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Business for artists and painting in Sedona

Shadow Fingers, 11X14, oil on Baltic birch, $869 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

First, the business

My friend Dennis used to tell me, ā€œIā€™m an accountant with the soul of an artist.ā€ Thatā€™s all very well, Iā€™d counter, but every successful artist also needs the mind of an accountant. (Luckily, I never believed in that now-discredited left-brain, right-brain malarkey.)

On March 8-9, Iā€™ll be presenting at the first Sedona Entrepreneurial Artist Development Program. This is open to Arizona residents aged 18 and over. The two-day intensive covers a range of topics from financial management and marketing to crafting an artist statement, developing work samples and selling artwork online. My part will be accounting for artists, and I plan to make it exciting.

Even if you hire someone to do your taxes, you still need to understand what expenses to record and what donā€™t matter. You need to be able to track your inventory, and, if you teach or run a gallery, how to protect yourself against liability.

Country path, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, $1,275 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Painting in Sedona

Immediately following the Entrepreneurial program, Iā€™m offering Canyon Color for the Painter from March 10-14. There are still a few seats left.

Iā€™ve taught and painted in Sedona for several years and know great places for morning light, evening light, and all the light in between. Weā€™ll meet on location at 9 AM, work steadily until 4, and then youā€™ll have the evening to hike, take one of the famous Pink Jeep tours, or try one of Sedonaā€™s many fine restaurants. If the weather is poorā€”and it almost never isā€”we can meet in a classroom at the Sedona Arts Center (SAC).

Dawn on the Upper Red Rock Loop Road, 20X24, oil on canvas, $2,318 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

The top five things I love about painting in Sedona

  1. The weatherā€”there is a scene in PG Wodehouseā€™s Quick Service where the old prizefighter Steptoe is trying to convince his wife to give up on Merry Olde England. ā€œWhat you want wasting your time in this darned place beats me. Nobody but stiffs for miles around. And look what happens today. You give this lawn party, and what do you get? Cloudbursts and thunderstorms. Where’s the sense in sticking around in a climate like this?ā€

    He was urging her back to California, but in Sedona itā€™s also almost always fine. After this winter, we deserve fine.

  2. The sceneryā€”Sedona combines some very brilliant colors: the reds of Bell and Cathedral Rock, the lush greens of Oak Creek Canyon, the sere yellows of the chaparral, and the deep blue of the sky. Because itā€™s seldom overcast, shadows jump and the light shimmers. Itā€™s just magical.

  3. The peopleā€”Iā€™ve known Julie Richard, the executive director of SAC, for a decade. Itā€™s the same with Ed Buonvecchio, my workshop monitor. The rest of the support staff, including Bernadette Carroll and JD Jensen (with whom youā€™ll have the most contact), are kind and terrifically helpful.

  4. The hikingā€”There are 400 miles of hiking trails in the Red Rock Ranger District on the Coconino National Forest. Then there are state and city parks. Sedona is a hikerā€™s paradise, and I swear Julie Richard can tell you about every single trail.

  5. The funny things that always seem to happen to me thereā€”Painting in Sedona has led to extremely funny interactions between the punters and me. I donā€™t think thatā€™s from ley lines and vortexes, but because in the grand scheme of things, plein air painters are just one more dot on the overwhelming landscape. Come prepared to smile.
Hail on the Cockscomb Formation, oil on Baltic Birch, $522 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Bells on Bobā€™s trail ring

Drifts and gusts at Erickson Field (if it doesn’t blow me over, it will trip me up), 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $522 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Today is my 66th birthday. By choice Iā€™ve lived every one of those long years in the far north. I like winter; I hate heat. I was born in Buffalo, NY, which means my blood is an amalgam of snow and beer. So, when I tell you this winter has been a unique pain in the arthritic joints, I speak from deep personal experience.

Can you paint in the winter? Heck, yeah.

Little Tree in the snow, 4X6, oil on archival canvasboard, $217 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

About 25 years ago, I set out to paint every day of the year. I was living in Rochester, NY, which is every bit as tempestuous weatherwise as Buffalo. There were blizzards, there was sleet, there was hail, there were torrential rainstorms, there were line squalls, there were those awful, sticky, still, humid summer days that resolve into thunderstorms. Do you know what my take-away lesson was? I never need to do that again.

