Have you ever stood listening in the winter night air for an owl somewhere off in the distance, surprised by the sound of your breathing, feeling the cold seeping into your feet? Why does that [...]

A brilliant and prolific artist, Tom Thomson (1877–1917) painted lush, modernist celebrations of the Canadian wilderness en plein air. Thomson hiked and canoed to his locations, but his work doesn’t match up with what we [...]

"It has always seemed to me that a picture does not rest upon beauty alone." - John Carlson Paintings, like people, have an outer surface that they present to the world and an "inner life" [...]

Join us as Skip Whitcomb takes us on an insightful dive into what catches his eye when judging an art competition and how participants can make the most of jumping in. Mr. Whitcomb is an [...]

Just three words, LOOKING, THINKING, and PAINTING can radically change your artistic approach, your career, even as your life. It sounds gimmicky but it happened that way for me. Years ago, I shared some developing [...]

What a harvest is here in this still-life painting by the Flemish Baroque-period painter Jan Davidsz. de HEEM (1606-1684): a wooden table draped with a gold-fringed green velvet cloth, a glass of white wine and a [...]

Each December, and with annually increasing influence, the color company Pantone Colour Institute. announces the next year’s “Colour of the Year.” This year they’ve declared that for 2024, it’s what they’re calling “Peach Fuzz,” described [...]

So which will get you further, hard work or talent?  Is this even a legitimate question? One thing’s sure – using “lack of talent” as an excuse for not working hard isn’t going to get [...]

He was the most fashionable portraitist in the most fashionable place in the Western world: Parisian high society during the Belle Epoch, or “Beautiful Period” of 1871–1880, a golden age of aristocratic prosperity and joie de [...]

Sometime in New York City around 2007 several early and mid-career artists gathered around the studio of Chinese American watercolorist Paul Ching-Bor. Ching-Bor is known for dynamic, large-format watercolors of urban scenery. Since going their [...]