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Author: Carol L. Douglas

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How does your sense of place influence your artwork?

Grain elevators, Buffalo, NY, 18X24 in a handmade cherry frame. $2318 includes shipping in continental US.

My hometown of Buffalo, NY, is a great place to be from. I often mention it, especially when it’s snowing.

Buffalo is paradoxical: blue-collar and yet elegant, blighted but historic, crime-ridden and yet pastoral. There’s nature everywhere, from the Olmsted-designed parks to the urban prairie that has replaced the immigrant neighborhoods of the 19th and 20th century. (Since my own people came through those streets, I have mixed feelings about this.)

The grain elevator was born in Buffalo. Grain elevators made Buffalo the largest grain-shipping port in the world in just 15 short years. Those elevators also died there, when the opening of the Welland Canal rendered grain cross-docking obsolete. Finding an adaptive reuse for these buildings has been a chronic challenge. It’s like keeping Grandma’s giant harmonium in your living room—historically important, but taking up a lot of space that could have had more practical use.

My home city spent the second half of the twentieth century on its uppers. That’s when I lived there, so that’s the Buffalo that’s shaped me.

Main Street, Owl’s Head, oil on archival canvasboard, $1623 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Direct and indirect

In some ways, that influence was direct, as in the art I saw at the former Albright-Knox Art Museum and the Canadian Group of Seven painters from just over the river. With two Great Lakes in my backyard, I couldn’t help but love all things nautical. In other ways the influences were indirect. My hometown is multicultural, street-smart, feisty and frugal. I am too.

Inevitably, there were also negative influences. After fifty years of economic contraction, there was an expectation of failure; that’s one big reason the Bills have always been so beloved. There were strong cultural, religious, and familial expectations that kept people in place. We left because there were no jobs, but I would probably never have become a professional painter had I stayed.

Coal Seam, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I live on the Maine coast now, where there are many professional artists. As we all know, iron sharpens iron. The color is clearer and brighter, the light is sublime, but, alas, there’s little cultural diversity. Maine is the whitest state in the nation.

What are the cultural expectations of the place you currently live? The place you’re from? How are they expressed in your work?

Interpretation

Of course, everything I wrote above is my interpretation. I have friends and family who would loudly disagree with my characterization, if they read this blog.

A Woodlot of her own, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Personal connection

I’ve never found it difficult to paint grain elevators or urban clutter. They’re part of my cultural heritage. I can paint my own kids and grandkids; they’re unalloyed joy. But I started a painting last year, as yet unfinished, that I thought would be a sentimental look at my childhood. Instead, it dredged up some difficult, long-suppressed memories. That’s probably why it isn’t finished.

Have you ever been ambushed by a painting? Have you been able to work your visceral response into the canvas, or as with me, has it foxed you? To a lesser degree, how do your emotions color the less-fraught things you paint? That’s a question I can’t really answer, so I’m looking for inspiration here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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How to choose wall art

High Surf, 12X16, oil on prepared birch painting surface, $1159 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

As I told you last week, I’m in Albany wrasslin’ my grandson while my daughter is in hospital. My granddaughter has arrived. She’s in the NICU now, and covered with the usual tubes, wires and tapes. I can’t say who she looks like, but she cries like a baa-lamb and grasps her daddy’s finger. Her mom is being tapered off her hospital drugs, so I think we’ve turned a corner. Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers.

Buy a painting to match your sofa

“Art should make you think and feel. It doesn’t have to match your couch,” has been a catchphrase for as long as I can remember. But why shouldn’t art match your furnishings? You probably chose them because you liked them, and you’re likely to like a painting that coordinates with them for the same reason.

Surf’s Up is 12X16, on a prepared birch surface. $1159 includes shipping and handling in the Continental US.

That doesn’t mean a painting should literally match your couch, but it’s okay if they share touchpoints. Still, I’ve noticed that even the most talented designers among my collectors buy art based on how it resonates with them, rather than what it matches. Dare to be inventive; traditional painting can match contemporary spaces and vice-versa.