That doesnā€™t mean I wonā€™t paint in the snow if the spirit moves me. Can you paint in the winter? Of course, if you dress right. Itā€™s not quite true that thereā€™s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. However, my friend Poppy Balser paints outside in winter a lot. To be fair, though, Nova Scotia is milder than Maine. (If you want to try snow painting, my friend Catharine swears by these rechargeable pocket warmers.)

Weā€™ve had a steady snow cover since December and many sunny days, so why havenā€™t I gotten out to paint? Itā€™s been too frigid, the snow is deep and covers a slick layer of ice, and the wind seems to howl incessantly. While it looks lovely from my living room window, itā€™s been miserable out there.

We had an awful storm at the beginning of this week, with snow layering on sleet layering on snow. I got a glum text from Ken DeWaard. ā€œI am officially sick of the snow,ā€ he said. ā€œI canā€™t even push it off the deck.ā€ I felt badly for him until I went outside and realized that the portable garage-tent over my Ford 9N tractor had collapsed. And that was before the 50 MPH gusts hit later in the day.

Baby pine tree in the snow. That’s a different baby pine tree. 9X12, oil on loose canvas.

Bobā€™s trail

Iā€™m 66 and in rude good health, despite having had three different cancers. I blame this on my lifelong exercise habits. I ran until my first cancer at age 40; Iā€™ve been walking and hiking long distances since then.

Iā€™m supposed to be training to hike around Malta and Gozo in early April. My training regimen meant I should be doing five miles a day now. (All three of my hiking partners are younger, fitter, and possibly better-looking.) But the trails here are deeply buried; over the past week, Iā€™ve struggled to do 2.5 miles. On Monday it took me an hour to push through just one mile. By Monday afternoon, even the dogs wouldnā€™t go out into that wind.

My mittens, 9X12, oil on loose canvas.

ā€˜Bobā€™s trailā€™ is what I call an informal extra loop on my regular ascent, because my trail-buddy Bob first stomped it out. For the past several days, Iā€™ve been pushing uphill on it and then realizing Iā€™m too spent to make the rest of my loop.

Bob and his wife are regulars on these trails. Sometimes they do them on snowshoes. Thatā€™s a real blessing, because snowshoes pack the snow down evenly and make it possible to walk in their tracks. ā€œOh, where the heck are you,ā€ I breathed, as I pushed through yet more snow. And then I realized that theyā€™re in Vietnam, where the temperature is hovering around 70Ā° F.

I guess Iā€™d better go out to the shed and fetch my own dang snowshoes.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: more on photographing paintings

Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde River, $696 unframed, oil on Baltic birch.

Years ago when I was still having giclee prints made, my lab would bracket different exposures of the work as high dynamic range image (HDR) capture. It cost several hundred bucks a pop and was worth every penny.

Bracketing wasnā€™t a new idea; what was new was the ability to merge the images into a single HDR output. Today, you and I can do it ourselves, using the free, open-source photo editor GIMP. Even better, most new smartphones have HDR technology built into them. In most situations, thatā€™s all thatā€™s needed. Why mess around with a DSLR when you have HDR technology in your pocket? Just take a couple different exposures (see last Mondayā€™s post) and Bobā€™s your uncle.

What is HDR and why should a painter care? A single image captured by a camera has a finite value range. Outside that range, tonal information is lost. Deep blues, purples, reds, and greens appear black; palest yellows and peaches look white. Itā€™s frustrating for the painter to spend so much time on color temperature only to have our stupid cameras make our paintings look flat.

That, in a nutshell, is why cell phone photos of our paintings often look better than our DSLR photos. On the other hand, our pricey cameras have much better lenses, so they have the potential for more sensitive images of impasto and other subtle brush effects. If youā€™re working in watercolor or gouache you wonā€™t care, but for oil painters and pastelists it can make a world of difference.

Adjusting your image with software will cost you detail

At left is the histogram of the unedited image (at top, in its whole form). At right is the histogram of the image edited to ‘look’ like the painting, with gaps and compression, resulting in degradation of detail. And that was a very small amount of correction.

ā€œBut I can use Photoshop to fix the color,ā€ you aver. Hah, and double hah. Let me introduce you to the histogram(s) of your photos. Thereā€™s a composite one, and one for each color channel. The histogram represents the tonal distribution of a photograph. It shows how many pixels are in each brightness level, from pure dark on the left to pure light on the right. An average-keyed paintingā€™s histogram should be curved, skewed neither to left nor right. A nocturne will be skewed to the left; a high-key painting to the right.

