, the problem is often the opposite: too much effort in the wrong places. Careful rendering and earnest attention can’t fix a fundamentally-flawed painting.

Detail is seductive

I’ve only known one painter who could start from a single detail and work outward; even he doesn’t always succeed. Most artists end up floundering when they do that. Of course, when you’re new to painting, detail is seductive; it’s just so much fun to focus on the apple rather than the branch. But when you do that, you’re overwhelmingly likely to put that apple in the wrong spot or use the wrong values. And then, you’ll either get to repaint the whole thing or admit defeat.

There have been times when I’ve been tempted to ignore this rule, for example when storm clouds are rolling in. I have learned from sad experience that this never works.

Eastern Manitoba River, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for details.

Good paintings are built from big shapes, not tiny parts. If the underlying structure isn’t solid, no amount of detail will fix it. And painting any one area to completion without considering its relationship to the whole is a recipe for failure.

Learn the art of aggressive simplification. Use a big brush and don’t pick up its smaller cousin until all your shapes are blocked in. Take your glasses off while looking at your subject, or, if you’re cursed with perfect vision, squint.

Value is king

Color has three facets:

  • Value—how light or dark something is;
  • Hue—the position on the color wheel (i.e., red, blue, yellow, etc.);
  • Chroma—the intensity of the color.
Île d’Orléans waterfront farm, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for details.

You can play fast and loose with hue, but if you don’t have a good value structure, your painting will collapse. Value is the bones of all 2-D art.  

Beginner paintings often suffer from compressing the value range into a narrow band of midtones. The result is flat, muddy, and lifeless. That’s first an observational question, but it’s also an issue of design. The painter hasn’t considered whether there is an interesting pattern of lights and darks.

Start with a sketch limited to just four values. Make sure it’s attractive and interesting before you move on to paint. Then, establish your value range early and stick to it. Work the whole canvas at once, comparing constantly. Ask yourself: should this shape be lighter or darker than the one next to it? That simple question can transform your painting.

Step back frequently. If you can’t do that, use your cellphone to take a picture of your work in progress; that can sometimes give you the necessary distance. If you’re really in doubt, convert that photo to greyscale and see what it tells you.

Grand Canyon at sunset, oil on canvasboard, 9X12, click on image for more details.

You can’t fix a weak painting by adding more paint

No amount of detail or bravura brushwork can salvage a weak composition. Instead, stop and figure out what’s wrong. If you can train yourself to see big shapes first and organize your values with intention, your paintings will immediately improve.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: how to start a painting

Île d’Orléans waterfront farm, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more details.

Everyone is Polish on Dyngus Day

As all good Buffalonians (even those of us in exile) know, today is Dyngus Day. It has been called the Polish Sadie Hawkins Day, a celebration of the Baptism of Poland or the first real post-Lenten party. To me, it’s the first true sign of spring, and the perfect metaphor for beginning a painting: energetic, a little chaotic, and full of possibility.

Set the energy

If you’re as bleary as I feel, start with loud, perky music. May I recommend polkas?

Starting a painting can feel like looking at the far horizon. It’s exciting, but overwhelming. The way to keep from getting lost is to start simple, think big and be patient. Every successful painting begins not with detail, but with confident, broad moves that establish the foundation.

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

Start by drawing

To start a painting successfully, start with drawing. No time spent with pencil or paper is ever wasted. You can do twenty loose, inventive, exploratory sketches in the time it takes to struggle through one flawed underpainting. These quick studies build confidence, sharpen observation and clarify your composition before you ever touch the canvas.

Toning (oils, acrylics and gouache only)

A warm or neutral wash knocks down the glaring white of gesso. (You’re not sealing the canvas; gesso is formulated to take paint.) Tone helps your eye judge values more accurately. From there, I draw my sketch in with paint; others use vine charcoal. I try to keep this loose and responsive while still honoring my drawing.

Cape Spear, Newfoundland, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for more details.

Less flailing, more looking

In a comment on Friday’s blog post, student Bonnie Daley noted that careful observation would also help in fishing. What if we committed to spending time looking before we cast our lines, metaphorically as well as physically? Careful observation is one of the most important painting techniques for beginners and professionals alike.

Study your subject until the complexity simplifies into two or three major value shapes. These large shapes form the structure of your painting. If they’re correct, everything else will fall into place.