The famed collector Dr. Albert Barnes believed grouping paintings in terms of light, space, color and line could create a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. (This is why the Barnes Foundation‘s indenture of trust stipulated that the paintings in the collection be kept “in exactly the places they are,” leading to years of legal wrangling.) Some paintings just look better with others, and the only way to know is to pair them and see what happens.

The pine nursery (Madawaska Pond), 12X16, oil on canvasboard, available.

Buy a painting because you love it, but when you go to hang it, consider:

Color: I once had a room with a red ceiling. It cast such a warm reflection on the room that cool colors were washed out. It made more sense to hang landscapes in another room.

Size: It would be absurd to place a 6”x8” painting in solitary splendor on a 12’ wall, and an oversized painting can dwarf a small living space. A good rule of thumb is that a painting should take up 60-75% of the allotted space, such as above your couch or bed. However, there are times when breaking that rule can work spectacularly.

Purpose: I’ve learned from personal experience that a nude in the dining room might embarrass your family. “Could we please take it down for Thanksgiving?” one of my kids asked.

Scale: While there’s some truth to the adage that a painting should read as well at 30 feet as 3 feet, there are some works (like etchings or botanical prints) for which that makes no sense. They need to be hung where they can be appreciated up close, like in an office or, yes, a powder room.

Mood: I have a vibrant multimedia piece by Barbra Whitten that’s destined to my kitchen. It’s based on a layered salad and will sing in that light, airy space. It joins a nocturne by Chrissy Pahucki of her daughter making s’mores over a fire. My living spaces have high-chroma paintings by Chrissy Nickerson, Poppy Balser, Tom Conner, Bruce McMillan and Bruce Bundock, among others. The only paintings in my bedroom are of family members.

Of course, I’m constantly shuffling paintings as I acquire new art. I have another Tom Conner and a watercolor by Barbara Tapp that need homes. I don’t consciously choose paintings that meet the purpose of the room, but it seems to end up that way.

Frames: I don’t think there’s a specific frame that matches a particular painting style; it’s more about aligning with your room’s design. If you love the painting but hate the frame, ask the artist for the price unframed. He or she will almost always accommodate that.

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

Don’t forget, there’s $100 off any painting on my website, from now until the end of the year. Just use the code XMAS100.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: digital reproduction

Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed.

I get several messages a week asking me if I’m interested in selling my paintings as NFTs. My answer is that paintings are one-off tactile objects, not digital assets. Not that the shills for NFTs like taking no for an answer, but NFTs and fine art don’t really mix.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t learn a lot by looking at paintings online. The world has been immeasurably enriched by museums opening their collections on the internet. For example, the 99% of people who will never see Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Night Watch in person can still look at it brushstroke-by-brushstroke on the Rijksmuseum website. And the digital world has had a remarkable democratizing influence on the sale and distribution of contemporary art and music.

Dawn Wind, Twin Lights, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

But a digital image of a painting is never the same as the real thing. Recent research using Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring may validate this argument. Using electroencephalograms (EEG), researchers at the Mauritshuis in the Netherlands demonstrated that looking at actual paintings stimulates the brain differently than looking at reproductions. “The viewer’s emotional response is ten times stronger when they are face to face with the painting in the museum,” they reported.

Vermeer is what’s known as a linear painter, which means he focused on clarity, modeling, structure, and detail. That’s in contrast to painterliness, which means work that is less controlled, relying more on brushwork and expression. The researchers got similar results from the works of two other Dutch Golden Age painters, Rembrandt van Rijn, who is considered painterly, and Willem Van Honthorst, another linear painter. Apparently, it was the paint itself that mattered, not how it was applied.

The Wave, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869, includes shipping in continental US.

You may recognize this composition

Researchers also reported a ‘sustained attentional loop’ unique to The Girl with the Pearl Earring. People who’ve studied composition will recognize this as a classic triangle composition, a series of focal points designed to engage the viewer. While this composition has been used throughout art history, The Girl with the Pearl Earring delivers it as a quick one-two-three punch-up—lips, eye, earring.

