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 [...]

“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. [...]

In Laurel Daniel’s video Oil Painting for Beginners it’s all about getting started right. Because getting started right can make a big difference.  Brushes, brushes everywhere. One area where it’s especially important to get [...]

Ryan S. Brown is an American painter in the naturalist tradition. After graduating BYU, Ryan went on to study classical painting in Florence, Italy, at the Florence Academy of Art, where upon graduation he won the [...]

Level Up #3. STOP  To get better, intermediate painters (which I count as anyone with more than, say, a dozen or so canvases under their belt) must go beyond the beginners’ basics of composition and [...]

English Pre-Raphaelite Albert Joseph Moore, A.R.W.S. (1841-1893) painted “Apples” (above) in 1875. Moore was a painter of the “art for art’s sake” variety; he sought classical beauty first and foremost, avoiding strong statement or deeper meaning. [...]

“Snow reveals color much better than other objects” — Dave Santillanes If we are willing to sit with it for a minute and meet it with something of our own memories and imaginings, the painting [...]

Women aren’t generally associated with America’s 19th century Hudson River School painters, but that’s not because there weren’t any. There were dozens.  And they did it by going rogue. Women in the 19th century could [...]

The title of this post about mixing colors without “making mud” is a bit deceptive. When it comes to color mixing, there’s actually no such thing as “mud.”  Don't believe me? Look at the colors [...]

Julie Gilbert Pollard makes some of the most colorful winter snow paintings you’ll see. She makes both watercolors and acrylic paintings, and this method at times combines the two. She begins her most colorful watercolor [...]