Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
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”
If you’ve ever frosted a cake, you know how to use a palette knife. Fishing village, by Carol L. Douglas Most of what we artists use on our palettes are what are currently called “painting knives.” A palette knife, in current parlance, is flat like a putty knife. The ones with cranked necks are, according …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: Palette knife painting”
by Jane Chapin I Got This, by Jane Chapin. For more information, see her website here. How to get in a national art show: Assemble all your best qualifying work in one room. Take the very best photos you can. Stare at them intently. Pick your two favorites and eliminate them. Have a drink (I’m …
Painting what you know, vs. what’s actually there. Spruces and pines on the Barnum Brook Trail, by Carol L. Douglas Yesterday I was visited by a filmmaker from Wisconsin. Patrick Walters is in Rockport for a workshop at Maine Media Workshops being taught by my pal Terri Lea Smith. I didn’t catch his name when he …
An efficient plan for fast outdoor painting in oils. Camden harbor, by Carol L. Douglas Sometimes people ask me how we manage to get so many paintings done during an event. We avoid what my friend Brad Marshall called “flailing around.” That means those times when you seem to lose your way. We’ve all done …
2025 Workshops Canyon Color for the Painter, Sedona, AZ Color theory is not just a collection of good ideas; it’s the cornerstone of your toolbox. Using practical lessons and exercises, you’ll take what you’ve learned about color and use it to enhance your artistic vision. March 10-14, 2025. Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME This …
Create a drop-dead painting from a so-so scene. Wreck of the SS Ethie, by Carol L. Douglas Certain places are fascinating for something other than their pictorial value. The angle, the light, and the setting aren’t conducive to a great composition. An example of this was the wreckage of the SS Ethie in Gros Morne …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: landscape from abstraction”
Now the outsider is us, alone in the dark, excluded from whatever is going on in that beautiful spot of light. Nocturne in Grey and Gold: Chelsea Snow, 1896, James McNeill Whistler, courtesy Fogg Art Museum Last week my husband was studying a beautiful nocturne by the Taos painter Oscar E. Berninghaus. The dim light …
There’s no place for subtle in online art sales. Headwaters of the Hudson, by Carol L. Douglas If you look at pastel kits online, you’ll see a bias toward high-chroma colors, even though lower-saturation chalks are the workhorses of pastel painting. In part, that’s because all mixing results in lower chroma; pigments are impure and …