More questions

This was a very small study of a very narrow period in art history, but it raises interesting questions. Would similar experiments on a broader range of art and artists show us, for example, whether other periods of art fare better or worse in reproductions? Would that information help us determine whether one kind of painting is objectively better than another?

The Girl with the Pearl Earring and Mona Lisa are both superstar paintings, known by almost everyone. However, Mona Lisa is almost unviewable in real life, due to the immense crowds thronging its gallery. If similar responses were recorded at the Louvre, would that mean that part of the response to The Girl with the Pearl Earring was due to celebrity?

Nighttime at Clam Cove, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $696 unframed.

An aside about scams

Because my phone number and email address are on my website, I get more than my share of scammy messages. I thought I was expert at weeding through them. This week, one of my students apparently texted me, asking me to follow her new Instagram store. When the texter asked me to send back information, I checked the phone number against my records and realized it was a clone.

What shocked me was that the bot seemed to have some idea of my relationship with my student. Was that AI or a lucky guess? I don’t know, but you can never be too careful.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Are you stale? Stuck?

The Late Bus, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.00 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

“I was looking at a friend’s IG post,” a reader told me. “I thought, ’She’s been painting for at least 35 years and nothing has changed or improved.’”

Another reader expressed his own frustration at being stuck. “Maybe to get better, we have to get tougher on each other at our paint-outs.”

As I’ve written repeatedly, severity is a terrible idea; positive feedback teaches more effectively than harsh criticism. Still, there are proven ways to stop paddling frantically in one place.

Tilt-A-Whirl, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Why paintings fail

Most paintings fail because they aren’t thought out properly from the beginning. We don’t take time to ask ourselves important questions, like:

  • What is the underlying idea? 
  • What am I bringing to the scene to raise it out of the ordinary?
  • Where is the charm of this image and how will I express it?
  • What is the overriding emotional state I want to represent (serenity, humor, angst, larkiness, etc.)
  • What is the light structure and how can I use it as compositional adhesive?
  • Where am I willing to riff on reality, and where does faithful rendering make sense?
  • Most importantly, why am I bothering to paint this?

If you can articulate your motivation in one or two sentences, you’re already ahead of the pack.

“Lonely cabin”, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, $652 framed.

Ability vs. humility

When I was fourteen, I believed that I was uniquely talented. I’m disabused of that notion today; there are many people out there with as much native ability as me. Many of us never allow ourselves to fail because we can’t risk exposing that little kernel of ego and insecurity in the public square.

Humility is the starting point of learning. That means trying and failing and then trying again, and listening to expert advice, especially when you’re paying for it.

I occasionally have students who preface all reactions with, “I know, but…” It’s a highly defensive response and hinders growth.

I have a regular correspondent who frustrates me because I know he would benefit from another workshop. However, he thinks that because he’s taken one, he ‘knows what I teach.’ (If that’s true, he’s not putting it into practice.) He would improve, not just from hearing it again from me, but from rubbing shoulders with others bent on improvement.

Best Buds, 11X14, oil on canvasboard, $1087 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Iron sharpens iron

I am not able to paint right now (see Wednesday’s post) and I won’t be teaching until the beginning of the year. I miss teaching as much as I miss painting. I learn a great deal from my students, and they prevent me from getting rusty during periods when other things get in the way of my brush time.

Improvement rests on the following principles

  • Regular practice. Set aside time to work, even if it’s just a few hours a week. The more you practice, the better you’ll get.
  • Study the basics, which include color theory, optics, drawing, brushwork, and the elements of design.
  • Study the masters and other contemporary painters.
  • Continue to take classes and workshops.
  • Be willing to innovate; don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
  • Have fun. If you’re not enjoying painting, what’s the point?

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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In the bleak midwinter

All Flesh is as Grass, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

A Tom and Jerry is a traditional American Christmas cocktail, invented about 200 years ago by British writer Pierce Egan. It’s akin to hot eggnog, the perfect adult beverage in the bleak midwinter.

It’s tricky; I’ve made the batter at home, but it’s never as good as that from Schwabls in my home town of Buffalo, NY. Either way, it isn’t for the faint of heart; one will loosen up your singing voice; two will undermine your ability to walk home.