Above I’ve given you histograms of the same painting shot with the same camera. The image on the left is a painting that was correctly exposed under proper light. The one on the right was properly exposed but without using photo floods. I adjusted it in Photoshop to visually match the painting’s color. This is a very small tweak.

The gaps indicate a lack of pixels within those tonal points. That means there are no details at those points. The jagged edges are caused by lossy (irreversible) compression, which also removes data. Neither is good for the sharpness of your image.

Even with all this image manipulation, the painting’s colors are way. off.

That was in the controlled environment of my studio. Now look (above) at the edits that needed to be made when a painting was photographed on a gallery wall. That picture was taken by a professional, but he had no control over the conditions.


That’s the above painting in its real color, with no color editing done. Note the amount of color information lost in the edited version.

The color of shadow affects your photography

Because I had a photo of Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde that I took in the shade in Sedona, AZ, I could compare it to one I took under the photofloods in my studio, using Photoshopā€™s eyedropper tool. Theyā€™re close. But Sedona is about 34.9Ā° N, vs. Rockportā€™s 44Ā° N. Moreover, that was October. Today in Rockport, the sun will rise to a whopping 35Ā° above the horizon. (It was 20.5Ā° at the winter solstice. No wonder weā€™re all crazy.) In winter here, shadows are blue or bluer. Itā€™s been a long time since I tried this at home, and itā€™s storming right now, but I found this old photo I took on my patio on an overcast day. That painting is blueā€¦ and itā€™s not because itā€™s cold. I canā€™t adjust that color to normal and not degrade the image.

Shot on my patio in the shaIde on an overcast day in the winter. That’s a cold winter blue right there. And, no, I wasn’t going outside yesterday to reshoot Cottonwoods on the Rio Verde for you; we’re having yet another winter storm.

If you want to take my next session of classes, they start with drawing (one seat left) tonight and painting (four seats left) tomorrow.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Moving from realism to abstraction

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

On Monday and Tuesday, I wrapped up a session of painting classes. I sighed and said, ā€œFirst I taught you to paint and draw realistically, and now Iā€™m going to teach you to paint and draw non-realistically.ā€

To the non-artist, this makes no sense. Why go through the laborious business of learning to draw and paint accurately, to then cut out so much of what you just learned? The first step is the journeymanā€™s and the second step is the masterā€™s.

Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling.

There is no such thing as absolute realism in painting. Every style, even the most detailed, is a simplification and abstraction of reality. Even hyperrealism is a kind of abstracted and stylized view of the world. Where you eventually land on the continuum between hyperrealism and pure abstraction is ultimately up to you.

But to have complete control over visual representation in art, you must first understand and masterfully replicate reality. Realism is the starting point from which we launch ourselves into an infinite number of artistic styles.

Sometimes people misunderstand abstraction

Ironically, right after class was finished, I had a brief discussion with Bruce McMillan about a painting he did of two pears tossed in the snow. ā€œMany viewers dismiss abstract artists as lacking the skills of ā€˜accomplishedā€™ artists,ā€ he mused. ā€œThey think we canā€™t paint reality. I sometimes pause to paint something realistic to remind myself and viewers that painters simply paint.ā€

In truth, it takes great skill to pare something down to its essentials. I was reminded of this while looking at some devastatingly simple monotypes by Marc Hanson.

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

But first, realism

The midcentury abstract-expressionist masters were well-trained draftsmen. Their style intentionally moved away from traditional figurative work. They focused on expressing emotion and the act of painting itself with large, gestural brushstrokes and spontaneous technique.

Learning to draw realistically, even if you plan to be an abstract artist, is valuable because it provides a foundation in form, perspective, anatomy, and the nuances of light and shadow. This grounding allows you to manipulate and distort these elements when creating abstract compositions. Knowing the rules lets you break them. 

Realism gives you a visual vocabulary, along with compositional awareness. But once youā€™re there, then what?

Whatā€™s your style?

ā€œI want to develop my styleā€ is one of the most common things people say to me, and ironically one of the least important. We all have a nascent style from the first time we pick up a pencil. Our mature style is whatā€™s left when all our errors are stripped away, but in some ways thatā€™s a controlled manipulation. We distort and simplify things in our worldview. To do so intentionally takes practice.

The worst thing you can do is chase someone elseā€™s style. There are things you can learn from other artists, things you can control, errors you can overcome, but ultimately, your voice is yours alone.