The beauty of a more limited palette

A common trap for beginners is buying too many paints. Instead, use a limited palette of paired primaries with a few earth tones. This approach simplifies decision-making and creates natural harmony.

Think of color in terms of value and temperature rather than exact hue. That apple doesn’t need to be the perfect red; it needs to relate correctly to the colors around it. In painting, color is relational.

Athabasca River Confluence, 9X12, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Simple block-in, solid foundation

Once your drawing and big shapes are in place, block in shapes with broad color masses. If you keep the edges soft at first, you can tighten as you move along. Note how values and edges interact.

If you’re tempted to add detail now, put down your brush and dance another polka. Student Beth Carr reminded me of just how much Euan Uglow could say with almost no detail at all. Solid block-in reads beautifully without detail, but it’s important no matter how much refinement you want to do. What you place here determines how later layers will work. Once the big relationships work, you can enjoy laying in details and flourishes, if that’s your bag.

An unbiased eye

If you’re ready to sharpen your eye and start seeing your paintings with more clarity, I invite you to join my Fresh Eyes Critique Zoom class on Tuesday evenings, 6-9 PM on April 14, 21 and 28. After that, you’re on your own for a few weeks, because I’ll be in the Cotswolds.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: critique is executive function for the artist.

Pink Carnation, 8X10, oil on Baltic birch, is heading out west for Courageously Created Fine Art Show & Auction, Washington State.

Executive function is a core concept in psychology. It means a set of mental processes and skills that allow us to manage tasks, regulate our emotions and achieve goals. These help us plan, focus and multitask.

Executive function is also a core concept in painting. It’s the ability to critique our work as we’re doing it. We secretly fear outside criticism. But without some way to measure ourselves against artistic principles, we repeat the same mistakes.

Each of us has experienced harsh or unfounded criticism. But harsh words have no place in formal criticism, which is a structured, time-tested tool for growth. (I became a happier person the day I forgave those people, but that’s another story, one of slowly learning to extend the same grace to others that I want for myself.)

Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde, 9X12, oil on archivally-prepared Baltic birch, , is heading out west for Courageously Created Fine Art Show & Auction, Washington State.

“Do you like this work?”

When we submit our work to thoughtful analysis, the question, “Do you like it?” becomes almost irrelevant. However, a strong negative reaction can mean something. The work may be objectively failing or it may prick others’ beliefs or values.

How can you set your ego aside to figure out which is happening? Ask how the work measures up against the elements of design and design principles. Once we learn to ask these questions while our work is in process, we have developed the ability to self-critique. This pulls us out of the haze of subjectivity.

These design elements and principles transcend style and preference; they are the bones of painting.

Blue and purple, Sedona, 11X14, oil on archivally-prepared Baltic birch, click on image for details.

What are the elements of design?

The elements of design are line, shape, color, form/mass, edges, texture, perspective/depth/space. No painting excels in every area; we are mere humans. However, each of these can be strengthened as we get better at critiquing our own work.

What are the principles of design?

The principles of design are pattern, dominance/emphasis/focal points, unity/variety, harmony, balance, contrast, and rhythm and movement. These are different from the elements of design because they operate on a sliding scale, where neither end is best. For example, serenity and energy are both beautiful, but each serves different goals. The question is whether your painting goals are met by your approach.

Fresh eyes

My Painting Clouds class sold out in 24 hours; its goal is easily understood. That doesn’t make it more useful than Fresh Eyes (Critique). Critique is for experienced painters who want to get better, who want to develop that inner voice that guides their painting.

Not all critique is useful, and that goes double for self-doubt. That is vague, overly personal and usually just plain wrong. Disciplined critique is specific, grounded in the elements of design and delivered with clarity, objectivity and respect. It identifies strengths as well as weaknesses. Knowing what works is just as important as knowing what doesn’t.

Cape Breton Highlands, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, click on image for details.

This is for everyone who’s ever asked me for private lessons

When you analyze someone else’s painting, you sharpen your own visual literacy. You begin to see patterns: what creates movement, what deadens a composition, how color relationships sing or collapse. You learn the language of art criticism. That transfers directly back into your own work. You become both painter and editor, creator and critic. You’re able to diagnose problems before they harden into habit. The shared experience accelerates learning in radical ways.

