Artist Daily

Discover How to Use an Extensive Painting Palette

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:30:00 GMT

There is nothing that defines an artist quite like his or her palette. Some consist of premixed colors and others are developed in the moment, determined by the needs of each painting. Some artists are meticulously organized, with paints arranged by color temperature, while other artists arrange colors based on their dominance in the specific work.


Brett, oil on linen, 18 x 28. All works by Kerry Dunn.

Another defining characteristic of an artist’s palette is the sheer number of paints he or she chooses to work with. Kerry Dunn, an artist and instructor at Studio Incamminati, in Philadelphia, employs an extensive palette and has a highly developed use of color. “I have 22 colors on my palette, and some of my colleagues have even more, around 30,” Dunn says. “There’s a reason I use as many as I do—it is the way I was trained. The palette was passed down to me by my mentor, Nelson Shanks, and is a part of a lineage that goes back to his mentor, Henry Hensche, who had a very expansive color theory, as well as to the color theory developed by the Impressionists.”

Color Trials


	Kerry Dunn's palette is fairly extensive, consisting of 22 colors. His colleagues' palettes feature as many as 30 colors.

The tutelage Dunn received under Shanks revolved around developing an enhanced ability to perceive color. Basic color theory studies were a common practice in the studio, and they lasted anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours. The purpose was for students to learn how to paint by exaggerating each and every color they were seeing. “When my fellow students and I started out, it was challenging because we were so used to thinking and seeing browns and grays,” Dunn recalls. “We were retraining our perception to see everything as a color. See it and exaggerate it. Some people rebel against it, saying it is too much. And, yes, the color studies can be garish. Some call them ‘candy paintings.’ But it as an exercise with a purpose, which is to ‘mess up’ your way of thinking.”

The result is a art colors palette that looks like a rainbow, incorporating strong, prismatic colors with very few earth colors and no black. When applied to the canvas, these colors make bold statements that the artist can then go back and neutralize. Essentially, it is the opposite of developing a tonal painting and then adding color.

Pros and Cons of an Extensive Palette
The high-octane nature of Dunn’s palette does bring with it certain difficulties. Every color mix makes a strong statement, but as a painting develops colors must eventually become more muted, and neutralizing potent colors can be difficult. “The struggle is to make every color, even a neutral brown or gray, interesting,” he says. “But in the end, we are all setting up a range of color and value relationships. Some color palettes are saturated, others less so, but establishing that range is what every painter strives to do.” According to Dunn, the only difference in his approach is that he establishes those relationships with a greater color range.


Still Life with Gray Kettle, oil on linen, 16 x 20.		Eastern State Penitentiary, oil on linen, 16 x 16.

The artist has found that the number of colors in his palette has decreased over the years, as he eliminates the ones he doesn’t use. Even if he only utilizes a fraction of the paints at his disposal, having a wide-ranging palette allows Dunn to paint anything, no matter the locale or subject matter he is working in, and that freedom has definite appeal. “Whether I’m doing a still life, portrait, or landscape, the palette is broad enough that I can mix anything I need in any situation,” the artist says. “It is like a pianist practicing their scales. You use the instrument or palette no matter what you are playing or painting.”

Dunn’s approach to color and the development of his palette are the result of intense study and training, and his willingness to share his experience is valuable to both beginning painters, who may be deciding what kind of color theory they want to adopt, and practicing artists interested in seeing how fellow painters work. At Artist Daily, we are equally devoted to just this kind of painting instruction—valuable information direct from master teachers. Painting Light: The Cape School Method is available now on DVD and offers an inside look at yet another approach to color with insights and advice on how to make the most of any palette you put before you. Enjoy!

Painting palette choices are endlessly interesting to me. Let me know how your palette came to be and why it works for you by leaving a comment below.

Drawing & Painting a Simple Series of Corrections

judith St. Ledger - Roty — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:07:00 GMT

There are a number of misconceptions that I held about drawing and painting when I started taking art classes at Studio Incamminati, among them that really good artists don't have to make corrections to their work. Various instructors here have corrected me on this, explaining that drawing and painting is making a series of corrections, hopefully with each correction getting the artist closer to the illusion of reality he or she seeks to create. What a relief! Portrait drawing by Monica Bean...(read more)

Is Grandma Holding a Moose Leg?