Forsythia at Three Chimneys, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental United States. You think today’s Valentine’s Day, and you’re right, but it’s also the midpoint of February, which means March is right around the corner, and I may live to see the spring.

Hereā€™s where we jump off the diving board:

As I told someone today, I never thought being an artist was about inventory control. I think these numbers are right.

Zoom Class: Beyond realism to expressive paintingā€”four seats left

Tuesdays, 6 PM ā€“ 9 PM EST

February 18, 25
March 4, 18, 25
April 1

This class focuses on design and composition for expressive painting. Students will be encouraged to develop their own personal creative vision while working on refining their artistic skills through traditional studies.

This class is targeted toward more advanced painters whoā€™ve already mastered the basics of paint application. Itā€™s open to students in watercolor, gouache, oils, and pastel. Learn More

Zoom class: design and drawingā€”three seats left

Mondays, 6 PM ā€“ 9 PM EST

February 17, 24,
March 3,
March 17, 24, 31

This class improves on the skills learned in Fundamentals of Drawing. Weā€™ll use a pencil but all of these concepts are transferrable to painting; experienced painters are encouraged to try them in paint as well.

This class is targeted to the learner who has mastered measurement, shading, and perspective and wants to further develop skills in design and rendering. Learn More

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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The intersection of faith, beauty and practice

Peace, 8X16, private collection. And guess what? The color in this photo is pretty whacked, too!

Last week I was talking with a highly-motivated student about the composition of her painting. It started as three t-shirts and morphed into prayer flags. She works in her basement and itā€™s hard there to gin drapery up with wind or sky, although she could probably do something with a pattern of pipes or stairs. The contrast between the hopefulness of prayer and the pedestrian nature of plumbing has potential.

Of course, itā€™s always about me, so I got to reminiscing about a painting I did three years ago. It was October, 2021. Russia was massing troops on the Ukrainian border in anticipation of the current phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War. (Weā€™re about to observe the third anniversary of their assault in February, 2021. Nobody knows what the casualty count is.) I was just sick reading the news.

Drawing by Carol L. Douglas

TheĀ Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park in Sedona is a place dedicated to peace, with hundreds of chains of prayer flags. Itā€™s not my faith, but I can pray anywhere. I painted and prayed, prayed and painted. I donā€™t know what impact my prayers have had, or how many other people prayed earnestly for peace. The beautiful thing about prayer is, that we will never know in this lifetime, nor must we.

Some of the stupaā€™s prayer flags are threadbare and sunbleached almost grey; some are almost new. I have no idea who hangs them in the piƱons and junipers along the trails but from an aesthetic standpoint theyā€™re very lovely, fluttering in the breeze. They curve in long drooping lines, set against dark greens, a deep blue sky and red rock.

We painters can always find something to hate in our own work, but as a result of the profound emotional, spiritual and aesthetic nexus of that moment, Iā€™ve had an abiding love for this painting. Itā€™s sold now, but I donā€™t I know if I ever explained my feelings about it to its new owner.

The experiences where faith, beauty and practice intersect are very rare, I told my student. I doubt I’ve had more than half a dozen of them in my career. Saying that pulled me up short. I’d never have had them at all if I weren’t a painter. And if that isnā€™t a privilege, I donā€™t know what is.

My two classes starting next week are:

Zoom Class: Beyond realism to expressive painting

Tuesdays, 6 PM ā€“ 9 PM EST

February 18, 25
March 4, 18, 25
April 1

This class focuses on design and composition for expressive painting. Students will be encouraged to develop their own personal creative vision while working on refining their artistic skills through traditional studies.

This class is targeted toward more advanced painters whoā€™ve already mastered the basics of paint application. Itā€™s open to students in watercolor, gouache, oils, and pastel. Learn More

Zoom class: design and drawing

Drawing by Carol L. Douglas

Mondays, 6 PM ā€“ 9 PM EST

February 17, 24,
March 3,
March 17, 24, 31

This class improves on the skills learned in Fundamentals of Drawing. Weā€™ll use a pencil but all of these concepts are transferrable to painting; experienced painters are encouraged to try them in paint as well.

This class is targeted to the learner who has mastered measurement, shading, and perspective and wants to further develop skills in design and rendering. Learn More

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: how to photograph paintings when youā€™re comically inept like me

The only photo I took last week that filled me with unalloyed joy was this tiny 4X6 of a baby spruce tree. Color, check. Exposure, check.

