"Light is the fundamental building block of observational art, as well as the key to controlling composition and storytelling. It is one of the most important aspects of visual art." — Richard Yot Light has to [...]

One of artist Paula Holzclaw’s quotes-to-live-by comes from one of Vincent Van Gogh’s dearest friends, the French novelist Emile Zola: "The Artist is nothing without the gift,” he said, “but the gift is nothing without work.” [...]

“Art is probably one of the only true things left which exist for its own sake and nothing else…..It has alchemy with those that take part in looking at it, at the gaze of it.” [...]

It’s almost New Year’s, so it’s time to take a step back and adjust that attitude of yours! How you think about painting, and what you think about before, during, and after. So here are [...]

Forget trying to find yourself as an artist. Embrace your inner dunce. If you are worried that you don’t have a style, can’t find your voice – don’t worry. If you keep on painting, you [...]

I recently took in an exhibition of classical Dutch art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. At the beginning of the exhibition, titled “Saints and Sinners,”  I encountered a painting of the patron [...]

Over much of America around this time of the year, the familiar “v” formations of southerly migrating Canada Geese pass noisily overhead as they have for thousands of years.  Their untranslatable calls make us stop [...]

A silverpoint drawing is literally a drawing done in pure silver. Its primary tool is a pen or stylus with a soft metal point that leaves a metallic trace on a pigmented ground. It’s sort of [...]

“All art is quite useless,” wrote Oscar Wilde, by which I think he meant that art is one of the few things in a society in love with “productivity” and “being practical” that can still [...]

1. The Sublime and the Picturesque (Romanticism) Understanding the Hudson River School starts with recognizing the European influence. The artist and early environmentalist Thomas Cole (1801–1848) founded the influential 19th-century art movement known as the [...]