Holiday gift guide for the serious artist
This is a gift list for serious painters, meaning you. Leave it open on your iPad, phone or computer. If that doesnât work, I suppose youâll just have to forward it âaccidentally.â
Does surrealism work in painting?
Is landscape enough? If not, how does an artist start insinuating his or her higher thoughts into the work?
Monday Morning Art School: painting and flying
Do I look like a person who owns three suitcases full of clothing?
Slipping the bonds of mere technique
This painting of the VIC’s Barnum Brook Trail was purchased by a gentleman from Vermont several years ago. He surprised me by taking my workshop this year. I drove from Paul Smiths to Saranac Lake, NY, in a morose mood. Here is the gulch where Kari Ganoung Ruiz parked and painted; here is the cemetery …
Intimations of Autumn
Here in the northeast, we’re seeing the first intimations of autumn-the earliest scarlet leaves starting to drop on the forest floor, staghorn sumac sporting red velvety fruit, goldenrod and fireweed popping up in unmowed fields. There is a subtle difference in the color of leaves. In a dry summer, that’s exacerbated, but by the third …
Who owns access to the ocean?
Foghorn Symphony, Carol L. Douglas, was painted at Trundy Point. Private collection. I used to do an annual invitational plein air event in lovely Rye, NY. Itâs just above New York City and home to an historic amusement park. That means lots of day tourism. Rye has a beautiful shoreline, but waterfront streets are all …
Monday Morning Art School: start with value
Lobster pound, 14X18, oil on canvas, $1594 framed includes shipping and handling within the continental US. Thereâs an old saw that goes, âvalue does all the work and color gets all the credit.â I tend to not repeat it because value is just one aspect of color. Itâs like saying âmy arm hit that ball …
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Gone sailing
Sailing is a great disperser of cares. By the time you read this, I’ll be sailing in Penobscot Bay, teaching my first workshop of the season aboard the schooner American Eagle. Between the pressures of work and some personal issues, I’ve been struggling since I got home from walking across Britain. Sailing is just the tonic I need …
Monday Morning Art School: paint with precision
Weâre all proponents of loose-is-more, but there are times when you have to be able to hit it right. Cremorne Pastoral, 1895, Arthur Streeton, courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales. There are few details, but the ones that are, are very accurately painted. Detail and precision are not in style right now. âThe artist …
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Monday Morning Art School: what we can learn from Wolf Kahn
Color is the dominant theme of our age. Autumn trees, undated, Wolf Kahn, from a commercial lithograph Wolf Kahnwas a mid-century American landscape painter who was influenced significantly by Abstract-Expressionismand Color Fieldpainting. The fog on Deer Isle, Maine led to an epiphany about color: âI began to let the color come through on my canvases,â …
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