Monday Morning Art School: the nocturne
Forget the fairy-lights; a good nocturne follows the same rules as any good painting. Hunter’s Supper, c. 1909, Frederic Remington, courtesy National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Nocturne is a term appropriated by James Abbott McNeill Whistler from music. Whistler used it to title works that evoked the sensation of nighttime or twilight. It didn’t mean just any …
Ruthless pruning
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter essay. Coast Guard Inspection, 6X8, oil on canvasboard. The above witticism has been attributed to many people because it’s a universal truth. President Woodrow Wilson put it thus: “If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; …
All the plein air events, at your fingertips
Thinking about competitive plein air painting? Here’s a useful tool. Beach Erosion, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, $652 framed, available through Ocean Park Association. I met Chrissy Pahucki at a plein air event. She was standing in line with one of her children waiting to have her canvases stamped. Chrissy’s branding came naturally—she always had a …
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Monday Morning Art School: more interesting greens
We take a snapshot of a dancing, glowing landscape and what we end up with is a wall of dull green. We need to insinuate that original energy back into our picture. Bracken Fern, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, available, Carol L. Douglas Michael Wilcox published a watercolor pigment guide called Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green. …
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Love and friendship
A friend is a friend, and love is love, no matter if it comes by airmail or through the internet, or in person. My mother and her cousin Gabriel on her last trip to Australia. My brother gave me a thumb drive containing about 500 scanned slides from my childhood. They’re very interesting, but they …