My own woodstove, Tom and Jerrys, mince pie, and my bathtub and bidet are among the things from home that I miss right now. I miss my daily hike up Beech Hill, my dog and my husband. I’m in Albany, NY for the foreseeable future, and it’s dark and snowy. In the bleak midwinter, indeed.

Midnight at the Wood Lot, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449.00 framed includes shipping and handling within continental US.

You never outgrow worrying about your kids

My trip out west was organized to get me to Rochester, NY for my goddaughter’s wedding. Before that I swung east to alter my grandsons’ suits and my granddaughter’s dress. I assumed I could use 9-year-old Grace’s sewing tools. Unfortunately, kids her age are not organized. I spent as much time sorting as I did stitching.

My daughter Mary, who makes Rowan Branch brush soap for me, bounced between being an attentive bridesmaid and gulping acetaminophen. On her way home, she pulled off the Thruway and called an ambulance. That week, she had a stent placed and emergency gallbladder surgery. Oh, and she had pneumonia, too.

“I really couldn’t tell if I was sick or just imagining it,” she said.

Even hypochondriacs get sick, I retorted. It’s good to laugh with multiple incisions in your belly.

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

And Laura

Many of you know my daughter Laura, who is my IT and marketing person. As Mary was discharged from St. Peter’s Hospital, Laura was admitted. She’s suffering from preeclampsia and is there for the duration of her pregnancy.

“Your mother was making Laura work in the hospital yesterday!” I overheard. That’s right, and I intend to keep doing it. Once you’re stabilized, a hospital is a very boring place.

I never thought I’d be doing the daily preschool run again. Little boys are such obsessives. Just as my son and I talked bridges, Josh and I talk cars. He’s still a little shaky on his directions, so I’m also teaching him port and starboard as we drive.

And my husband

Even I know that, unlike kids, adults don’t get feverish on a whim. It turns out my husband also has pneumonia, which is spiking here, in Canada, and in Great Britain. That’s a great reminder to wash hands your regularly as we enter flu season.

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

 And all manner of things shall be well

Mary gets her stent out on December 17. Toodles is scheduled to arrive on December 9, which they figure is sufficiently baked to avoid a long NICU stay. Doug is feeling better. The newlyweds seem appropriately blissful, and my granddaughter and I are slowly excavating her bedroom.

I’m not telling you this to worry you; it’s just to explain my distraction over the past few weeks. In my never-to-be-published book, 100 Best Things About Having Cancer, I mention that I no longer sweat the small things—and almost everything is a small thing. My family is getting great care, both in this large (and excellent) city hospital and back home in rural Maine. In the Bleak Midwinter is a song about the hopefulness of this season, and that’s how I’m feeling.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: traditional drawing pencils

My sketch for Heavy Weather. 5X8, graphite on Bristol-finish paper. I moved stuff around repeatedly without damaging the finish.

My nine-year-old granddaughter tells me she’s not supposed to use mechanical pencils because her teacher thinks their points break too easily. That got us into a detailed discussion of traditional drawing pencils and other tools.

Wooden Pencils

Pencil leads are generally given hardness grades, and each hardness is suited to a different purpose. ‘H’ stands for hard leads, ideal for technical drawing due to their fine lines and lighter marks. ‘B’ represents black or soft leads, which give darker, bolder strokes, perfect for shading. The middle ground is ‘HB,’ balancing hardness and blackness for everyday writing and basic sketching. The higher the number, the farther the lead is from that central HB position.

I do not recommend Blackwing pencils because they’re primarily for writing, not drawing, but if you are interested by the hype, start with a mixed set, here at $23.50 plus shipping. Blackwing doesn’t use the traditional scale, but that set includes a Matte, Pearl, 602, and Original, in descending order of hardness. Of course, to get their full value, you’ll need a Blackwing long-point pencil sharpener, here at $21.00.

Personally, I’m too parsimonious for that. I have General’s ten-pencil set, for the much more reasonable price of $9.99. Add a Maped 2-hole sharpener and a General Mechanical Eraser and you’ll be set.

