This Month:
Creative Block
A couple of months ago, my friend, Maggie Price, pastel painter, author and workshop teacher, asked me to contribute a couple of demo paintings and some suggestions for a Northlight book she is writing on dealing with creative block. I did send Maggie two demonstration paintings – one is oil, and one in watercolor. Both involved a technique I call “discovered painting” – where I have a vague idea, feeling or image, and I let the medium lead me in whatever direction it chooses, and I react as the painting unfolds.
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The En Plein Air Zone Archives:
January 2012: Watercolor – The Magical Mystery Tour
Of all the mediums, watercolor is the most idiomatically unique. After all, the vehicle used to move the pigment is water. And, what is more “Zen”- like and quixotic than water? Its very nature conjures up images of rivulets, streams and rivers, meandering across uneven terrain, skirting obstacles, and seeking the path of least resistance.
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December 2011: Mike Neilson – Bold, Sensitive and Versitile
I’m very pleased that my good friend, Mike Neilson, agreed to paint an oil demonstration for this month’s newsletter. See Mike's approach to portrait painting. Read Article
November 2011 Demonstration: “Brass With Blue Flow”
This month we have a special guest artist, CW Mundy giving a demonstration of painting a still life. Read Article
October 2011 Drawing Inside Out
By skipping the initial drawing and working a painting from light to dark, thinner paint to thicker paint, and constructing positive shapes by painting the surrounding negative shapes, I’m often able to produce some unexpected edges and effects that are unavailable when I take a more mannered approach. Read Article
September 2011 Decomposing and Composing
Nature rarely supplies us with ready-made compositions. When I’m out painting on-location, I find some scene that inspires me, and then I decide how best to express that inspiration. Read Article
August 2011 Conversion of a Purist In the early 80’s, I spent a lot of time traveling and painting on the back roads of Mexico. I walked, hitchhiked and road buses, crisscrossing the country from north to south, and east to west......
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July 2011 A Different Perspective - Rusty Jones
I’m pleased that my good friend, Rusty Jones, who I’ve known for years, agreed to do a demonstration oil painting for this month’s newsletter. I think you’ll like Rusty’s direct painting approach, and strong use of value and color. Read Article
June 2011 A Fundamental Lesson – Part Two ..... I began taking trips abroad. The sketchbooks became a record of my travels. Now I have a cabinet full of sketchbooks containing watercolors executed on both domestic and foreign junkets, and they have become an invaluable cache of information and inspiration for my larger studio works.. Read Article
May 2011 A Fundimental Lesson Part 1 Now here’s the funny thing about art. The longer you paint, and the better you get, the more you realize just how much you actually don’t know. It’s this principle that keeps the young, arrogant, “gun-slinger artists, like I was in ’81, from throwing in the towel (or the brush, as the case may be). Read Article
April 2011 Too Loose, Lautrec? All too often I hear artists declare that they want their paintings to be loose. They look at painters like Richard Schmid, in oils, or Charles Reid, in watercolors, and they figure that these guys are loading up their brushes, swinging from the hip, and everything just lands in the right spot. If only it were so. Read Article
March 2011 Interconnectedness
In Nature all things are continually relating to and affecting all other things. The interconnectedness is inescapable. The artist, painting from life, is in a unique position to experience this verity first hand. After all, every object that we paint is inexorably influenced by everything in its surroundings. It’s unavoidable. Read Article
February 2011 Aerial Perspective Part 2
In last month’s newsletter we talked about “aerial perspective”, or atmosphere and its visual effects. This is indeed a very basic list. To help drive home the point, I thought it might be a good idea to paint a couple of demonstration paintings, applying the principles of “aerial perspective”. Read Article
January 2011 Aerial Perspective
When an artist finds himself confronted with diffused light, it’s good to have some idea of what’s transpiring out there in the atmosphere. One has to remember that the atmosphere is composed of assorted gases. At any given time, there is a varying amount of moisture particles suspended in these gases. This can be likened to looking through series of films that intervene between distance objects and us. Read Article
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