“The Sky Overarches Here”
Great sky paintings lift us with a sense of the vastness and space that daily moves above our heads. A strong sky in a landscape painting, oil, watercolor, or acrylic, expresses airy light, motion, and [...]
Curiouser and Curiouser
The word inspiration has roots in the Latin word for breath, spiritus, which of course also gives us spirit. To be in-spired is to be breathed into, filled with the breath of a god, a [...]
On the Color Blue
“Art is probably one of the only true things left which exist for its own sake and nothing else…..It has alchemy with those that take part in looking at it, at the gaze of it.” [...]
The Magic of Color
Color, the Very Life of Painting Color depicts and describes your subject, but it also conveys mood and portrays light, depth, and perspective. In many ways it’s the lifeblood of the art; even those painters [...]
Why Aren’t You Glowing?
“You’re glowing!” When’s the last time you heard those words? Yeah, me too. 😏 But thankfully, making your paintings glow is less a matter of accumulating poor life choices than knowing how to control value [...]
The Deep Surface
It looks wrestled and wrought into existence, chiseled out of stone from the primal bedrock of life, death, and eternity. The “bearded old man” in the painting by Rembrandt of the same name (above) might [...]
Painting Between the Lines
Jay Hambridge, “The Century Run,” lithograph, 1897, 12.5 x 19.5 in. By Christopher Volpe Compare the two images above. Note how the bicycle wheels arrange themselves precisely at and around axis points and [...]
A Closer Look at Frits Thaulow
Our previous post on water-painter-extraordinaire Frits Thaulow (which you can read here)inspired a flood of emails from readers appreciating the Norwegian Impressionist’s work. A recent visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum gave me a [...]
De Profundis
Each year, through a partnership with the renowned Art Renewal Center (ARC), we are asked to award a publication prize to one of the many striking and meaningful entries we receive in the annual International [...]
Face to Face with Humanity
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” wrote French mystic, philosopher and activist Simone Weil. For our fast and furious media culture however, it often feels like distraction itself has become our practice. [...]