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:36:00 GMT

Brooklyn-based artist Allison Maletz doesn't want to use watercolor in a traditional way. Although her work is representational and often figure-based, exploring themes of human connection and the quirky, often dysfunctional, "average American family," she refuses to be bound by any rules about how to handle the paint.


Nana Holding Purse & Leg, 39" x 27.5", 2009, watercolor painting. All works by Allison Maletz.

"I adore the medium itself because it is so hard to control," Maletz says. "You mix it with water and it goes where it wants to. You constantly try to gather it all and control it, but you can only do so much. There's an incredible metaphor there--striving for control and thinking you know where you want it to go, but it never happens exactly that way." The headstrong fluidity of watercolor is the perfect companion for Maletz, who approaches her process in an equally independent, non-traditional manner.


	Mom Learning to Float, watercolor, 24" x 40.5", 2006.


	Picking Oranges in Grandpa’s Yard, watercolor, 59" x 48", 2008.

The artist typically paints on a large scale. One of her earliest watercolors is 15' x 5', and took her nine months to complete. She does not stretch her paper, letting it wrinkle and react naturally to the applied washes. Maletz also paints horizontally, allowing the water to pool and collect where it will. White does not have a place on her palette, as she finds it can turn colors milky and sometimes muddy.

The artist prefers "painting from the past" and instead of painting on location (as many watercolorists often do), she uses old photos of family members and close friends as references. She also contradicts the traditional watercolor practice of working with washes and starting with lighter watered-down pigments and building up successive layers, as well as approaching the entire page at once with no amount of detail built up in a particular area.

"I start with a basic pencil drawing, and then I paint step by step, breaking the composition into sections—clothing, skin, and background. I will complete the background entirely and will have white, untouched areas that make the piece look a bit 'paint by numbers.' I do the skin of my figures last and add lots of detail, which is not particularly encouraged in the style."

But for all her rule-breaking choices when it comes to her own work, Maletz stresses that you have to know the rules in order to break them effectively. "I've had an extensive art education, but my style is my own. I choose to paint a different way. For my students, I give them all the traditional approaches and basic knowledge. I want them to know what the paint is capable of doing. It isn't about me teaching them my philosophy, but for them to find something in the medium that they love and that works for them."


Cheerleaders, 11.6" x8.7", watercolor, 2008.

Maletz is doing what all great artists have done—she has set her own expectations for a given medium and separated her process from any kind of historical obligation or traditional commitment. Instead, she pursues her art as a bit of a rebel, being true to her artistic eye and seeing where it takes her.

For more watercolor painting inspiration and unique techniques from contemporary artists, check out Splash 14: The Best of Watercolor. You'll discover the methods of top contemporary watercolor painters with tips and techniques that you'll be able to apply again and again in your practice, so that you know all you need about watercolor painting and can take it where you want to, just like Maletz does.

For more information on Allison Maletz's work and upcoming workshops, visit her website.

Drawing Skills Can Bring New Life to Your Painting

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 03:05:00 GMT

I’ve always thought of a painter’s drawings as his or her diary. A finished painting is the confident, public face shown to the world, but drawings read like journal entries, where you can see an artist’s preoccupations, struggles, moments of exploration, and sense of play.


Drawing of Taheera by Sherrie McGraw, 2009, charcoal, 24 x 18.

Historically, drawing has been an integral part of an artist’s process. Preparing compositions, architectural designs, executing studies of the figure, musculature, gesture, and stance—all of these were the domain of pencil and paper. For a while the pursuit has been out of favor, but now there’s renewed and growing interest in drawing along with classical realism.

“Drawing allows you to decipher the world and understand what you are seeing structurally,” says artist Sherrie McGraw, author of The Language of Drawing: From an Artist’s Viewpoint (Bright Light Publishing, Ojai, California). “It is learning how to see and interpret reality through line. You really can’t get this ability any other way. It develops a whole side of an artist.”

Many students come to the artist’s drawing seminars thinking they will learn anatomy and proportions, but McGraw stresses that the world of drawing is much more than focusing on these in pencil sketches. “There are so many things that all good draftsmen know—even if they don’t know they know them,” she says. “Like giving something the illusion of weight; how to discern planes; making a model look balanced and not like it is falling over; and how to foreshorten.”

