Great Gifts for Artists
If I were making my own holiday gift wish list, these are the items I’d tell folks to pick for me (hint, hint!). Richeson Santa Fe Easel Who doesn’t want bigger, badder easel? The Richeson [...]
A Major Tree Lesson from a ‘Minor’ Painter
This is a black and white painting by one of the artists of the famed Lyme art colony in Connecticut. It’s a virtual blueprint of landscape technique – the absence of color lets us study [...]
The Luster Bowl
There’s something about this image that impresses itself on the imagination and memory. Somehow Sir William Nicholson’s simple still life paintings, this one being no exception, transform random, everyday items into indelible images with a [...]
Butterfly Hunting for the Soul
Now, this is one proud monk! The miniature below (the whole thing's maybe 9 inches tall) resides in the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH., where it’s a small precious gem within that worthy collection. Leo [...]
How to Paint an Alla Prima Still Life
An alla prima painting is one that was painted in one session. In this step-by-step demonstration, learn how Cornelia Hernes creates a beautiful still life that includes a copper pot with lavender, a glass jar, and a [...]
“Bizarre!”
There’s more than meets the eye in James McNeil Whistler’s painting originally titled The Woman in White after a popular mystery novel of the day by Willkie Collins. “This is modeling as performance art,” wrote [...]
The Open Boat
Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), drew inspiration from wells of emotion. Wyeth called Spindrift (1950) a “portrait” of one of his Maine acquaintances. It’s done in tempera on panel, and the colors are opaque and muted and the surface is matte. [...]
Dangerous Waters
What is the role of the political dimension in art? That question is at the heart of a provocative, long-running exhibition opening this week in Washington D.C. The National Gallery of Art’s Conversations: Kerry James [...]
Frankenstein and The Wreck of the Hope
Casper David Friedrich’s 1818 painting, Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog epitomizes the awe-inspiring sublime in Romantic art. The sublime is an offshoot of Romanticism referring to a "realm of experience beyond the measurable." It’s often [...]
How Impressionism Came to California
Founded in Los Angeles in 1909 and headquartered in Pasadena, the California Art Club is one of the oldest and largest art associations in the western United States. Its roots reach back to Southern California’s [...]