There’s a simple reason that this photo makes a good foundation for a painting: The natural curvature and dynamic angles of the rocky ledges give it an eye-catching composition out of the gate. The scene [...]
BY LAURIE BASHAM For so many years I had “Imposter Syndrome.” I doubted myself and my abilities and always felt like I was faking it. I felt like this when I was teaching middle school [...]
It’s good for any artist, beginner, experienced, realist or otherwise, to have a sense of the inspiring stories of men and women who believed in themselves enough to place painting at the center of their [...]
I’ve a confession: the title of this post is a bit deceptive. When it comes to color mixing, there’s actually no such thing as “mud.” Don't believe me? Look at the colors that dominate the [...]
Landscape orientation tends to tempt one into stacking rectangles on top of each other. It can also lead us into the temptation of “stripes” – thin bands of horizontals that do nothing to keep the [...]
By their very nature as horizontal beasts, landscape paintings are prone to “stripey-ness.” They can become dominated by unbroken horizontal shapes stacked neatly one on top of the other. This can result in paintings that [...]
On gray mornings, when a mist erases the definitions of things, the merely odd can seem monumental and the familiar strange. Van Gogh’s ox cart lumbers out of this indeterminate between-space of mist and fog [...]
By Fine Art Today The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is currently showing “Giacomo Ceruti: A Compassionate Eye.” The exhibition features extraordinarily sympathetic realist portraits of men, women, and children experiencing poverty by 18th-century Italian artist [...]
Carrie Curran is a professional artist living in Scottsdale, Arizona. As a teacher, she runs her own art center and demonstrates her techniques at PACE (the annual >>Plein Air Convention & Expo). The next PACE [...]
Art supplies are hard to come by on a tiny rockbound island 10 miles out at sea. Perhaps that’s one reason American Impressionist Childe Hassam used miniature cigar box lids to capture the fleeting fireworks [...]