I am fairly incompetent when it comes to photographing my own work. Itā€™s not from lack of equipmentā€”I have a Nikon D750 digital SLR camera, photofloods, and a Slik tripod thatā€™s so heavy I ought to be able to break my toe before I set my camera vibrating.

Itā€™s the combination of cameras and the ego involvement of my own work that does me in. I exited the film age by tripping over a tripod while prepping a batch of slides for a show submission. Well, that camera was almost obsolete anyway.

Meanwhile, I watch my peers casually lean paintings against trees and shoot perfect images, while I struggle to remember to do it at all.

At any rate, hereā€™s what I know about how to photograph paintings; Iā€™ll try to practice what I preach.

A good cell phone can take a better photo than a bad DSLR, but more importantly, sometimes a cell phone is all you have at hand.

Exposure is OK, color is off, and it looks blurry to me. I painted this while discussing Proust with Bjƶrn Runquist.

Donā€™t shoot your photos when youā€™re exhausted.

I donā€™t do anything well when Iā€™m hot, tired, up against a deadline and thirsty. My resolution for 2025 is to photograph things calmly and when thereā€™s still gas in my tank.

Oil painters have an additional complication in that impasto doesnā€™t always look great when itā€™s wet; it can be overly reflective. If thereā€™s time to let it dry, thatā€™s an advantage. But when something has been painted for an event, thatā€™s a luxury you might not have.

Shoot your work parallel to the camera lens.

If you can hang your work on a wall, thatā€™s perfect. If you can leave it on an easel pointing straight up and down, thatā€™s about the same, and more practical. Failing that, you want the picture plane to be parallel to the camera lens, so that all four corners of the painting are the same distance from the lens. That results in minimal distortion.

Yes, you can ease some of that distortion in photo editing software, but you canā€™t do it perfectly, and there are times (like on the oceanā€™s horizon, or in perspective) when it matters. 

By attempting to fix the bad exposure, I messed up the color relationships, and there went what I liked about this painting. Oops.

Light your work evenly

Guidebooks will tell you to use indirect natural light, but where I live thatā€™s usually too blue. Also, itā€™s cold outside, and no number of windows cast even light indoors. I use two photofloods at 45-degree angles to my work, and they cast very even, natural light across my paintings.

If you donā€™t have photofloods, you can rig up paper or fabric screens in front of LED bulbs.

Iā€™ve learned two things the hard way: make sure any shades behind your subject are closed and make sure that any brightly-colored objects in the room are not casting reflected color onto your painting.

Donā€™t zoom in too close

If you do, youā€™re in danger of getting fish-eye, especially with a cell phone. Phones and cameras are such high resolution now that you donā€™t need to worry about every pixel.

I’ve decided to make reshooting this painting my life’s work. It’s such a good painting and for some reason so difficult to get a good shot of.

Donā€™t use autoexposure

If you let your cell phone or camera choose an exposure for you, you are unlikely to love the results. On my cell phone, I take a couple different exposures and hope for the best. (Ask the internet if you donā€™t know how to do this for your phone.) On my camera, I auto-bracket.

You donā€™t need any great depth of field to photograph a painting. If you have a DSLR, set it for a larger f-stop (like f3.5, 2.8, or 1.4). That will give you a faster shutter. Thatā€™s the mistake I made on Friday that gave me blurry photos and why Iā€™ll be reshooting all these pictures today. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Once youā€™ve got an accurate exposure, donā€™t go into your editing software and autocorrect the levels. Paintings do not generally have 100% blacks and 0% whites, but autocorrection puts those in, as well as averaging out all the values to look like everything else. Who needs that?

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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How do you respond to colors and memory?

Camden Harbor from Curtis Island, oil on canvas, $2782 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

It was the couch that upset me in this decorating story about Farrow & Ballā€™s Dead Salmon. ā€œI like it,ā€ my 31-year-old daughter told me.

Uggh, I shivered. It reminded me of this passage from Truman Capoteā€™s In Cold Blood, which I read 52 years ago:

ā€œAs for the interior, there were spongy displays of liver-colored carpetā€¦ an immense modernistic living-room couch covered in nubby fabric interwoven with glittery strands of silver metalā€¦ā€

Objectively, thereā€™s nothing wrong with that brown-pink color; in fact, it reminds me of a mixture I added to my palette last year and dubbed Eric Jacobsen pink, because he uses it so much.

