Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
Grey is a beautiful color, but it doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Neither does weak design. Jonathan Submarining is one of my all-time favorite paintings, but it didn’t impress jurors overmuch. I’ve promised several readers I’d get back to them about my sketchbook choice for my Age of Sailworkshop. I’m supplying the materials, so …
Continue reading “Judging watercolor sketchbooks and paintings”
If you have room for a cup of coffee, you have room to paint. I finished this sketch as the sun finally set. I painted across Canada (the first time) in a corner of an overloaded Suzuki Grand Vitara containing four people and all my daughter’s earthly belongings. Compared to that, the passenger seat of …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: How to paint from a moving vehicle”
People ask me fascinating questions about painting in Maine, or about coming to America’s vacationland. Heritage and American Eagle on Penobscot Bay. Just another day in Paradise. Yesterday someone asked me, “Can I take the schooner trip without painting?” The answer is: of course! I chose American Eagle for my Age of Sail workshop because …
Five classic techniques for organizing your picture plane. Kaikroddare by Anders Zorn (watercolor) uses the principles of opposition and transition. Arthur Wesley Dow was a painter, printmaker, photographer and well-known art teacher in the beginning of the 20th century. He felt that composition was largely a question of proportion. He identified five elements of spatial harmony: …
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If your landscape is flat and delicate, you can introduce drama using this framing device.  Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, Gustave Caillebotte (courtesy Art Institute of Chicago). Repoussoir is a compositional technique where an object along the left or right foreground directs the viewer’s eye into the composition. The bracket is often done with a …
One might be coming to a town near you. American Eagle and Heritage, photo by Carol L. Douglas I’m teaching four workshops this year, which is the most I’ve ever taken on. (I’m already in training, hiking around Rockport to get my endurance up.) They’re in different places, appealing to different tastes and budgets. If …
There are times when you have to dance backwards in 2-inch heels. Or at least do the equivalent in pencil. Here’s how. My soap dish and towel. These are very small drawings, by the way—about three inches across. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I stress working from big shapes …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School—drawing from the inside out.”
Instagram is changing how buyers respond. Should it also change how artists paint? Hashtag #pleinair. By the time you read this, the top nine will be something different. I haven’t painted in square format in a long time. The stark symmetry of the square can be lovely, but it can also be static. Recently, however, …
Value is the engine that drives composition. Here’s a great exercise to help you get it right. Four value studies of my boots. From top left: flat light, side light, fill light, back light. There’s a diagram below. I learned to paint in New York, where the sun don’t shine. I’m good with flat lighting; …
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I’ve got an image in my mind and I can’t get it out on paper. Have I lost it? Winter Lambing, by Carol L. Douglas If you visit my studio this morning, you’ll find a massive pile of failed sketches on my work table. So many, in fact, that I’m now out of watercolor paper …