A paean to black paint
Avoiding black keeps you from some of the most elegant colors available in painting. Vineyard, 30X40, oil on canvas, available. Black can make a whole array of beautiful greens. One of the absurdities of 20th century art education was the injunction to ‘never use black.’ That limits artists from some of the most elegant colors …
Inside the blue line
I’ll be teaching in the Adirondacks on August 13-14. Be there or be square. Spruces and Pines in a Boreal Bog, painted at the Paul Smith’s VIC and long since gone to a private collector. I cut my teeth teaching workshops in the Adirondack wilderness, so it’s with great pleasure that I’ll be doing that …
Monday Morning Art School: deadlines
Sometimes it’s not fun. Sometimes it’s almost painfully stressful. What do you do then? Home Farm, oil on canvas, 20X24, Carol L. Douglas At my first plein air competition, I was a nervous wreck. “Come on, Carol,” my exasperated friend said. “Get a grip! You know how to do this.” At that moment, that wasn’t exactly true; …
The glamorous life of an artist
It’s easy to forget I’m a painter when I’m up to my elbows in minutiae, but it has to be done. Still, so does painting or I’ve lost my raison d’etre. Clary Hill Blueberry Barrens, Carol L. Douglas. This is one of the pieces I’ve decided (provisionally) should go to New York. Until I change my mind …
May you live in interesting times
History runs in fits and starts. So does your artistic development. Breaking Storm, Carol L. Douglas “Scotch and soda, jigger of gin…” crooned my husband early one morning as we trekked over Beech Hill. That’s a Kingston Trio song from 1958. It set Doug to musing that music changed a lot more in the three …