Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
As ever, these are arm’s length recommendations; I don’t receive a spiff. Mary Whitney with a Strada micro easel. Easels: beginners often buy French easels, but please don’t do that. They’re heavy and tough to set up. Instead, choose a smaller, lighter, more efficient easel—the Mabef field painting easel M27. The pivot head makes it …
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It’s almost winter. Don’t despair. Still life is a great way to tell a story, especially the story of you. Merry Christmas (blonde Santa doll), oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas. I often paint small still life as warm ups for a day in the studio; all four illustrations in this post are from that …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: composing a good still life”
The inner self emerges, despite our best efforts to keep it stuffed down. Pumpkins by Maggie Daigle. If the weather holds today, I’ll be painting with my pal Ken DeWaard. We don’t worry about painting the same subject. He doesn’t want to paint like me, and—because he won’t let me copy off his paper—I don’t …
Some days I feel like the Oldest Living Member of this club; other days, I’m shocked at the things I don’t know. Home Farm, by Carol L. Douglas, is available through the Maine Farmland Trust Gallery. There’s a rule for mixing acrylics and oils: you can go over acrylic with oils, but you can’t go …
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A 45-day challenge to make you a better painter. A quick watercolor sketch by me. You become a better painter through consistent everyday practice, not in great fits of genius. My workshop monitor, Jennifer Johnson, has spent several winters in Australia. There she bought watercolor paper in an A4 size, which is long and narrow. She’s …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: working in triplicate”
You do a lovely underpainting and you lose it in the top layers. Why does that happen? Fog Bank, by Carol L. Douglas. This will be on display at Maine Farmland Trust Gallery later this month. The human mind loves complex, irrational space divisions. The same mind perversely regularizes what it paints and draws. A …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: when you lose your drawing”
Painting is a lifelong exercise in self-guided learning. Clary Hill Blueberry Barrens, watercolor on Yupo, available through Maine Farmland Trust Gallery, by Carol L. Douglas A student asked me why I teach all levels in my classes. Indeed, adding a brand-new painter to the group can sometimes be difficult, as I need to spend a …
Art theory is great, but workshops and classes should give you a clear process by which you can design and produce a better painting. Blueberry Barrens, Carol L. Douglas, available through Maine Farmland Trust Gallery. Natalia Andreeva is organizing my Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air workshop in Tallahassee in November. She asked me …
The person for whom drawing comes easily may not end up being the best draftsman. Shoes, by Carol L. Douglas. Oil on canvasboard, available. One of my students is a retired violinist. We were musing on the question of technique last week. “Practice doesn’t make perfect,” she said. “Perfect practice makes perfect.” An aspiring violinist …
I’ve been checking the weather all week, trying to decide whether my super-large canvas will go airborne. Heavy weather, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvas, available. I’m in a Big Roller mood this week. No, I’m not talking about straightening my hair, but about the long, slow waves that come in from the open …