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Search Results for: composition blog

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Monday Morning Art School: How to critique work on the internet (and elsewhere)

Stop looking for something brilliant to say; it’s not about you. Ogunquit, by Carol L. Douglas My friend likes to make “medieval” artwork through her persona in the Society of Creative Anachronism. If any activity ought to be about pure fun, this is it, but she recently told me about a terribly harsh criticism she …

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Don’t suck

Brad Marshall gives me some trenchant painting advice. On the wall at Camden harbor, watercolor sketch, Carol L. Douglas. I paint with my pal Brad Marshall about once a year—generally at Rye Art Center’s Painters on Location, and occasionally here in Maine. He’s retired from his day job as a sign-painter in New York City, …

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What I saw in Castine

We humans really have no idea how tiny we are compared to nature. Towering Elm, Carol L. Douglas, painted at Castine Plein Air Trees are the largest living beings surrounding us, but we pay them scant attention. Until one drops a limb, we have no sense of their power or scale. Most of us can’t …

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Alone but not lonely

Technique is important, but it’s emotional power that draws people to paintings. Reading, by Carol L. Douglas. “I see artists who paint only flowers, only still life, only barns, only open landscapes, only portraits, only pets, only kitchen utensils, only books, only sailboats,” an artist said. “Why isn’t the artist painting more subjects, and trying …

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Monday Morning Art School: the lost-and-found edge

Sometimes it’s about what you don’t say. Girl with the Red Hat, c. 1665-66, Johannes Vermeer, courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Earlier this month, I mentioned I once had a painting teacher who told me that heavy edges were “my style.” Like many younger artists, I just hadn’t learned how to marry edges …

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Group norming

Feeling out of place, like a failure? Perhaps the problem isn’t you, but your tribe. Five Chairs, by Pamela Hetherly, courtesy of Kelpie Gallery. This painting stopped me yesterday. The color is beautifully integrated, something that’s lost in the photo. I spent a few hours yesterday at the Kelpie Gallery in S. Thomaston. I’d meant …

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Missing the mark

Other people say it’s good, but you think it’s awful. What do you do with it? Spruces and pines on the Brook Trail, by Carol L. Douglas. This is more or less where my mark-making is today. Last week I listened to a fellow artist grumble about her painting. I really couldn’t see anything wrong …

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