Even a line drawing conveys volume, but shading is that much more expressive. These were done with the cheapest of mechanical pencils in a sketchbook.

Mechanical Pencils

If you bear down too hard and breaking points is a problem for you, there are two options. You can replace the lead in your inexpensive mechanical pencils with high-polymer lead, which is stronger and denser. Or, move to a .9 mm lead pencil. You can buy hi-polymer 2B leads for this and other pencil sizes from Pentel, and even 4B lead for a .5 mm pencil.

Woodless graphite pencils

Once I get past my sketchbook, I move over to woodless graphite drawing pencils. They don’t need sharpening. Because you can work them on their sides, they make smoother graduated passages than conventional drawing pencils. I have this set, which costs $15.99 and has lasted me forever.

Done with willow charcoal on newsprint.

Charcoal

I avoid pressed charcoal; it is difficult to erase due to the binding agent. That also makes it less versatile for blending and making soft transitions. Unlike willow charcoal, it can bleed into paint if you use it for drawing on your canvas. However, it can be useful for fine detail and sharp lines since it can be sharpened.

Willow charcoal is more like painting in that it can be smudged and moved and lifted with ease. My personal preference is Coate’s willow charcoal.

Paper

For sketching, I use a Strathmore Visual Journal, as it’s completely erasable and multimedia when I need to add color.

For woodless graphite and fine work in charcoal, I like Canson Mi-Tiente Pastel Paper. It gives me the greatest control and value range. But for painting design, I use willow charcoal on newsprint, or any other cheap paper I have lying around.

A recap

I didn’t mean for this to be a shopping guide, but it seems to have ended up that way. Here are my ‘real’ holiday gift guides for 2024:

Holiday Gift Guide for Budding Artists

Holiday Gift Guide for Experienced Artists

Holiday Gift Guide: Painting Workshops

Holiday Gift Guide: $100 off any painting on this site.

There are still openings in my January drawing class. For more information see here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: the secret to confident brushwork

I always carry a sketchbook with me when painting, and I always start with a drawing. It saves me tons of time.

People ask me how to develop confident brushwork. The answer is to get better at drawing. Yes, confident brushwork depends in part on painting technique, but it really requires that you not flail around changing things in the painting phase.

“Draw slow, paint fast,” one of my students once said, and I’ve found it as good a motto as any for developing a loose painting style.

Confident brushwork is about simplification, and you can’t simplify when the shapes aren’t right to start with.

One painter’s testimony

Pam’s sketch of her doctor’s office.

Pam Otis is a painting student who’s taken my drawing class. I asked her what her biggest obstacle was. “Silencing that voice inside my head that told me I couldn’t draw,” she said. “What finally put it to rest for me was when you talked in class about the developmental stages of drawing and how adults who say they can’t draw are really just people who got to a certain developmental stage but for a myriad of reasons didn’t take it any further.

“Once I realized that it wasn’t a matter of me lacking talent or competence, just that I hadn’t learned the skills I needed to progress, it made the whole thing less mysterious and more a concrete skill that I could get better at with practice. That was truly life-changing in terms of gaining confidence in myself and my abilities as an artist.”

Most people avoid things they find difficult. “Having the technical ability to draw something correctly makes it so much easier to execute a painting without avoiding hard things,” Pam said. Drawing gives me the space I need to ask questions like ‘What would happen if I…?’”

Drawing by Pam Otis.

Pam says the most surprising thing about drawing is that it’s so interpretive. “There are so many ways that you can use line and shadow to tell a story, and what you leave out can often make for a more powerful image. 

“Drawing gives me time to reflect about my goals for a piece of art, lets me play around with the details and easily make changes. One of my sketches (above) is of a waiting room. I did it on site and it was time boxed. I learned a lot from that little sketch. I redrew the chair a couple of times because I wasn’t getting the legs quite right and I wanted the cushion to be nuanced. It was like figuring out a puzzle.

