Is that painting finished?
Drying Sails, oil on canvas, 9×12, available on my website later this morning. When I’m wondering, “is this painting finished?” the answer is usually yes. I’ve been carrying a small 8×10 around in my backpack for a few weeks, hoping to run into Ken DeWaard so I could ask him if he had a reference …
First world problems are real problems
Black House, 18X24, oil on canvas, Carol L. Douglas I’ve got a student who’s been waiting for a chip for his GM pickup truck for several months. “First world problem,” he says good-humoredly when I ask him about it. I get that he means it as an expression of gratitude that his problems aren’t bigger, …
Monday Morning Art School: most rules of painting are written in sand, not stone
The Logging Truck, 16X20, oil on canvas, available. Rules are meant to be learned-and then, after mastery, some can be broken. A few weeks ago, my plein air class was working on Knox Street in Thomaston. Eric Jacobsen was painting in his own yard nearby. A student asked me the secret to painting bigger canvases. …
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Perfect is the enemy of good
This blog was on Google’s Blogger from 2007 until the present (with a short hiatus during which it was hosted by the Bangor Daily News). Blogger is a simple platform, but in 2021, it suspended support of its RSS web feed. That meant that people could no longer subscribe. After consulting with the usual experts, …
Change is an inevitable part of growth, but it’s not easy
We like certainty, but plans are to some extent illusory; things can and do change in an instant. Sunset sail, 16X20, oil on canvas, Carol L. Douglas, available. I’ve noticed a strange split this year-my east coast workshops are sold out, and my western ones are languishing. To be completely accurate, my Acadia workshop has sold …
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