You’ll bring your own work to Fresh Eyes (Critique) and we’ll analyze it together. You’ll learn how to self-critique effectively, creating that executive function for painting. This is a short Zoom session (April 14, 21, 28) meeting from 6-9 PM, EST. If you’re ready to stop second-guessing and start seeing your work clearly, register now.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: a small-space home studio

One of my students at last week’s plein air workshop at Sedona Art Center lives in a small space in New York. She wants a home studio but is worried about how to fit it into her apartment. When I first started painting professionally, I worked in a corner in my kitchen.

I recently got an excited video from another workshop student giving me a tour of her new studio in a spare bedroom in her house. I was thrilled because I’ve noticed that my students with a designated painting space—no matter how small—always work more consistently

A home art studio can work in a spare bedroom, a corner of the dining room or even a spot in the basement. Almost any space in a modern home beats the garrets in which some of art’s greatest masterpieces have been made.

Pink Carnation, 8X10, oil on Baltic birch, currently on hold for someone.

Natural light or the next best thing

Natural light is the gold standard for painting, but in its absence there are excellent LED full-spectrum bulbs available today. My last studio had north-facing windows. My current one faces east, but it’s not much of a hardship. I just close the blinds if there’s glare. The vast majority of us don’t live in purpose-built studios, so we work with what we have.

Even with the best natural light, you’ll need supplemental lighting. Fixtures should be positioned so the light falls across your canvas and palette, not creating glare into your eyes.

Your light shouldn’t be too close or it will be uneven. Check that it doesn’t cast shadows across your canvas and palette, and that the light is more or less balanced between the two. Uneven light makes it difficult to judge your painting accurately.

Toy Monkey and Candy, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed.

Protect your walls and floors

I’m the messiest painter ever. I had a brand-new laminate floor in my kitchen, so I had a hard plastic floor mat and checked regularly for spills that escaped it.

I also had a small plastic rolling cart next to my easel in which I kept my brushes, paints and supplies. Efficiency mattered more than aesthetics. Everything was within easy reach.

Ventilation

For pastelists, a HEPA filter will keep dust down, which reduces the health risk of powdered pigments. That doesn’t work for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) so oil painters will need an exhaust fan. It doesn’t have to be complicated; your kitchen fan will probably be sufficient. Or, simply crack open a window.

Don’t wash your brushes in the kitchen sink

I’ve had utility sinks in all my houses, and I’ve washed my brushes there. On the road I sometimes wash them in the shower. If you have no choice, be sure to wipe out the sink thoroughly when you’re done, and don’t wash brushes over your dishes.

Prom Shoes 2, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.

Choose the right easel

Your easel should hold your work securely and at a comfortable height. I started with this style single-mast easel (the exact model is no longer available) and eventually graduated to this model, which I still use today. If you have a pochade box or plein air easel, you can always use them in the house as well.

The smaller the space, the more organized you have to be

Nothing kills momentum like hunting for tools or supplies. Keep your brushes together in jars or where you can see them. Store paints in a shallow box or drawer so colors are visible at a glance. You don’t need lots of materials. In fact, less is usually more when it comes to art supplies.

Leave room to step back

You must be able to step back to judge your work. Arrange your workspace so you can easily step back six or eight feet away from your canvas. That may mean standing in front of the stove, but you can give the risotto a quick stir while you’re there.

Make it a place you want to work

You don’t need a grand atelier for serious work. What you need is a functional space where painting becomes a habit rather than a logistical challenge. Make it comfortable and inviting and you’re more likely to develop a regular painting habit.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: why a repeatable painting process matters

Mather Point at dawn (Grand Canyon), oil on canvasboard, 9X12, , $696 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

I put a premium on repeatable process. That’s not because I’m rigid; it’s because a consistent painting process delivers consistent results. Every noted artist in art history has had one.

Study the working methods of masters and you’ll see variation, of course. Claude Monet worked serially, revisiting the same subject in shifting light to explore optics, color and atmosphere. John Singer Sargent was famous for his bravura brushwork, but beneath that flair was a disciplined structure of drawing and value control. Georgia O’Keeffe simplified and distilled her subjects through careful design and a deliberate studio practice.

They had different approaches, different temperaments and lived in different places and times, yet all were grounded in method.