“It’s fun to spend time creating with other artists, but it’s also fun to draw out in public. This autumn we went to a busker festival and I drew some of the performers while they played and had them autograph my drawings afterwards. It was a nice ice-breaker when I was talking to them, and I had a chance to talk to some people in the audience.

Drawing by Pam Otis.

“There’s still a lot of mystique around drawing, and I like to think that by taking some of my projects on the road, maybe, just maybe that’ll be the thing that inspires someone else who thought that they couldn’t draw to maybe take another try at it with fresh eyes. I’m definitely glad I did.”

If you feel your painting skills would benefit from better drawing skills, I encourage you to take my six-week drawing class starting January 6. I can promise you that your painting skills will benefit.

The best laid plans

My assistant (or boss), Laura, who’s 31 weeks pregnant, has been bunged into the hospital for the duration. That means, sadly, that the last step of my Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painting will not be wrapped and beribboned for Black Friday. I can’t launch it without her help. It also means I’m in Albany for some unspecified time, since someone needs to rassle the four-year-old while his dad’s at work.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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2024 holiday gift guide for artists, part 3: take a painting workshop

We all know the temptation to buy things instead of burrowing into the work of getting better at our craft. Sometimes, the last thing you need is more stuff, but an experience that shatters your ‘business as usual’ habits. That might mean new skills for the beginner, new techniques for the advanced artist, or—for anyone—the therapeutic experience of painting in one of America’s great beauty spots.  

Yves Roblin painting at Hancock Shaker Village.

What’s in it for you?

I’ve been teaching painting workshops forever, and I can promise you’ll take away one or all of the following:

  • New techniques:
  • A blossoming of your creative process;
  • A good dollop of color and design theory;
  • Keener observational skills;
  • New friends;
  • The ability to critique your own work;
  • Some beautiful finished work.

My painting workshops have been winnowed down recently to include those I absolutely love, both in the teaching and the place. Let me tell you what I treasure about each one:

Sand and Shadows (Sedona), 8X16, oil on archival linenboard, private collection

Canyon Color for the Painter, Sedona, AZ

In March, I’m really, really sick of snow. This is an opportunity for my friends and me to head west and concentrate on a completely different landscape. This is a color-theory based workshop that turns the green-blue of the east coast on its head. And the Sedona Arts Center is a fabulous support center. March 10-14, 2025.

Early Spring, Beech Hill
Early Spring, Beech Hill, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, private collection.

Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME

I love teaching students of all levels, but this is a class designed for professional-level students to work on more complex concepts in painting. These include directing the viewer’s eye, narrative flow, serious drawing, and more. (Requires a portfolio or permission, and please don’t be offended if I suggest you take a different workshop first. It’s not about ability; it’s whether you have the process down.) July 7-11, 2025.

Becky painting at the amazing and wonderful Schoodic Point.

Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park

This is a student favorite and a personal favorite. It’s in one of the most beautiful, less-traveled parts of Acadia National Park: the Schoodic Peninsula. It’s my longest running workshop and all levels of experience seem to enjoy it. The wilderness setting seems to create a special camaraderie among students. Enjoy all-inclusive accommodation or join us as a commuter. August 3-8, 2025.

Cassie Sano’s painting of Undermountain Farm’s Victorian barn in the Berkshires.

Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA

I fell in love with the Berkshires when my oldest daughter lived in Pittsfield, MA. She’s moved on, but it continues to enchant me with its historic little towns, rolling hills, and working farms. I love the verdant landscape and especially the day we get to spend at the amazing Hancock Shaker Village. All levels are welcome. August 11-15, 2025.

Autumn farm, oil on canvasboard, available.

Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME

This is a deep dive into all the special places I get to paint here in midcoast Maine. We cap it with a private guided tour in the Farnsworth Art Museum that’s tailored to my students. It’s easy to get a hotel room in this area, it’s the height of fall color, and all levels are welcome. October 6-10, 2025.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Holiday guide for artists, part 2

I’m dividing this holiday gift guide for artists into multiple parts this year, so stay tuned over the next two weeks. I’ve given you both the Dick Blick and the Amazon price where available; while the per-item price is generally lower at Blick (where shipping is free over $59), there’s the advantage of Prime-Eligible if you only want one or two things. You know how to play this game.

