Monday Morning Art School: the color of darkness
Painters spend lots of time thinking about the subtractive color system. We spend very little time thinking about the additive system. That’s a mistake, because this is the color of light. A deer I painted years ago as a demonstration for my class. Shadows are the complement of the morning light. Every artist is familiar …
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War and rumors of war
The violence and inhumanity of war is apparently a lesson that every generation needs to learn for itself. The Third of May 1808, 1814, Francisco Goya, courtesy Museo del Prado. Francisco Goya was the most important Spanish artist of his day. His late painting, The Dog, was an icon for modern and symbolist painters through …
In control
Every day, in every way, things are not necessarily getting better. In Control (Grace and her unicorn), 24X36, is one of the paintings that’s going to Rye Arts Center’s Censored and Poetic: the works of Carol Douglas and Anne de Villemejane, March 2022. A visitor to my studio recently asked me about the gender disparity in painting. …
Monday Morning Art School: is that painting finished?
Our hectoring superegos are not always the best judges of painterly quality. Self Portrait with Disheveled Hair, 1628-29, Rembrandt van Rijn, courtesy Rijksmuseum In my studio, there are more than a hundred unfinished paintings in drying racks. I’d feel bad about that, except that most plein air artists I know store up unfinished pictures like …
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How long did it take you to become a genius, anyway?
Mastery is a moving target. Occasional moments of greatness are a byproduct of that continuing struggle. Autumn farm, evening blues, oil on archival canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas “How @#$% long does it take great painters to learn to paint?” asked a student recently, with only the slightest hint of frustration in his voice. “I’m not …
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