Grand Canyon at sunset, oil on canvasboard, 9X12.

The bones don’t change

Color and design principles don’t change. They’re the bones of painting. You can glaze or paint alla prima, work from life or from photos, but you cannot escape the fundamentals of color harmony, value structure, and composition.

How you get there, however, will become increasingly tailored to your own painting approach and personality as you grow and evolve. These are workflow decisions. Over time, you will discover which sequence of steps makes you clear-headed instead of flustered.

Learn a process before you break it

If you’re serious about improving your painting, find a teacher who suits your personality. That doesn’t mean someone whose finished paintings you admire, but someone whose method makes sense to your brain.

Learn and treasure that teacher’s process (and enjoy learning while you’re at it). Practice it until it is second nature. Build muscle memory around it. A structured painting process gives you something to fall back on when you’re tired, discouraged, or staring at a blank canvas.

That is how artists move from dabbling to building a body of work.

Just as with painting style, your process will evolve over time. You’ll streamline steps and discover shortcuts that don’t sacrifice quality. That evolution isn’t rebellion; it’s maturity.

Grand Canyon, late morning, 8X16, oil on archival linenboard, $722 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Haphazard in, haphazard out

There is a pernicious myth in art that spontaneity equals authenticity. But haphazard approaches deliver haphazard paintings. Yes, there will be a few happy accidents. Chance always plays a role in creative work. Serendipity is real.

But if you rely on accident as your primary strategy, your success rate will be low. A consistent painting workflow gives you a framework. Within that framework, you can take risks. You can experiment with brushwork or color temperature or edges. You can push yourself compositionally.

Without a framework, you are reinventing the wheel every time you paint. That’s exhausting, and it makes it nearly impossible to create a cohesive portfolio or professional body of work.

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

Build your own normal

Adopt a repeatable art process. Follow it faithfully. Track what works. Notice where you stumble. Refine gently.

Over months and years, that method will bend toward your temperament. It will begin to reflect your visual priorities and technical strengths. Eventually, it will feel less like a borrowed system and more like your own studio rhythm.

That’s when you’ve found your normal. And from that normal—steady, disciplined, evolving—you’ll produce not just better paintings, but a happier, more confident artistic life.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: perfection in painting is impossible

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

The thing that trips you up will almost always be unexpected. It won’t be the sky or figure you feared. It will be something small and stubborn. If you let it, that tiny snag can hijack your whole painting. But in painting, as in life, perfection is a pernicious mirage that can keep us from trying or finishing anything.

The ugly side of perfection

We talk about perfection as if it’s synonymous with beauty. It isn’t.

Think about the strange results of extreme cosmetic surgery: tight faces, overfilled lips, pneumatic breasts. Enormous sums of money are spent in our culture chasing youth. And yet, we gravitate toward faces etched with experience and humanity: Corrie ten Boom, Mother Teresa, Georgia O’Keeffe.

We value bravura brushwork in part because it photographs well for social media. Quieter virtues like solid drafting, subtle value control, and compositional integrity might be dismissed as dull. But bravura without structure is just noise.

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

Cultural blind spots in painting

One of the great conceits of our times is that modern ‘rational’ people have fewer blind spots than our benighted ancestors.

We are all the sum of our upbringing and our culture. That includes aesthetic preconceptions. We think we’re being objective when we judge art, but all judgments are freighted with assumptions.

In the studio, blind spots can keep us from seeing real problems. For example, we value color but denigrate drawing, so we polish color harmonies while ignoring bad drafting. Sometimes we can’t see the issue at all, because it doesn’t fit our internal narrative of what matters.

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

The moment

The goal is not perfection in the abstract. It’s getting as close as we can for the moment of that painting. It might stretch over hours, days, or even weeks. It’s the point at which the painting coheres under the specific conditions in which it was made: skill level, materials, emotional state, light, deadline and more.

The real danger is not imperfection. It’s failing to recognize your achievement in that moment. If you keep telling yourself, “I suck,” you’ll never get better. You’re trying to fix something that ain’t broke. That usually means turning a resolved work into a labored one. Instead, set it aside and see what it tells you in a year.

The four paintings I included in this post are all examples of work I thought failed at the time I painted them, but that I quite like today.

A painting exists as a success or failure within its time and context. Your job is to nurture it into clarity, not force it into something it was never meant to be.