This gift guide is for more serious artists who’ve already bought their way into a primary medium, but are still interested in experimenting. If you need to know more about oils, watercolors, acrylics or pastels, email me your questions.

Oils and acrylic brushes

Brushes are expensive, so many artists have inferior ones or too-small ones. In 2024 I surprised myself by coming back to a trusted old favorite: Isabey. They’re bristle brushes that carry a lot of paint and stand up to hard use.

These are the big boys that we artists never seem to buy for ourselves:

Isabey Chungking Interlocking Bristle Brush – Bright, Long Handle, Size 10 $23.94

Isabey Chungking Interlocking Bristle Brush – Filbert, Long Handle, Size 8 $16.57

Isabey Chungking Interlocking Bristle Brush – Flat, Long Handle, Size 10 $, 23.94

Isabey Chungking Interlocking Bristle Brush – Round, Long Handle, Size 8 $15.84

Princeton SNAP is another reliable product. I use them for smaller oil painting brushes, where paint load isn’t as critical, and any size in acrylics. Here is a great starter kit:

Princeton Snap! Natural Bristle Brush Set – Long Handle, Set of 3 $9.05

Watercolor brushes

Despite having many expensive watercolor brushes, I reach for Princeton Neptunes first. Again, the hole in most artists’ toolkit is in the bigger brushes, so try one of these kits:

Big boys: Princeton Neptune Synthetic Squirrel Brushes – Box Set of 4. $47.85

Middlin’ boys: Princeton Neptune Synthetic Squirrel Brushes – Set of 4 $35.97

If money is no object, you can get your loved one an Escoda Reserva Kolinsky-Tajmyr Sable Brush – Charles Reid Signature Brush Set, Pocket Round, at $495.49 (although in that price range I think a workshop is a better value.)

Brush soap

My daughter makes Rowan Branch Brush Soap for me, and it’s the best brush soap I’ve ever used. Slip some in the stockings of your oil and acrylic painter friends.

Gouache

Gouache is used in art school, and for good reason. It has the immediacy of acrylics and the opacity of oils, but it cleans up with water. Artists in all media like playing with it, including me.

I like this M. Graham Artists’ Gouache Basic Set, Set of 5 colors, 15 ml tubes

Dick Blick, $54.35

Amazon: $54.35

Oil Pastels

Sennelier is the clear quality winner in oil pastels, which can be used on their own or with oil paint. This landscape starter kit will give you enough experience to know if you like them:

$55.69 at Dick Blick

$61.83 at Amazon

Hard Pastels

Hard pastels are fabulous, cost-effective drawing tools. This assorted set of 24 is professional grade at a very good price.

Dick Blick $25.74

Amazon, $25.44

I just want to try soft pastels without breaking the bank

Dick Blick offers this Unison Handmade Pastel set of 8 half sticks at an outstanding price, I assume on the theory that they’re addictive.

$17.80 at Dick Blick

Pastel paper

This UArt tablet of ten sheets of sanded paper should last as long as the soft pastels, and by the time you’re done you’ll know if you’re hooked:

$33.68 at Dick Blick

$39.60 at Amazon

Storage for the studio

I have more than one taboret cabinet but this simple one sits under my desk and holds all the art supplies I might need while teaching.

$92.45 at Amazon

For your plein air kit

These mesh bags save my backpack from becoming a swamp of materials.

$15.99 at Amazon

And, last but not least, safety

The danger of “park and paint” plein air is other bad drivers. One of the nicest gifts I ever received was a pair of safety cones. These collapsible ones are reflective, come with LED lights, and will fit easily in a car trunk. Every plein air painter should have them.

$29.90 at Amazon

This is the second in a four-part holiday gift guide. Holiday Gifts for Budding Artists is here.

