It’s no surprise that artist Karen Knutson is a member and signature member of a half dozen watercolor societies. What then is surprising is how she first felt about the medium.  “I didn’t even like watercolor,” [...]

Over 1,000 artists gathered for five days of plein air inspiration, instruction, and immersive painting experiences during last week’s Plein Air Convention & Expo (PACE), the world's largest annual gathering of outdoor painters.  Hosted by PleinAir™ [...]

When it comes to creating compelling and dynamic artwork, understanding the interplay of light and shadow is essential. One powerful technique that artists across all mediums can use to elevate their compositions is the Notan [...]

Painters Kyle Buckland and Mark Fehlman have very different styles and both create impactful paintings. Not coincidentally, they both place design and composition firmly at the center of their painting and teaching practices. “Successful designs [...]

“Art does not reproduce the visible, rather, it makes visible.” - Paul Klee Art and artists live in two worlds, a visible one and an invisible one. Art makes invisible visible. When an imaginative artist [...]

Have you been dogged by a nagging feeling that something’s wrong with a painting you’re working on? Not just “off” or “not great” but something fundamentally, foundationally wrong? Very often, your problem isn’t the drawing [...]

The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice ranks among the most often depicted Greek myths in Western art. It’s the ultimate tragic love story, but perhaps the Orpheus and Eurydice myth appeals to the artistic imagination [...]

New York art critic Jerry Saltz recently posted on social media a typically on-target take on some extraordinary paintings he found himself standing in front of. Saltz says and writes lots of things about the [...]

When artists refer to “quality of line,” part of what’s meant is sensitivity to how the line is drawn as well as how the lines relate to and express the subject. The heaviness or lightness [...]

Once upon a time an ornery, young, and unknown artist in his early 20’s named Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni heard that his first big public commission was being attributed to a second-rate rival. So, [...]