We Grow Accustomed to the Dark
Today we continue our recent Inside Art spotlight on this important American artist, and we begin with a poem by Emily Dickinson. We grow accustomed to the Dark— When Light is put away— As when [...]
Getting Over the Finish Line
In this excerpt from “Beautiful Landscape Painting Outdoors: Mastering Plein Air,” Michael Chesley Johnson explains how to finish a painting, and three tricks to help you decide if it’s complete. Refining and Finishing a Landscape Painting by [...]
Winning Paintings – What and Why
Yes, it’s subjective: What one judge likes in a painting another judge snubs! But there are criteria for strong paintings that appeal to a wide audience based on commonly embraced technique and design characteristics. Artist [...]
Making a Painting vs. a Picture
By Guest Contributor Richard McKinley Reprising an article that first appeared in Outdoor Painter, landsape artist Richard McKinley gives us 7 tips for ways to express ourselves more creatively. They are practical and doable. Seven [...]
What Makes a Landscape Painting Work?
The appeal of some paintings is undeniable. But how do we explain the attraction? Today Bob Bahr examines the work of Jennifer McChristian to help unravel why such paintings immediately grab our attention and keep us captivated. [...]
Getting Edgy with Charlie Hunter
Related > Charlie Hunter is also on the faculty of next week’s PleinAir Live! Virtual art conference, March 6-8, 2024 – join us! As a painter, where are you on the scale of realistic representation [...]
What is Tonalism?
Art historians use the term Tonalism to describe an American artistic movement spanning from about 1880 to approximately 1920. More generally, the term (tonalism or tonalist with a lower case “t”) describes a style of [...]
Giant Pastels Magnify Science
At five and a half feet wide by seven and a half feet long, Zaria Forman’s pastel paintings are hard to ignore. Within them, art, science, and beauty mingle in equal measure. For two decades, [...]
What’s So Great about Pastels?
Pastel drawings and paintings glow with an intensely luminous color and rich velvety texture. This is because pastel powder is pure pigment. Many pastel lovers favor the mediums for its sensitive quality that aligns with [...]
Who’s Hiding?
Winner of the “Best Animals & Birds” category of the December 2023 PleinAir Salon, Biruta Hansen’s Who’s Hiding? depicts a partly camouflaged rabbit (our family calls the abundant critters “bunnies”) peeking out from a profusion [...]