And, yes, I get affiliate benefits from this gift guide for artists if you buy through one of these links. It helps keep this blog on the internet, so I do appreciate it.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

2024 holiday gift guide for artists, part 1

I’m dividing this holiday gift guide for artists into multiple parts this year, so stay tuned over the next two weeks. I’ve given you both the Dick Blick and the Amazon price; while the per-item price is generally lower at Blick (where shipping is free over $59), there’s the advantage of Prime-Eligible if you only want one or two things. You know how to play this game.

This gift guide for artists is directed towards the newbies on your list, both young and old. As a young artist, I had the benefit of good materials provided (sometimes unwillingly) by my artist father. The frustration of bad supplies often makes people quit art before they get started. Give budding artists a few good tools, rather than overload them with the junk you see on department store end-caps. That doesn’t mean spending more money; it means choosing wisely.  

For the littlest artist

I bought this easel for my grandkids years ago, and it’s still going strong. It’s tall enough to last a kid until ages 7-8, after which they can graduate to real art supplies.

$46.12 at Dick Blick

Little people and color

If you’re brave, pair the above easel with this florescent tempera paint and these chubby brushes. That’s enough paint to last them a very long time.

However, sometimes the mess drives me nuts. Then I had them these Crayola washable markers instead.

$4.62 at Dick Blick

$6.25 at Amazon

For bigger people (older kids and adults)

These are all professional-grade materials, and I’ve chosen them because they’re useful for the person just starting out.

Paper

I use this Strathmore Bristol Visual Journal myself, and give it as gifts to my kids and grandkids. It takes watercolor, pencil and ink without buckling. Bigger isn’t better when it comes to sketchbooks, and this size fits easily in a backpack or purse. Because it’s infinitely erasable, it’s the only sketchbook I use.

$8.24 at Dick Blick

$9.95 at Amazon

Pencils

I’ve got drawers full of pencils, but I keep coming back to Papermate’s #7 mechanical pencil. The biggest problem with pencils isn’t quality; it’s finding one when you need it. I find the fat grip helpful, and the lead is refillable. Mechanical pencils never need sharpening, which means there’s one less thing for me to lose.

$6.84 at Dick Blick

$5.70 at Amazon (limited time offer)

And erasing

Nobody needs a separate eraser but I enjoy this; it’s got a narrow point and makes erasure part of the drawing experience. Plus, it clips into my sketchbook just like my pencil does.

$6.09 at Dick Blick

$8.94 at Amazon

For fine lines

The Faber-Castell Ecco Pigment Pen is a reasonably-priced, lightfast and waterproof art pen. Its point holds up to use, even with rulers. I buy these in bulk for both myself and my boat workshops.

$3.13 at Dick Blick

$2.99 at Amazon but not Prime Eligible

Adding color

Any budding artist would enjoy this starter set of high-end colored pencils. They’re color-matched to all Faber-Castell systems, and are high-chroma, easily blended, break-resistant, water-resistant, and smudgeproof. This gift set comes with 20 colored pencils, four graphite pencils of differing weights, an eraser and a metal pencil sharpener.

$50.68 at Dick Blick

$50.68 at Amazon

And paint

If I were to give a new watercolor painter a cost-effective gift, it would be just three pigments: Ultramarine Blue, Nickel Azo Yellow and Quinacridone Magenta. This set, however, gives you six pigments and a mixing tray at a reasonable price. They’re what I use; they’re high-chroma, professional-quality paints.

$26.57 at Dick Blick

$26.57 at Amazon

Brushes

After years of looking for an affordable brush kit for my watercolor workshops, I stumbled on this. It’s a good starter set for pocket brushes.

$17.99 at Amazon

Watercolor Paper

Strathmore 400 is a good, all-around sheet, a good first step towards finished work in watercolor. It’s what I use to demo painting effects in my classes and workshops.

$9.96 at Dick Blick

A storage solution is a canny gift

After searching for sewing supplies in my granddaughter’s bedroom, I realize that the crafty child needs organization as much as anything. This multi-drawer craft cart will tuck in next to her dresser, and she can move it to a bigger space if she needs to.

$69.99 at Amazon

And, yes, I get affiliate benefits from this gift guide for artists if you buy through one of these links. It helps keep this blog on the internet, so I do appreciate it.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: