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Early Spring on Beech Hill

Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

I climb up Beech Hill every day when I’m at home. It’s not very tall, just 533 feet above sea level, but that is set against the fact that I’m starting at 87 feet above sea level. I like this hike better in the summer, when warm breezes caress my face. I can watch the to-and-fro of sailboats from Rockland harbor and the margins of the blueberry barrens are a panoply of wildflowers. Midwinter isn’t quite as nice, although it is largely free of casual amblers. For the past two days it’s been cold and blustery, with gusts up to 45 MPH.

The path is somewhat protected until you come around the hill to the final rise and there, you’re almost blown off your feet. That’s an improvement over some winters, when the wind has sculpted hip-high drifts with the consistency of concrete.

The other approach to Beech Hill is somewhat steeper.

On a glorious summer morning we will amble but these frigid winter temperatures make us hurry. We’re also in training to ramble in the Yorkshire Dales in May. Our best times for the 4.5-mile hike are just scant of 1:30:00; after that I must break into a jog-trot on the downhill slopes. However, yesterday we brought it in at 1:29:23. You might not be impressed, but that’s not bad for two senior citizens wearing crampons and skidding on ice. Excuse our short victory dance.

I have many friendships that begin and end on that trail. We might stop and chat or just call out “good morning” as we sail by, but this time of year, the only people who are hiking are the true stalwarts. Yesterday, I saw Candace Kuchinski from the windjammer Angelique. She was out with her dog Nicki. “I have a painting of your boat on my easel,” I told her. I love living in a small town.

Beautiful summer day on Beech Hill.

People who don’t live in the north don’t realize how much color there is in a winter’s day, especially at the tail end of the season. The plants start to respond to the longer days and warmer sunlight. Early Spring, Beech Hill is all about that subtle color.

The sod-roofed stone hut at the top was built in 1913-15 by Hans Heisted, a Norwegian immigrant. It was an American-style folly, designed for summer picnics for a wealthy local family. (When the trees are bare, you can just make out a stone well house in the same style on the south slope, but don’t wander down there-that part of the woods is home to porcupines and coyotes.) Its verandah faces the sea, and the short version is a popular tourist hike in summer. In early morning, in early spring, all creation is laid out below you. But my favorite view of it is as you come around the bend and see it peeking over the blueberry barrens, just as I painted it.

Beech Nut in the fog.

Today, Beech Hill Preserve is managed by Coastal Mountains Land Trust, making it accessible to all.

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Critiquing my own painting

Tom Sawyer’s Fence, Carol L. Douglas, private collection

Formal critique of your own work allows you to disentangle yourself from your emotions and look at your painting’s strengths and weaknesses objectively. Since I’m teaching a 4-week critique session starting on Monday, I thought I’d demonstrate the process with one of my own paintings.

To avoid any bias in my selection, I did a search of my name and used the first image that popped up. There was once a party at the house Tom Sawyer’s Fence surrounds. Along with the champagne and canapes, the chatelaine invited her friends to whitewash her fence. After all, it was rather a long fence. That was such a brilliant move that I decided to paint the fence myself.

Size matters

It’s quite possible to critique paintings on the internet, but knowing the size helps you determine the work’s effectiveness. I no longer remember exactly, but I think Tom Sawyer’s Fence was about 14X18.

Three focal points.

Focal point

Is there a focal point and series of focal points, and is the viewer’s eye directed to them with contrast, detail and line?

You could argue there isn’t much subject matter to this painting. But don’t confuse subject matter with focal points; they’re two different concepts. There are two high-contrast areas that draw the eye, and a third, the gate, that isn’t as well defined. More contrast between the gate and the trees behind it would have made that third focal point pop more.

Line

Is line used effectively and reinforced in the painting?

This painting is all about line-the tree trunks at counterpoint to the fence and the grass, so I’d say that it’s a successful use of line.

The value structure.

Value

Does the painting have a solid value structure? Does it need to be restated or is it clear?

The best way to analyze value structure is in greyscale. There is a strong interrupted dark running behind the trees, supported by the shadow along the grass, so the overall composition is solid. However, a stronger dark pattern behind the fence would have supported the horizontal energy better.

Color

Is there a cogent color scheme? Is it expansive enough to be interesting?

This is a classic expanded-complement color scheme (green-blue-violet against orange) so it’s certainly cogent. There is a lower-chroma passage on the left, and high chroma on the right. (The red is my tone peeking out.)

Balance

Does the painting hit that sweet spot between static and riotous?

There’s symmetry between the left-leaning tree trunk and its three companions on the right, but, overall, there’s a lot of swing in this painting. The only static place is the sturdy upright tufted grass, which could have been painted more lyrically, especially as it’s the foil to the cool colors that dominate the canvas.

The simplified shapes.

Shape and form

Are there interesting shapes in the painting? Does the brushwork suggest three-dimensional form?

Overall, there’s a good variety of sinuous, straight, large and small shapes. However, what’s missing is depth. There’s a sense of these shapes being cutouts laid over each other rather than being in a three-dimensional space that recedes and breathes. The only suggestion of space is the atmospheric perspective on the left side.

Texture

Is the brushwork compelling?

There’s bold, varied brushwork, including in the sky. This is not the brushwork I use today, but I still find it attractive. Someone more interested in detail might want smaller, more particular rendering.

Rhythm and movement

Is there energy driving you through the canvas?

Gosh, I sure hope so.

There are seldom absolute answers to any of these questions; however, the purpose of learning this system is to create a logical process to examine ideas and opinions about art. My current critique session is Monday evening, 6-9pm, Feb 19th to March 11th. Seats are limited, so register ASAP.

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Four most useful types of paint brushes

Alla prima oil painters usually favor hog’s bristle brushes. These are far less expensive than softer hairs like sable. They are the only brushes that spread thick paint smoothly and evenly, making for the freshest alla prima technique. There are some good synthetic brushes on the market, but none of them are quite as stiff as a good natural bristle brush.

Bristle brushes tend to form a flag (a v-shaped split) at the end over time. However, if the brush is made properly, with good interlocking bristles, it will have a natural resistance to fraying. Because field painters often go long periods without being able to clean their brushes, durability is important.

Don’t use that as an excuse to not clean your brushes thoroughly. Rinse and wipe out all the solids and wrap them tightly until you can get to a sink. When you do wash them, use a good fatty soap and make sure all the paint is out of the ferrule (the metal part), or they’ll lose their shape. A brush that’s got paint clogging the ferrule is impossible to resurrect. (My daughter’s brush soap, which is very good, is available here, but she will not be shipping more soap for the next few weeks.)

Flats:  

Flat brushes make an immediate, energetic mark. They’re excellent for fast, powerful surface work, long sweeping strokes, and blocking in shapes.

Used on their sides they also make great lines, far more evenly than a small round can do.

I like an 8-10 flat, because I tend to paint with large brushstrokes, but what size you use will depend to some degree on your painting style.

A bright is a just a stubbier, less-flexible version of a flat. It’s great for short, powerful strokes or situations where you want a lot of control. Your painting, your choice.

Rounds:

A round is a more lyrical brush than a flat, and is a classic tool for painterly surface marks. It can be used to make lines that vary from thin to thick. You’ll need a big one (perhaps an 8 or 10) for big, bold brushwork, and a wee pointed one (such as a 2) for fine detail.

My uncle used to say, “be true to your teeth or they’ll be false to you.” The same is true of small bristle rounds. They lose their points very quickly if you don’t clean them carefully.

Filberts:

If I was stranded on a desert island with just one brush, it would probably be a size 8 filbert. Its great advantage is the variety of brushstrokes it makes. It’s can make single strokes that taper, such as in water reflections. Its rounded edges are good for blending. Set on its side, it makes nearly as good a line as a flat.

Double filbert or Egbert:

This is a ‘novelty’ brush like a dagger or fan brush, but it’s one I use all the time. It’s a lyrical brush that has a lot of expressive quality. Hold it at the butt end and swing it like a baton, and suddenly your painting will sing.

However, if you don’t clean it carefully it will splay and develop a split at the end, which renders it useless. I speak from sad experience here.

A bonus: I’ve been painting walls for the last week, and my favorite new brush is the Wooster Shortcut. Better control than a long-handled brush, easier to clean than China bristles, and with modern latex paint the coverage is just as good.

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Naughty trickster cinnamon fern

This is a painting of a large cinnamon fern in the woods. Cinnamon Fern, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
Cinnamon Fern, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Cinnamon Fern was painted along the Boreal Life Trail at the Paul Smiths’ VIC in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. It used to be called Bracken Fern, because there was a signposted stand of said ferns along the walk there. However, my friend Steve Johnson told me, “That’s either interrupted fern or cinnamon fern, but it’s not bracken fern.” Then my friend Heather’s father took me on a fern walk on the Round the Mountain Trail in Camden, ME. By the time we were done I could identify a half-dozen or more types of ferns, and I had to grudgingly agree with Steve. Bracken fronds branch out from a single stem. Here in the northeast, where ferns die back in winter, bracken doesn’t have the height or deep sweep of their Scottish kin. Either these were cinnamon ferns, or I can’t draw. The latter is simply ridiculous so I’ve renamed the painting.

Some of my little fronds along the Round the Mountain Trail.

I walk and paint the Boreal Life Trail every time I’m in the ADK. It combines many things I love: a distant mountain peak, balsam firs, tamaracks, and carnivorous plants. This stand of ferns waxes and wanes, but takes up at least a quarter acre, just where the bog touches the woods.

In the fall, ferns are clothed in a wide variety of colors.

While it’s always cool and green at that point, I felt the need to introduce some hot colors. It’s amazing how many colors you can throw at a monochromatic subject and still not lose the gist of it. Obviously, even cinnamon ferns are uniformly green, but I’ve made them an abstract riot of greens and peaches and pinks and teals. By raising the key and dropping the chroma in the background, I have tried to convey the steamy air of a bog in midsummer.

Ferns reproduce asexually, which seems like a really bad idea to me.

The only other thing I know about ferns is that a fiddlehead is just a furled young fern of any type. There are fiddleheads you can eat, and then there are fiddleheads you ought not, because they can be toxic. Cinnamon ferns are edible, bracken ferns are not… unless I have that backwards. As I’ve demonstrated my inability to tell ferns apart, I think I’ll stick with salad mix from Hannaford. Anyways, ferns are perennials; they need their frond-noses more than I do.

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Pride goeth before a fall

Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

On our way to Erickson Fields, my husband exclaimed, “We forgot our cleats! Should I go back?” I’d walked our usual 4.5-mile hill trek on Sunday and it wasn’t terrible. Besides, I was in a hurry.

The trails that converge on the top of Beech Hill are very popular. In the summer, that means you go as early as possible. In winter, foot traffic polishes the trails to a glossy finish. It was especially bad Monday morning; I’d made the wrong choice.

Athabasca Glacier, 14X18, oil on linen, $1275 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

“It’s like walking on the Columbia Icefield, but worse,” I grumbled. But I’m an experienced old bird, and I carefully picked my way to the top.

“I managed to not fall,” I said gleefully as we crossed back into Erickson Fields. “In fact, I haven’t fallen one time this whole year.” Which was stupid, since it’s always the downhill slope that gets you. Sure enough, a second later I was flat on my back on the ice. To add insult to injury, I did it a second time. That kind of pain takes a day to kick in but 48 hours later, everything hurts, including my fingernails.

I had a very tight schedule. I would work with Laura (my IT and PR person) until 2, take a break to paint woodwork until 4, and then set up a demo for my Zoom class on color bridges. We have new furniture coming for our guest room, and this house has never had the upstairs floors properly painted in its 125 years of existence. Thrifty New Englanders, they left the parts covered by area rugs as raw wood, with painted borders like monks’ tonsures.  I reckoned that if I did the woodwork on Monday, above the chair rail Tuesday night, below on Wednesday, and the floor on Thursday, I’d finish it just under my self-imposed deadline.

Mountain Path, oil on archival canvasboard, 11X14, $1087.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

“I can’t handle this pace,” I told myself, and then stopped and berated myself for being so negative. “Of course I can. I’m not tired and everything’s ticking along like clockwork.”

That’s when I got a message from a student in my new drawing class, which meets Mondays, 1-4. “I’ll be ready as soon as I get this cat off my lap,” she wrote.

“What?” I spluttered. “We don’t start until next week-do we?”

Turns out that the class, for which I’d done no marketing and no prep, did indeed start on Monday. Pride goeth before a fall, indeed.

Drawing is the bedrock on which painting rests, and if you can’t draw, you’ll have a hard time painting. I’m teaching this class because I need my painting students to be good draftsmen. I’ve got the four students I’d earmarked as needing it, but there’s still a lot of open space. If you think you’d benefit, I’m prorating the fee and making the video from Week 1 available, so you won’t miss anything. Our subjects are:

  • Basic measurement
  • Perspective
  • Volume and form
  • Drapery and clothing
  • Drawing the human face
  • Trees and rocks

You can register here.

Winter lambing, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Critique

Before I forget, I’m also offering a four-week critique class starting on February 19. Your job is to paint during the week, and our mutual job is to analyzing our work based on the standard canon of design elements. This is not a touchy-feely class in any way; it’s meant to give you the tools to analyze your own paintings without falling victim to your emotions. I’ve taught this many times and my students have always been polite, enthusiastic and supportive, so there’s no reason to be nervous.

You can register here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: ten great reasons to take a plein air workshop

Eastern Manitoba Forest, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Plein air taught me more about painting than several years of intensive studio instruction. I could think of a thousand reasons it’s helpful, but here are just ten.

  1. Nature is inspiring. Plein air painting helps us engage with the natural environment. Creation is an unmatched, unique, unlimited subject. Changing light, colors, and atmosphere teach us so much about creating mood and dynamism. Speaking of natureā€¦
  2. Spending time outdoors is good for us. It’s the best thing for my mental health, so I do it every day. It centers me, calms my anxiety, and constantly amazes, even in places I’ve been hundreds of times. Nature is never routine.
Brilliant autumn day, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental US.
  • We get better at painting. I trained as a figure painter, but I think plein air is far more challenging. It teaches us to simplify, compose, and observe. Meanwhile we hone color mixing, brushwork, and drafting. And if the teacher is any good, we get immediate feedback and guidance.
  • We make friends for life. I don’t know why I’m so blessed, but I overwhelmingly have great people in my classes and workshops. Workshops bring together like-minded individuals with a passion for art. They exchange ideas, learn from each other, and establish long-lasting friendships.
  • We gain confidence. Painting on location encourages us to overcome challenges like changing weather, time constraints, and the occasional absurdities of painting in public spaces. That in turn boosts our confidence.
    • Larky Morning at Rockport Harbor, 11X14, on linen, $869 unframed includes shipping in continental US.
  • It’s the fastest way to learn how light and shadow work together. Mother Nature gives us no controlled light boxes, so we are forced to learn how natural light interacts with the environment. That ups our color game in ways we can take back to the studio.
  • We learn to see differently. Working outdoors in the slow lane helps us find unique and often overlooked subjects. These are things we never notice while frantically snapping reference photos with our cell phones.
  • We learn to make decisions quickly. There’s nothing like rapidly-changing light to help us stop dithering and lay down fast, decisive brush strokes. I’ve found that carries over to every aspect of my life.
    • Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed.
  • Plein air gets you out of your rut. “The rut I was in had once been a groove,” sang Nick Lowe, and ain’t that the truth! Breaking out of your studio offers new ideas, perspective, and inspiration, and pulls us out of stagnation.
  • Plein air leads to personal growth. Like any serious discipline, plein air painting encourages adaptability, patience, and a deeper appreciation for the beauty of our world. That’s something we take far beyond painting.

    • A personal note: Joe Anna Arnett was a nationally-known painter, but to me she was primarily a sister in Christ, a generous friend and a wonderful, warm soul. I’m not sad for her; she’s done fighting a long, arduous battle against cancer, and now she’s with the heavenly choir. I’m sad for us, because a beautiful light was extinguished on Saturday night. Rest in peace, dear one.

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    Shipwrecked!

    The Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24, $2318 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

    When Mary and I were kicking around Newfoundland in 2016, Kyle from St. John’s insisted to us that there weren’t bears in Newfoundland. “But there are bear-proof trashcans all over!” Mary replied. Later, a toothless old woman from Hare Bay with an impenetrable accent told us that yes, indeed, there are bears in Newfoundland. Wikipedia confirms this.

    This woman was born in Hare Bay and had never left. In the waning light, we watched a mink swim toward shore as cars converged on the spare frame churches. She told us the whole village goes to church on Sunday evening. That’s how isolated Newfoundland is, both physically and culturally.

    Atlantic Canada has a long history of European settlement. Portuguese and French fishermen were probably fishing the Grand Banks in the 15th century and around 1520 the Portuguese established a colony. Newfoundland was Britain’s first overseas colony, claimed in 1583 under Elizabeth I. Quebec is so old that it was settled under the semi-feudal Seignorial System (which you can still see in the lot lines on the Ǝle d’OrlĆ©ans). And then there’s the only verified Viking settlement in the New World, L’Anse aux Meadows, settled around 1014 AD.

    SS Ethie in drydock in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in happier days.

    We were on our way to L’Anse aux Meadows when we stopped to visit the wreckage of the SS Ethie. Hurricane Matthew was blowing up the coast, shifting from rain to blizzard. It was a day much like the day when Ethie broke up in the tumultuous seas off Gros Morne.

    Ethie was a coal-burning steamer on the Bonne Bay–Battle Harbour run, carrying herring, cod and passengers. People have speculated that its captain, Edward English, was either anxious to get his passengers home for Christmas or under pressure from the home office. At any rate, on December 10, 1919, she set out on the leg from Cow Head to Rocky Harbour, carrying 92 passengers. That’s a short run of less than 50 km, but the weather glass was falling fast.

    Hero dog Wisher. Awww.

    Within a few hours, it was blizzarding. The west wind pushed Ethie towards land, and she burned most of her fuel staying off the rocks. Captain English realized he had no choice but to beach at Martin’s Point. Ethie was spotted by Reuben Decker, who rushed to help with his dog Wisher. Newfoundland dogs are famous for their stoic temperament, muscular build, thick coat and webbed paws, all of which make them great cold-water swimmers.

    Wisher swam from shore to fetch the rope that would be used to make a breeches buoy. That’s a rescue device that’s something like a zip line with a float attached.

    All 92 passengers and the crew were rescued, including an 18-month-old baby.

    The wreckage is strewn over thousands of feet of rocky coast.

    The wreckage of Ethie can still be seen today, scattered over thousands of feet of shoreline. Mine is a fantastical interpretation of the shipwreck, as I’ve compressed elements. I seldom get stuck into the details like this, but here the abstraction is in the objects themselves; it couldn’t have been painted in my usual loose style. Besides, it’s good to occasionally remind people that I can paint with precision when I want to. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

    Last Friday, I released Step 5, the Foundation Layer, of my Seven Protocols for Successful Painters. This is the heart of painting, where the first layer of color is applied, and I promise, you’ll learn lots.

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    Why I write this blog

    The Vineyard, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

    The consistent top-ranked post on my blog when it was on Blogger was about folding a plastic bag to fit in your paint kit. It remains useful even with plastic bag bans in some parts of the country.

    The consistent top-ranked post on this platform is Debunkery #1: No, you’re probably not a tetrachromat. Month after month, it outperforms every other post. Most visitors stay on it for an average of just 1m 16s before flitting away, either to another page on this website or to someone who humors their dreams of tetrochromacy.

    I’m surprised they stay that long. Eight years after I first wrote it, there’s still no evidence for tetrachromacy in humans. The idea should be consigned to the intellectual dustbin along with things like phrenology and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. But if tetrachromacy introduces them to my blog, I’ll gladly take it.

    The Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24, $2318 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

    A reader sent me this review of the upcoming Get the Picture by Bianca Bosker. It tallies with my goddaughter’s career in New York. Sandy made the error of getting her BFA and MA at prestigious schools without having a bean in her pocket. Gallerists mistook her for a trust-fund baby who could bask in their reflected glory rather than earn a living wage.

    “Art devotees spoke like they were trapped in dictionaries and being forced to chew their way out,” Bosker wrote. For any of us forced to listen to or read near-incomprehensible drivel about near-incomprehensible art, that rings true.

    I was a terrible student. Voted ‘most likely to drop out’ by my sixth-grade class, I did not materially change by college. Yet I’m well-read, literate and numerate, and my unconventional education has been a blessing. My brain is cluttered up with the bad ideas of my own choosing.

    Breaking Storm, oil on linen, 30X48, $5579 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

    There’s a lot of dreck written about art. Art isn’t that difficult, but lard it with lashings of pompous blather, and it rolls off most normal people. Obviously, there are many excellent art scholars out there, but they’re often outmaneuvered by the bloviators. (According to Warren G. Harding, bloviation is “the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing.”)

    I hope I can say something intelligent about art without being caught up in the art-speak that drives me mad. I want to motivate people to learn to make and appreciate art, to buy it intelligently, and to understand its importance for the 99% of us who aren’t perusing it in Chelsea.

    I can no longer remember why I started blogging so many years ago. In fact, I don’t have records of the first iteration of this blog on WordPress, before I went to the Bangor Daily News. I do know why I keep writing it, however.

    Readers of this blog, this month.

    A few years ago, I was happy to have readers in the US and Canada, with a smattering in the UK. That has grown now to a worldwide audience (see above). I teach to students from across the US and Canada and just had a student enroll from Scotland. On Monday I demoed to an art group in England. The internet is full of lots of schlock, but it also compresses distances and allows us to bypass the most egregious blowhards. As a person who could never thrive in the rigid systems of my youth, I find it liberating.

    On Friday, I released Step 5, the Foundation Layer, of my Seven Protocols for Successful Painters. This is the heart of painting, where the first layer of color is applied, and it’s very useful information.

    Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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    Monday Morning Art School: what should I charge?

    Dish of Butter, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 includes shipping in continental US. I was discussing transparency with my drawing class on Saturday, so here are some transparency paintings.

    In 2018, I wrote, “Does anyone ever tell Christian Louboutin that $995 is a bit much for a pair of platform suede pumps? No; they either understand Louboutin’s market or they don’t buy designer shoes.” I was stunned to learn that you can still buy a pair of Christian Louboutin suede pumps for $995. Meanwhile the price of a loaf of white bread has risen 33.69% during the same period.

    Luxury goods-which paintings very much are-do not follow the general rules of retail pricing. Since people don’t need them, they can be as fickle and subjective as they want in their purchasing.

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

    A proper price is the intersection of how much you can produce of the product and how much demand there is for it. If you can’t keep your paintings stocked, you’re charging too little. If your studio is jammed with unsold work, you’re either charging too much or not putting enough effort into marketing. Your job is to find that sweet spot. (But bear in mind that we all paint a lot of duds between the good ones, and periodically weed them out accordingly.)

    A friend prices his work slightly lower than his peers, because he wants it to look like a good deal in comparison. It helps that we both know exactly who our peers are. (Of course, women’s art generally sells at a discount to men’s, despite the fact that in a blind test, consumers can’t tell the difference.)

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

    Most artists are terrible judges of their own work, seesawing between believing they’re geniuses and thinking they’re hopeless. That hinders our ability to subjectively price our work. Don’t assume that because you labored for a long time over a piece, it is more valuable. Your challenges are not the buyers’ problem.

    Set aside your emotions and base your selling price on the size of the piece and your selling history. How do you do that if you’ve never sold anything before? Survey other artists with the same level of experience and set your first prices in line with theirs. Visit galleries, plein air events and art fairs. Before you decide an artist is your peer, find his resume online and check his experience. Painting in a national show is not the same as painting your local, unjuried Paint the Town.

    The artist’s prominence is the single biggest factor in a painting’s value.

    Charity auctions are a good way to leverage your talent to help others. They also provide a sales history to new artists. Let’s say you donated an 8X10 watercolor and it sold at auction for $100. Great! You have a sales history (albeit a limited and imperfect one) from which to calculate prices. Just figure out the value per square inch and calculate from there.

    Square inch is the height times the width. That means your 8X10 painting is 80 square inches. Dividing the $100 selling price by 80 gives you a value of $1.25/square inch.

    To use this to calculate other sizes, you would end up with: 6X8 is 48 square inches.

    48 X $1.25 = $60
    9X12: $135
    11X14: $240
    12X16: $315

    In practice, my price/sq. inch gets lower the larger I go. This reflects my working and marketing costs.

    Saran Wrap Cynic, 20X24, oil on canvas, $2100 includes shipping and handling in continental US. This was the endpoint of all those plastic wrap paintings–a series on the commodification of women. Ah, to be young and didactic again!

    When I first moved to Maine, one of my gallerists was also my good friend. She took a red pencil to my price list and brought it up to Maine standards. But don’t expect gallerists to do this for you; they expect artists to set their own prices.

    It’s much easier to raise prices than lower them, so start low and work your way up. Another wise birdie once told me that I should adjust my prices annually, so that’s what I do. Our goal ought to be to sell at constantly rising prices. When you find yourself painting on a treadmill to have enough work for your next show, it’s time to charge more. Each time you show, your work will be better known, and over time your prices will rise.

    And, by the way, I would never spend $995 on a pair of shoes.

    On Friday, I released Step 5, the Foundation Layer, of my Seven Protocols for Successful Painters. This is the heart of painting, where the first layer of color is applied. It’s the next best thing to studying with me live.

    Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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    Ravenous wolves

    Ravenous Wolves, oil on canvas, 24X30, $3,478.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

    I painted Ravenous Wolves, above, at a low point in my life. I was coming to grips with the clay feet of people I’d once respected. My mother had died after a long dance with Parkinson’s dementia. I was trying to find my place in a new church, after leaving another in disgust.

    The image of ravening wolves is used in Matthew 7:15: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”

    However, I based this picture on Ezekiel 34, which uses the vulnerability of scattered sheep as a symbol of our own exposure: “ā€¦because my flockā€¦ has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flockā€¦”

    The life of a shepherd during the Biblical era must have been rather taxing. The Bible mentions adders, asps, wild oxen, rhinoceros, bears, wild boars, crocodiles, jackals, hyenas, leopards, lions, scorpions, wild dogs, wolves and predatory birds. It’s no wonder that David was an ace with his slingshot.

    I watched a pack of wolves lope across a meadow near the South Fork of the Shoshone River in Wyoming last week. They’re undeniably beautiful, but they’re also apex predators. They pose a danger to livestock and pets.

    From the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the modern era, there were wolf bounties in North America. That caused their near-extirpation. We’ve wisely stopped that, since it was both inhumane and foolish. However, to some degree the pendulum has swung hard toward romanticizing wolves. In 2010 a woman was attacked and killed by a wolf in Alaska, and wolves remain a real danger in Asia (which is why they’re a recurring motif in Russian art and literature.)

    Of course, those numbers pale in comparison to attacks by domesticated dogs, which kill 30 to 50 people in the United States every year.

    I don’t think you should take up wolf-hunting-for one thing, it’s illegal except in very limited areas. But we should recognize that wolves are not the furry, cute elder brother of the domesticated dog. They wouldn’t think twice about eating your baby if you were foolish enough to leave it outdoors. That’s why they are metaphors for danger in art and literature ranging from the Bible to Dr. Zhivago.

    There was no reference material for this painting; it all came out of my mind. These are the paintings I love the best, although I’m sure there are all kinds of subconscious cues in them that would embarrass me if I understood them.

    And, by the way, if you get past the wolves, you reach the sunny uplands where the flock are grazing. It’s almost like a video game, isn’t it?

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