Athabasca River Confluence, 9X12, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Lots of flowers come in that color, including pansies, irises, daylilies, columbines, chrysanthemums, roses, and carnations. Nobody hates them, least of all me. But as a decorating color, brown-pink reminds me of death and old ladies.

Involuntary memory

What caused my visceral negative reaction? It was a chained involuntary memory: the color evoked the smell of dusty, musty brownish-pink Herculon. (If you need a good cry, just look at how much that sofa you threw out is worth today.)

Our sense of smell works differently than our other senses. The other sensory apparatuses track through the brainā€™s thalamus before reaching the amygdala and hippocampus. In contrast, the smell system is hardwired to these memory and emotion centers, said Sandeep Robert Datta, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Thatā€™s why we often have emotional responses (like mine) to odor-related or -evoked memories.

Belfast Harbor, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1,275 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Colors and memory

There have been many studies on colors and memory. These show that people remember images in color better than they do in black and white. However, they donā€™t remember falsely-colored natural scenes any better than they do those in monochrome.

ā€œIt appears as if our memory system is tuned, presumably by evolution and/or during development, to the color structure found in the world. If stimuli are too strange, the system simply doesn’t engage as well, or deems them unimportant,ā€ said Dr. Karl Gegenfurtner.

What does that mean for artists in our color-saturated world? I paint in a high chroma palette partly because I like those colors and partly because theyā€™re the direction our mass media has moved the needle.

https://www.watch-me-paint.com/product/downtown-rockport/Downtown Rockport, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, framed, $1594 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

ā€œPerhaps designers should be aware that, in order to engage or grab one’s attention (as in advertising), bright colors might well be most suitable,ā€ said Dr. Felix A. Wichmann. ā€œIf, on the other hand, the aim is more to have an image ‘stick’ in the viewer’s memory, unnatural colors may not be suitable.ā€

I challenge you to name four or five paintings that you love, without using the internet for prompts. Now look them up. Are they high-chroma, dull, or in a natural chroma range?

Two upcoming classes

Yeah, I feel like I am nagging, but youā€™d be surprised how frequently people tell me, ā€œI never saw that!ā€

Zoom Class: Beyond realism to expressive painting

Tuesdays, 6 PM ā€“ 9 PM EST

This class focuses on design and composition for expressive painting. Students will be encouraged to develop their own personal creative vision while working on refining their artistic skills through traditional studies.

Zoom class: design and drawing

Mondays, 6 PM ā€“ 9 PM EST

This class is targeted to the learner who has mastered measurement, shading, and perspective and wants to further develop skills in design and rendering.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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From aerobics to art class

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

Did I ever tell you about my brief career as an aerobics instructor? It was back in the early 1980s, when the unemployment rate in my hometown was double-digit and I was desperate for work. I borrowed a cute pink leotard and leg warmers from my cousin, but nothing was going to give me Farrah Fawcettā€™s hair or Richard Simmonsā€™ exuberance.

The music was awful, but as a student I was used to hearing it only for 45 minutes at a time. Instructors hear it class after class. I lasted exactly one evening.

My friend Catherine asked me to teach an art class around the time my youngest (now 28) was a tiny tot. It was a much better fit. We started in my finished third floor, a table running down the middle and me smacking my head against the rafters each time I stood up straight. A year or two later I moved my studio to the landing. I taught figure and drawing and painting there to students of all ages. Ten years ago this month, I bought this house and moved my operation to midcoast Maine.

I taught weekly classes here until COVID shut me (and everyone else) down. Today I suppose you can learn anything on Zoom but in 2020 it wasnā€™t such a widespread idea. Iā€™m grateful Mary Byrom wore down my resistance, because I think Zoom art class is as valuable as in-studio art class, and it reaches everywhere.

Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde, 9X12, oil on archivally-prepared Baltic birch, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

A workshop where itā€™s warm

Iā€™ll be teaching Canyon Color for the Painter at the Sedona Arts Center in Sedona, AZ, March 10-14. I can think of lots of good reasons to take this workshop, including the incredible landscape, the fine organization and my own chops as a plein air teacher, but hereā€™s the most important one:

Itā€™s warmer in Sedona than it is up here in the north. Zoom student Julie Hunt told me it was -13Ā° F in Alberta, CA yesterday. It’s 7Ā° F here in Maine. Meanwhile, in Sedona, itā€™s 70Ā° F.

