Three Ways to Spark Inspiration
Learn technique - but don't sacrifice self-expression.
Monk by the Sea: The First Abstract Painting?
"No situation in the world could be more sad and eerie than this."
What’s Stopping You?
That dreaded inner critic! No one gets a free pass.
Rocks are Hard: Three Quick Tips for Painting Better Ones
Everyone has a hard time with rocks, at least at first, especially plein air painters! Let's fix that.
How Great Artists Think
Comparing one of Turner's initial sketches to the final painting yields insight not only into how to "read" a painting but into how great artists think and work.
How to Fight Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome: the feeling that you're a total fraud and it's just a matter of time before you're found out.
Chauncey Ryder: ‘The Poetic Aspect of Nature’
A look at how elements of abstract design enliven a landscape.
Painting with Bugs
Some higher-end pigments, including carmine lake, also known as crimson lake, are still made the old fashioned way: by crushing up bugs.
Joy: The Beauty of Color
Choosing the right color that is the right shape, of the right consistency, of the right value and temperature, and putting it in exactly the right place—that’s the job of the painter.
A Mysterious Celebration of Spring
Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli’s La Primavera, the title of which means "Spring" in Italian, perplexes art historians as much as it dazzles audiences of hundreds arriving daily from all over the world to view it along with its equally famous sibling, The Birth of Venus.