Steal Like an Artist
You’ve heard it before: Good artists imitate; great artists steal. Well, guess what? It’s still true. And we still don’t know who actually said it. The phrase has been attributed to Steve Jobs (who misattributed it to [...]
Sounds Like a Plan: Paul Kratter on the Plein Air Sketch
Paul Kratter’s landscapes radiate a warm affection for the ground of their making, which is generally the American west, and often the coastal scenes, hillsides, rivers, streams and forests of California, where he makes his [...]
Mad to Live, Mad to Talk, Mad to be Saved
“To be free and yet not to lose touch with reality, that is the drama of that epic figure who is variously called inventor, artist, or poet.” - Fernand Leger Kitchen Wall, unknown Dutch artist, [...]
A Passion for Acrylics
Chantel Barber is among the faculty who’ll be demoing their techniques at the inaugural Acrylic Live event happening online March 25-28, 2025. Join Chantel at Acrylic Live as she creates a dynamic portrait sketch by building [...]
Who Doesn’t Love a Mystery?
"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist." - Rene Magritte One of art's important jobs is to remind us that not everything about our experience of the world is known or [...]
Insane Turner at the Clark
On atmosphere, expressive color, and composition alone, JMW Turner (1775-1851) rocks the house. But the next time you get to stand in front of a painting by the greatest landscape painter of the 19th century, [...]
Bringing Portrait Paintings to Life
For portrait paintings to be successful, you have to find a way to grab viewers’ attention. Victoria Herrera Brings Portraits to Life By Milène J. Fernández On a stormy weekend in 2024, I sat with Victoria [...]
Unsung: The Still Lifes & Illustrations of Lizzy Ansingh
Occasionally one stumbles onto an artist almost completely unknown outside their home country for no good reasons other than 1. The artist is a woman or 2. No one at the time understood their work. [...]
How to Become a Better Painter – Guaranteed
You KNOW it’s true and you don’t want to hear it again but I’M GOING TO SAY IT ANYWAY: The best way to learn how to paint is to paint. And that means to paint [...]
The Intimate Figure
Western artists have freely celebrated the natural human form since the Renaissance, but seldom have they found as much vibrant beauty within it as French painter Pierre Bonnard. With a career spanning the nineteenth and [...]