This workshop is all about color theory. That isnā€™t just a collection of truisms like warm-vs-cool. Color is the cornerstone of painting. Weā€™re going to drill down and really master color and mixing in our week in the high desert. Plus, by now I know all the best places to paint.

I hear from the organizers that this class is filling up, so if you’re interested, contact them soon.

The Surf is Cranking Up, 8X16, oil on linenboard, $903 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

A Zoom class on design

ā€œHow can I take my students beyond basic drawing to a more complete sense of design?ā€ I asked Laura. Just because sheā€™s on maternity leave is no reason to not pepper her with questions.

Design and drawing was our answer, designed to take you past the basics of measurement and perspective to concepts like focal point, composition, abstraction and more.

All design rests on line and contrast in value, chroma and hue, but value is the most important. For this reason, Iā€™m designing this class to be done in graphite or charcoal. However, thereā€™s no reason a person couldnā€™t do the exercises in paint. Or both.

The Logging Truck, oil on archival canvasboard, 16X20, $2029.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Beyond realism

I really have some hot painters in my classes right now, and my current goal is to push them beyond faithful rendering to a new language of expression. To this end, weā€™ve done composition experiments, color experiments and more. In the next session, Beyond realism to expressive painting, weā€™ll continue to build on that idea. You donā€™t need to have taken the prior class as long as youā€™re an experienced painter.

A word to the wise

I can never tell how many people will enroll in my classes. I wonā€™t take more than 15 or fewer than six. However, both classes were sold out last session, so if you want one of them, you should register soon.

If you have any questions, email me.

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Monday Morning Art School: the golden rectangle and other design ideas

Dawn along Upper Red Rock Loop Road, Sedona, 20X24 oil on canvas, $2318 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

ā€œWhy do odd numbers of objects in a composition look more ā€˜interestingā€™ than even numbers,ā€ my correspondent asked.

ā€œThe explanation Iā€™ve heard is that the brain wants to create symmetry, and when unable to do so because there are an odd number of objects, the gaze just continues to move around the composition.  I briefly worked on a sheep farm, and ewes who had three lambs always seemed confused, like they were counting ā€˜oneā€¦ twoā€¦ wait a minute! Let me count again!ā€™ā€

Carrie, even with twins I was confused most of the time. Sheep, like humans, have only two teats, but no opposable thumbs, and theyā€™re kind of dumb. But back to your question:

ā€œIs a desire for symmetry really hardwired into our brains? Or is this a cultural preference? Or a myth? If our brains want symmetry, then why not give it to them and make symmetrical art? Do people actually look at paintings of odd numbers of objects longer? Do they like them better?ā€

The short answer is that the brain seems hardwired to like complicated visual relationships.

Home Farm, 20X24, oil on canvas, $2898 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The Golden Rectangle, the granddaddy of all design ideas

That need for visual mystery is the basis for the Golden Rectangle. It resolves to 1.618:1, which is a ratio none of us can parse. Yet it looks pleasing. Thatā€™s because it derives from the Golden Spiral and the Fibonacci Sequence, with their perfect squares.

By HB – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114843794

The Golden Rectangle is the first ā€˜absoluteā€™ design model I ever learned. It has been used since at least the ancient Greeks. However, it doesnā€™t match up with the aspect ratio of modern canvases, frames and cameras, so we donā€™t hear about it as much anymore.

The rule of thirds

The rule of thirds never meant that you should have three objects. It divides an image into nine equal parts using two horizontal and two vertical lines. The most important elements of the image are placed along the lines or their intersections. That creates points of interest that are evenly spaced and aesthetically pleasing

It works, of course, but it is by no means the most interesting compositional grid. 1/3, although a repeating decimal, isnā€™t all that difficult for the brain to parse.

Camden Harbor from Curtis Island, oil on canvas, $2782 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Is symmetry always bad?

Whenever someone tells me you should never put something smack dab in the middle of their canvas, I direct them to the Mask of Tutankhamun. Itā€™s powerful, stately and grand. Thatā€™s why Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci used symmetry to such good effect. Itā€™s less popular today, perhaps because we donā€™t believe in absolutes truth much anymore.

Dynamic Symmetry

Jay Hambidge hoped to capitalize on the brainā€™s love of inscrutable proportion when he devised his theory of dynamic symmetry back in the 1920s. Itā€™s since been discredited, but pops back up with dismaying regularity.

