If you want to loosen up your paintings, here’ a little piece of advice: "Swing a bigger brush - you don't know what fun you are missing." So wrote Charles Hawthorne in a little gem [...]

Since we’re talking about him this week, I thought we’d give Matisse the floor and see what he has to say for himself.  White Algae on Orange and Red Background (Algue blanche sur fond [...]

Beloved of artists and art-lovers alike, Henri Matisse painted from a place of exuberance and honesty – he took a joyful approach to the world as well as to painting. Matisse’s canvases show plainly he [...]

“With almost any creative endeavor, we mistakenly think that we know what translates into success.” – Susan J. Langer Most people look at paintings in galleries and museums and think that artists are special people, [...]

THINK AGAIN The late Canadian landscapist Robert Genn suggested that, “rather than go with your first choice in a composition, go with your second choice.” Why? I think it’s partly because our first choice is often the [...]

Harvard University is currently running a major exhibition of American watercolors, many rarely seen and by well-known and historically underrepresented artists. American Watercolors, 1880-1900: Into the Light stakes a claim for the medium as more [...]

Presenting, as we do periodically, some inspiring quotes about art and art-making - any one of which, if sufficiently understood by enough thoughtful human beings, could change the world irrevocably for the better. “Any fool [...]

How to Draw with Charcoal: A Medium With Mystical Gravity By Julio Reyes (www.julioreyes.com) There’s an almost mystical gravity to this old material. There’s no denying its seriousness once you’ve placed your first mark to paper. [...]

Nineteenth-century painter Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) created some of the most beautiful marsh paintings the world has ever seen in a series of strongly horizontal compositions that were quite unusual for the time.  Although his [...]

“There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual – to become clairvoyant,” wrote famous artist and teacher of the first years of the [...]