Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
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; …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: Mastering values”
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 …
(Note: this post contains an image that I find offensive. Read at your own risk.) ThĂ©rèse Dreaming, 1938, Balthus, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museumin New York has refused to remove ThĂ©rèse Dreaming, a portrait of 12- or 13-year-old ThĂ©rèse Blanchard showing her knickers. This 1938 painting by Balthus is ambiguously sexual. …
Mature painters can apply for a residency at one of these great Maine art centers. Courtesy Hog Island This time of year, I can see the water of Rockport harbor from my bedroom window. I’ve been around the world, and I’m lucky to have landed in one of earth’s great beauty spots. For those of …
What’s important in painting? Master the basics and the mark-making will take care of itself. Mother of Pearl and Silver: The Andalusian, 1888–1900, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. This painting demonstrates the power of letting a single value dominate the composition. My husband has this thing he likes to tell …
“The light changed,” is a ridiculous complaint anywhere, but nowhere more so than on the sea. Somewhere in Eggemoggin Reach, as the rain cleared off. (All images by and reserved by Carol L. Douglas) My intent in going out on the American Eaglewasn’t to paint. I planned to relax, talk to new people, listen to …
Every time you paint plein air you make choices. Frequently they turn out to be wrong. How do you deal with them? In the belly of the whale, by Carol L. Douglas When you are painting for fun, you have the luxury of scrubbing out bad ideas. When you’re painting in a competitive event, you …
Painting symbols of death and resurrection, I realized that there is no painting that can’t be improved by the addition of a boat. Overgrown, by Carol L. Douglas The only thing my paternal grandfather left us was his surname. He took off when my dad was a little boy. It was the start of the Great …
None of us see the same way. It’s more important to achieve the right state of mind than to find the perfect angle. Dyce Head in the early morning light, 12X9, oil on canvas board, Carol L. Douglas. I’m drawn to lighthouses, even though I know they’re a trope and a trap. One of the …
It’s a great idea, but when God ordains something else, you’d best go along quietly. Mary Day returns to her home port, by Carol L. Douglas. Tad Retz is the perfect houseguest. He’s stayed here twice and is so unobtrusive that I’ve never actually met him. I do know his older brother, animator Zac Retz, …