Hare Bay, Newfoundland, 12X16, $1159 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

One minor variable

I am making my daughter’s wedding dress, and was recently tripped up by something I never thought would be a problem. I’ve worked with tulle and beading before, but I’m using a ‘new to me’ sewing machine. The pearls kept catching, so I kept stopping and clipping them farther from the seams. What I expected to take an hour stretched into two days. Despite my great care there are pinholes where I nicked the tulle removing pearls. Which means a fine mending job.

That happens in painting, too. A small, unanticipated issue can derail momentum. You can’t eliminate all variables; you must accept that they’re part of the process.

Perfection in painting is impossible. But presence, discipline, and the humility to recognize the moment of enough? These are always within reach.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: painterly, loose brushwork

Marshall Point Rock Study
Marshall Point, oil on archival canvasboard, 9X12, $696, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Today is Candlemas, one of the oldest feasts in Christendom. It came to North America through the Pennsylvania Dutch as Groundhog Day. That’s also the midpoint of astronomical winter.

Northerners know the whole “six more weeks of winter” thing is hooey. Winter ends at the spring equinox; this year that’s March 20. Yes, that’s six weeks away, but we’ve been known to have snow into May.

Traditionally, Candlemas is observed by eating crepes because there’s nothing like carb-loading this time of year. I plan on having wild blueberries with mine.

Now, to work

Two paintings by Lauren Hammond, courtesy of the artist.

In last week’s Zoom class, Lauren Hammond showed two paintings, above. One was a careful study of storm clouds over Lake Winnipesaukee. The other was a small abstraction of the same subject. The first is more factual; the second is more tempestuous. “It took me fifteen minutes,” she protested when I told her I loved the abstraction. That’s not true. She should include the hours it took her to do the carefully-realized painting as well, because all simplification rests on getting it right in the first place.

Loose is not easier

Loose brushwork isn’t sloppiness. Instead, it’s a confident economy that only comes after one truly understands the composition, values and color relationships.

Loose brushwork looks effortless because the artist has already figured out what matters and what doesn’t. He or she has internalized the way shapes interact, the rhythm of edges and the push and pull of light and dark. Once that happens, they can let go and paint with abandon. Mark-making is no longer tentative; it is the result of decisive choice. That’s the heart of painterliness.

Sometimes painting students seek looseness before they’re ready. You cannot break rules that you haven’t yet mastered. Without good structure, amorphous marks just look confused. True looseness is an informed choice. It’s a freedom that arises from discipline, not in spite of it.

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

Clarity

You can’t be genuinely loose until you are utterly clear on the subject you’re painting. Before you add bravura brushwork, you must establish the composition’s anchor points: the big shapes, the value relationships that give your painting weight and coherence and the color harmonies. These are the scaffolding of painting and can never be ignored. Build well and you give yourself the freedom to break out in dynamic ways.

This is just like learning a language. First you master vocabulary and grammar. Only after you are comfortable with structure can you play with idiom and nuance. Without that basis there’s no poetry in either painting or language.

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

Good juicy, gestural marks aren’t by accident. They should be well-placed in the context of the composition and support the goals of the painting. This can be intuitive or subliminal, but it’s always the result of experience. The experienced painter knows when to let loose and when to hold back.

If you’re ready to move beyond tentative marks and learn to paint with clarity and confidence, I’ve created a class specifically to guide you. In Painterliness, Looseness and Bravura Brushwork, we break down the principles that allow expressive looseness to emerge. You’ll learn how to see what truly matters in your painting, and how to let go with purpose and vitality. This Zoom class runs on Tuesday evenings from 6-9 PM, from February 24 to April 7, and is strictly limited in size so that I can give each of you the attention you deserve.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: retraining your eyes

Autumn farm, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

When I’m bored or stressed, I doodle a human eye. I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl, and my drawing has (naturally) gotten better. Still, I’m not really drawing an eye, but my idea of an eye.

This is fine when doodling, but not so good when painting from life. There has been a red boat in Rockport harbor for years. It used to be Becca & Meagan, but in 2017 it was replaced by Hemingway. Over several weeks, I corrected Ann when she drew it. Finally, exasperated, she pointed out to me that I was wrong. I had looked at Becca & Meagan for so long that I was no longer seeing what was there.

