Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
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 …
Continue reading “Things I didn’t know, or can’t figure out”
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 …
True to a degree, these rules should be taken with a grain of salt. Cotopaxi, 1862, Frederic Edwin Church, courtesy Detroit Institute of Arts Objects in the distance are cooler, blurrier, and lighter than objects in the foreground That is atmospheric perspective in a nutshell, and in most cases, it’s true. But when an artist …
Studying a contemporary master painter’s method and technique is a great way to learn. Columns, Colin Page, courtesy of the artist Last Thursday I stopped by The Page Gallery in Camden to see Colin Page’s current work. You can visit if you’re careful to mask and observe social distancing. Colin’s work is always worth the …
Continue reading “Monday Morning Art School: Analyzing Colin Page”