Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
COVID kicks like a mule, which is why I failed at my goal, and why I’m just getting this information out about my next session of classes. Oops. I set out two weeks ago on an impromptu excursion with my son to West Yellowstone, Montana. We would look at geysers in the snow, and celebrate …
Think of it as getting a painting lesson from the masters. Great Springs of the Firehole River, by Thomas Moran, 1871, is one of the paintings my students will be copying this week. Courtesy National Park Service. If you visit art museums regularly, you may have seen students set up to copy masterpieces. Or, you’ve …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: why copy a masterpiece?”
I’m flailing around in the undergrowth in this new-to-me medium. In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), oil on canvas, 24X30, is heading to Rye Arts Center for the month of March. Last fall, I made the commitment that I’d spend a day a week this winter writing a painting book. That should be easy; after …
Continue reading “It was the best of tomes, it was the worst of tomes”
Every one of us knows, in our heart of hearts, that we’re geniuses. If only we didn’t have the distractions of life, we could be brilliant at [insert discipline here]. Lobster Pound, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, available Yesterday, my student Terrie told our Zoom class about something she’d read in a composition book. “Wow, …
Forget the fairy-lights; a good nocturne follows the same rules as any good painting. Hunter’s Supper, c. 1909, Frederic Remington, courtesy National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Nocturne is a term appropriated by James Abbott McNeill Whistler from music. Whistler used it to title works that evoked the sensation of nighttime or twilight. It didn’t mean just any …
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter essay. Coast Guard Inspection, 6X8, oil on canvasboard. The above witticism has been attributed to many people because it’s a universal truth. President Woodrow Wilson put it thus: “If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; …
Beautiful brushwork rests on a foundation of good preparation. Ravening Wolves, 24X30, is in my show, Fantastic Places and Magical Realms at the Camden Public Library, month of December. I recently came across the sketch below, of two wolves. I was surprised and pleased, because it’s something I drew about a decade or so. It …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: practice makes perfect”
I don’t begrudge people painting for fun, but I assume you read this blog because you’re interested in being the best painter you can be. Beach Erosion, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas, available through Ocean Park Association. I had finished writing a lecture I’d mentally subtitled “why am I torturing you like this?” That’s hard work, …
Continue reading “A marsh painting and why they can be truly terrible”
Try reducing one of these paintings to a notan, and you’ll realize just how much drawing underpins this seeming simplicity. Plein air painting by Tara Will, courtesy of the artist. “Why are you teaching us self-portrait?” a student recently asked me. The human face is the most demanding subject to draw, because very slight errors …
This exercise, so critical to the success or failure of painting, is also important because it stresses the beauty inherent in all objects. Prom shoes, 6×8, oil on canvas, Carol L. Douglas, $348 unframed A major part of learning to paint is learning to see, and in the process, learning to draw. Part of this …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: simplification”