Most trees are several times as tall as their canopy is wide. Proportional to their canopy, their trunks are mere slivers. Yet painting students often shorten trees and broaden their trunks. This is because we’re anthropocentric. We perceive their trunks as up close, their canopies as far away. Our tree-shaped idea is shaped by our experience and perception.

Southern Beech, 9X12, oil on Baltic birch, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Drawing based on experience and assumptions feels fluent. These are well-trodden pathways in the brain. Stepping back, however, we realize that our drawing falls short of reality.

(For the record, I’m all for drawing from the mind’s eye outward, but that’s a different discipline, and it requires the best drawing chops of all.)

Autumn Farm, Evening Blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Retraining your eyes is a lifelong practice

Our everyday vision edits aggressively, both for efficiency and sanity. Any activity that requires fast reflexes would otherwise be impossible. Our brains quickly name things and move on to deal with them.

Painterly seeing, on the other hand, must be the exact opposite of this. The brain has to be tricked into slowing down. It must replace instant recognition with relationships: light against shadow, warm against cool, hard edges dissolving into soft ones, shapes locking together like pieces of a puzzle. When we don’t do this, we default to clichés: green leaves, brown rocks, blue skies.

As my confession above tells you, even experienced painters get visually lazy. We rely on habits that once served us well but now quietly flatten our work. The cure is not more paint, better brushes or a new medium. The cure is learning and relearning how to actually see.

Painting improves fastest when seeing improves first. Brushwork follows perception. Color follows value. Confidence follows clarity. When painters struggle, it’s rarely because they can’t paint, because that’s actually the easy part. It’s because they aren’t seeing what’s there.

How to See Like a Painter, my Zoom class starting February 23, is designed to interrupt symbolic thinking and rebuild visual awareness from the ground up. We focus on how painters analyze scenes, simplify complexity and organize chaos into clear, compelling compositions.

The Whole Enchilada, 12X16, oil on archival canvas, $1159 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

This isn’t about copying reality or painting tighter. It’s about painting truer to the experience of light and spatial relationships. If you’ve ever said, “It looked better in real life,” this class is for you.

Whether you work in oil, watercolor, acrylic or pastel, the fundamentals of painterly seeing apply. If you’re ready to retrain your eyes, question your assumptions, and sharpen the most important tool you have—your perception—I’d love to work with you. There’s more information here. (For my upcoming Tuesday class on painterliness, see here.)

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

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Monday Morning Art School: desert lessons

Cliffs, 12X12, oil on birch, private collection.

Arizona (especially Sedona’s red-rock country) looks simple from a distance. Big shapes. Big color. Big sky. That apparent simplicity is exactly what makes it hard to paint well.

Every landscape has its own rules, and the desert is particularly unforgiving to painters who arrive armed with assumptions instead of observation. I know this because a long time ago I did exactly that. What did the Arizona desert teach me about painting light and color? More things than I can list, but below are the main points.

View across the Verde Valley, 11X14, oil on birch panel. Available through Sedona Arts Center.

Capturing desert light 

Capturing desert light starts with understanding that Arizona’s atmosphere is clean, dry, and thin. There’s very little haze to soften transitions. As a result, value contrasts are stronger than you may be used to, and color temperature shifts are abrupt. Sunlit planes are warmer than expected, except at midday. The shadows snap cool, sometimes dramatically so. That’s from a distance. Up close, there’s a tremendous amount of color bouncing around the shadows. They are often higher in chroma than the sun-bleached parts of the picture.

If your painting feels flat, it’s often because you aren’t respecting color temperature enough.

Carol L. Douglas painting at Acadia National Park
Sunlight and shadows, oil on birch, 14X18, private collection.

Painting rock formations 

Painting rocks is less about detail and more about structure. From individual rocks to gigantic massifs, rock formations are built from planes. Start by identifying the major directional faces of the rock and assign them clear value families. Vertical planes can read darker than sloped ones, and ledges catch light differently still. At the vast scale of the desert, texture and detail are almost an afterthought. If you paint every crack and striation, you’ll destroy your painting—and your mind.

Lone pines, 14X18, oil on birch, available through Sedona Arts Center.

