Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
Here are some easy ways to condemn your outdoor painting. Try to avoid them! October afternoon at Beauchamp point, by Carol L. Douglas. The weight is off the edge, and the rocks are accurate. Now if I could just remember what I did with this painting. Weight all to one side. Often, we’re attracted to …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: The seven deadly sins of plein air painting.”
A real good time and the lack of cell-phone reception helped me decide to cut back on blogging. Under sail and hard at work. With the spring we’ve had this year, I was understandably worried about the weather for our Age of Sail watercolor workshop aboard the schooner American Eagle. Our time on the water …
Continue reading “A tough decision, clarified by ocean breezes and seawater”
Is she threatening to artists, or threatening to women? Ai-Da at a tea party photoshoot for the Telegraph, photo by Nicky Johnston. A real woman would have cleaned the silver before entertaining. My programmer husband forwarded a story from the Telegraph that was headlined, “Meet Ai-Da: the robot artist giving real painters a run for …
My diet is in tatters but I’m on schedule with the portrait. I spent most of my time yesterday moving the coffee table from place to place trying to make an interesting geometry of that bottom left corner. Mary Killen tells the story of Antony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon) and his lifelong enmity to Colin Tennant. It …
I wanna go north, east, south, westEvery which way, as long as I’m movin’… My method of packing is to start with the important stuff, like vacuuming the floor joists in the basement. That’s excitement speaking. Like Ruth Brown, I’m happy as long as I’m moving. I’ve been home in Maine since February, when I …
The color of white is the color of light. Mastering that will make all your paintings more exciting. Girl Arranging Her Hair, 1886, Mary Cassatt, courtesy National Gallery of Art The colors in her chemise. White is, in theory, a reflection of all the visible light spectrum. But that is never true in real life. …
The worst painting I’ve ever done is the one I just finished, always. The road to Seward, by Carol L. Douglas. One advantage to painting on the road is that you don’t have time to second-guess yourself. I’m not going to show you what I painted yesterday. I hate it. There are many reasons for …
Given a choice of picking oranges or painting, these black artists chose to be artists. Landscape by Harold Newton, courtesy Authentic Florida Back in the 1960s, it was not uncommon to see people hawking paintings at the side of the road in tourist destinations. That’s a way of life that has, for the most part, …
It may seem like a fine brush is better, but that’s not true in wet-on-wet painting. The Halve Maen passing Hudson Highlands, by Carol L. Douglas One of the things painting teachers repeat over and over is, “use a bigger brush.” Students think they have better control with a smaller brush, but in many cases, …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: painting the details”
What defines great art? It’s not style or beauty. Execution, 1996, Yue Minjun, courtesy of the artist Emotional content Stirring a response in the viewer is the first responsibility of art. This is done by evoking ideas, memories, or a sense of place. (Even bad paintings, if they’re of someone we cherish, can be meaningful …
Continue reading “Three basic elements that make or break a painting”