"I can't even draw a straight line." If I’ve heard that once, I’ve heard it 1,000 times. The proper answer, of course, is “You don’t have to!” For that matter, plenty of people who become [...]

Once you master some of the technical basics of plein air painting, you might start to wonder,  how you give your work more life? One place to start is with feeling – and getting it [...]

The brilliant Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi worked over 20 years on a series celebrating the theme of a bird in flight. Yet he never sculpted the bird; he concentrated on the animal’s movement, rather than its [...]

“Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.” -Robert Henri   Can you combine rule-breaking wildness with a disciplined and authentic expression of the search for meaning?  A chorus of frustrated painters’ [...]

Late in his career, American painter Winslow Homer moved to a remote spot next to the ocean, where he painted the turbulent weather and remorseless waves near his home and studio in Prouts Neck, Maine. [...]

How much time and energy do you waste getting caught up in comparing yourself to other artists?  It’s pretty much unavoidable and it’s usually not healthy. However, there are ways to pull yourself out of [...]

Much to everyone’s surprise and unending delight, the art world learned of John Constable's celebrated cloud studies after he died, when his daughter bequeathed them to the UK's Victoria Albert Museum. There are around fifty [...]

The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is best known for his vivid depictions of love, anxiety, sorrow, and death. Raised in a religious household, and impacted by the early loss of his mother and sister, [...]

By Karen Margulis Early in my art journey I avoided painting wildflowers. I was afraid they would make my landscapes too sweet or too pretty. But the muse kept calling me until finally I embraced [...]