I learned it from the painter Steven Assael and fiddled with it for several years. In the end, what it taught me was not to put focal points at the edge of my canvas, which Iā€™m telling you here, for free.

Home Port, 18X24,, $2318 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The circle

The circle is balanced in every direction. If symmetry were boring, a circle would be the last word in dullness. Instead, itā€™s fascinated us from da Vinciā€™s Vitruvian Man to now.

Besides being a model of human proportion, Vitruvian Man is a nod to an ancient math problem called squaring the circle. That was the challenge of constructing aĀ squareĀ with theĀ area of a given circleĀ using geometry.Ā 

Ultimately it proved impossible. Thatā€™s because of our old high school buddy, Ļ€. Ļ€ is whatā€™s called a transcendental number, which just means itā€™s non-algebraic and goes on and on without ever repeating. Circles interest us precisely because they canā€™t be pushed into a square hole (and vice-versa).

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What is hands-on learning?

Possum, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 includes shipping in continental US.

In the traditional sense of craft, Iā€™m impaired. Take a brush out of my hands and Iā€™m tripping over myself. But my artist circle includes many fine craftsmen, and I donā€™t see much difference between craft and painting.

ā€œCrafting is… a form of manual thinking,ā€ Ainsley Hawthorn wrote. ā€œAs we craft, weā€™re using our hands to problem-solve, to make decisions, and to express ourselves. In doing so, weā€™re able to access different sets of knowledge than when weā€™re simply mulling something over.ā€

Hawthorn is a self-described ā€˜cultural historian, sensory scholar, and author.ā€™ Despite the fact that she makes art on menstrual pads I think sheā€™s right about crafting and the brain. We bypass conscious thinking by means of motor learning and muscle memory. They use different parts of our brain than our conscious processes.

Toy Monkey and Candy, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

What is hands-on learning?

Kinesthetic learning enjoyed a brief vogue a few years ago. Itā€™s defined as a learning style that functions best with physical activity, movement, and hands-on experiences. Essentially it means learning by doing rather than by passively absorbing information through watching or listening.

Sadly, thereā€™s no data that supports the idea that kinesthetic learners do better when taught kinesthetically. Apparently, you canā€™t dance your way to understanding calculus. But Iā€™d wager that weā€™re all hands-on learners; itā€™s baked into the human brain. This is the way we humans teach our offspring. Eventually, they manage to hit their mouths with their spoons and put their shoes on the right feet. But theyā€™d never get there if we just lectured them instead of showing them and helping them.

Stuffed animal in a bowl, with Saran Wrap. 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435.

That was also true for traditional jobs like cordwaining, carpentry and coopering, which is why so many professions developed along the apprentice-journeyman-master guild model and why so many skilled trades still use that system today. Thatā€™s also why the atelier model of teaching art creates such good artists and the university model creates such good theoreticians.

Weā€™ve always had intellectuals (or abstract thinkers, if you prefer). Before the Enlightenment they confined themselves to philosophy, mathematics and other obscure disciplines. Itā€™s only in the modern era that trades like engineering, medicine or law began to rest on a foundation of theoretical knowledge before hands-on experience.

Creativity is good for your brain

There is evidence that creative pursuits reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety and reduce the incidence of dementia.

ā€œThe flow state we enter when weā€™re completely immersed in a creative activity like crafting is intrinsically pleasurable and keeps us from ruminating over negative thoughts,ā€ wrote Dr. Hawthorn. ā€œCraft projects are often small-scale and attainable, giving crafters a sense of achievement as they complete each one. Because crafting has tangible results, crafters can literally watch their skills improve over time and gain confidence in themselves and their capabilities.ā€

We know play is crucial in early childhood. It lets children explore their environment, build cognitive skills, develop social interactions, regulate emotions, enhance creativity and practice problem-solving.Ā So why do we stop playing as adults?

Back It Up, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435.

Working with your hands is so much fun

Earlier this year, my husband and I built a new gallery space. Since neither of us are mechanical engineers, itā€™s probably overengineered, but itā€™s unlikely to fall down and itā€™s neat. We had a terrific time calculating, cutting, and hammering.

I will never again try to make a glass ball ornament Christmas tree (one of my most spectacular failures) but I get that same creative buzz painting. Whether itā€™s gardening, cooking, needle-felting, pottery or painting, everyone should exercise their creativity.

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