Working fast in changing light 

Working fast is not optional in the desert. The light moves quickly, and shadows can crawl across a canyon wall in minutes. This is where the preparatory sketch earns its keep. Adapt it for desert conditions by simplifying even more than usual. Four different value steps are sufficient. If you can’t organize the scene in ten minutes, you won’t fix it in two hours. And you’ll be mighty glad to have that sketch when the light shifts.

Color mixing for arid landscapes 

Color mixing for arid landscapes is where many painters go off the rails. Yes, rocks are orange and bluffs are ochre. But Sedona and the wider Southwest are full of violets, cool reds, muted greens and dusty neutrals. Shadows are often infused with unexpected color. Adjust temperature rather than dialing up saturation. If everything is intense, nothing is.

The desert doesn’t reward fussing. It rewards decisiveness, clear value structure, and honest color. Arizona’s landscape will teach you quickly where your habits help you—and where they don’t. That’s why painters keep coming back. The desert is a tough teacher, but it never wastes your time.

Want to learn more?

This March, I’m leading a 5-day plein air workshop in Arizona, and I’d love for you to join me.

Canyon Color for the Painter: A Plein Air Workshop will be held through the Sedona Arts Center, March 9–13, 2026. This immersive week-long workshop is designed for painters in oil, acrylic, pastel, watercolor, gouache, and all experience levels.

You can register directly on Sedona Arts Center’s website, here. Or, contact me if you have questions. I’m happy to answer anything about the workshop, skill requirements, materials or what to expect painting in the desert.

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

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Monday Morning Art School: you asked ChatGPT what?

My students love to send me things they know will interest me, but sometimes they send me things to make my hair stand on end. As a courtesy, I’ve obliterated the OP’s name and photograph, but you really asked ChatGPT to tell you what paints to buy? And you put 32 paints on your palette? And now you want to know about color theory?

Assuming OP bought regular-size tubes of paints, they set her back $15-20 each. For 32 paints, that’s between $480 and $640. All those paints won’t make her a better painter. They’ll make her a worse painter, because she’ll never learn about color theory and color mixing.

A few years ago, I mailed a small sample of paints to a student in South Carolina. She was frustrated with her paints and I was equally frustrated watching her try and fail to hit color notes. What I sent her was a simple, primary-color limited palette: QoR brand Ultramarine Blue, Nickel Azo Yellow, and Quinacridone Magenta. This is what she did with them:

A color chart done with just three pigments: ultramarine blue, nickel-azo yellow, and quinacridone magenta.

Learn to love limited palette

A limited palette sounds like a restriction, but it’s a shortcut to clarity and cohesiveness. Instead of dabbing in all those paint pots, you learn to mix and marry color.

Learning to mix color teaches you more about color theory than any color wheel. You discover how complements neutralize each other, how color temperature works to create form, and how value does the heavy lifting in painting.

Color harmony and consistency

When all your colors are mixed from the same small family, they are innately related—that’s a shortcut to color harmony. There are no out-of-tune notes screaming for attention. For beginners, who often struggle with garish or muddy color, limited palette creates a more consistent color voice.

Painters need to learn the working characteristics of their paints, including hue, value, chroma, transparency, granulation (in watercolor) and dry time (in oils). That’s hard enough to master for just a few paints.

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

Decisiveness

With fewer choices, you spend less time dithering and more time painting. That’s invaluable in alla prima and plein air, but it matters any time you pick up a brush. You’re not hunting for the perfect color on your oversized palette; you’re learning to make what you need. This builds confidence and speed.

We can play fast and loose with hue if value is right, which is why pink or yellow skies can make perfect sense in paintings. When pigment options are reduced, we’re forced to shift our attention to value, which is more important than hue.

By stripping color back to basics, we also see form, edges and composition more clearly.

Autumn Farm, Evening Blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

A limited palette is a tool, not a moral position

Once you understand what each pigment on your palette does, you can expand with intention. But I’ll note that I’m using the same number of paints I was thirty years ago, with very few modifications. They’re simply not necessary.

In the end, a limited palette isn’t about limitation at all. It’s about focus. By reducing choices, you sharpen your eye, strengthen your technique, and let painting be about seeing rather than collecting colors. That’s a lesson worth revisiting at every stage of an artist’s journey.

And, by the way, I’d have freely shared my palette recommendations with this artist. She’d have had hundred of bucks to spend more intelligently… and most of her paint wells would have remained empty.

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