In addition to furthering one’s skills and technique, drawing proficiency gives artists confidence in the ability to edit what they see and make conscious choices about composition and detail. I mentioned to McGraw that my early experiences with drawing were ones of feeling overwhelmed by all the things that I “should” depict. Only with time did I realize that editing and making choices are crucial to successfully rendering an object. McGraw notes that many beginning draftsmen face similar challenges, and she acknowledges that constantly working one’s skills is the only way they can be overcome. “With practice, you come to realize you aren’t a slave to nature,” she says. “You take what you need in order to do what you want. Drawing sets up a whole mindset of being active, not passive, in the process.”

McGraw believes that strong drawing abilities are crucial even for artists who don’t consider drawing their primary medium. Whether one paints in oils, watercolor, or pastels, a foundation in drawing means that almost nothing will hold you back when it comes time to paint. “If you want to progress forward, drawing is essential,” the artist says. “If you are constantly worried about it, you can’t paint at your best. A lot of people are going back to drawing. Two-thirds of my classes are usually filled with professionals and teachers who want to come back to it.”

Drawing helps you develop the ability to think and see like an artist. Has it informed your work in a significant way? Leave a comment and let me know. And for technical know-how and exercises to hone your abilities, consider a subscription to Drawing magazine, which is available now--along with so many other magazine subscriptions--for just $19.99. Enjoy!

Abandoning Our Values

johnandann@theartistsroad — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:37:00 GMT

What makes an object look three-dimensional in a painting or a drawing?

We use a variety of cues to give us this information: light and shadow, contrast, pattern, color, texture, scale, temperature and value, usually in combinations. Our ability to measure these different parameters and make a decision about the dimensionality and location of something in our field of vision is automatic and immediate--a product of millions of years of evolving visual sophistication. Most people do not have to think much about visual perception, but as artists, it is useful to investigate.

Black and white and full color versions of Still Life with Curtain by Cezanne.

When we learn to draw, we practice creating the illusion of form with value changes (light to dark), or chiaroscuro, using all the subtle changes in tone from black to the white of the paper. Having gained proficiency at chiaroscuro work, we quite naturally adapt our knowledge of values to our color work. But the world of colors is not just value-driven, it has an equal partner in color temperature. Temperature (warm to cool) can and does affect our perception of form. As the shape of any object rotates away from the light source, it undergoes a temperature change. It may also display a value change, but not in every case. In the landscape, as an object gets further away, it undergoes a value change and a temperature change as well.

As artists, we can employ temperature changes to our advantage. The Impressionists loved to exploit this effect. Temperature changes in their fine art oil paintings were an essential ingredient in their ability to create scintillating, light-filled canvasses. They thoroughly understood the power of temperature changes within a limited value range in reproducing the effects of sunlight. Cezanne and Monet, especially triumphed at these kinds of techniques, so much so that most people aren't aware of the missing values. See how this black and white of Cezanne's painting above reveals his mastery of temperature within a restricted value range.

In still-life and figurative painting, we can also exploit this concept and make our paintings more effective, and our work easier. The best way to understand and learn how to use temperature instead of value to create the illusion of three dimensions is to set up a simple still life. Join us on The Artist's Road for a more in-depth article and step-by-step demonstrations on how to paint objects using only color temperature changes. If you haven't tried this yourself, you'll be amazed at how effective and fast it is to paint with temperature instead of value changes.

--John and Ann

Draw on Tradition to Create Lasting Art

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:16:00 GMT

I'm always surprised—and, okay, a little peeved—when my mention of an arts background is often met with a puzzled look followed by the somewhat skeptical question, "What do you do with that?" The truth is there's a lot to do with that, especially now—at a time when images are all around us, where a website can so easily turn into an artist's own gallery and exhibition space, and because collectors, gallerists, publishers, and fans can easily find and follow artists whose work they respond to and respect.


Distlefink Girl by Christina Hess, digital.

This sense of opportunity can be especially true for artists with a strong foundation in illustration and drawing. When I recently spoke with Richard Harrington, the chair of the Phillustration, The Philadelphia Sketch Club's annual juried illustration exhibition, he pointed out that those who submit to the show work in a variety of creative fields. "We get a lot of children's book illustrators, artists working in the fantasy realm, ones doing concept work for video games, magazine cover illustrators, those who do album cover designs, cartoonists, comic artists, accomplished painters," he said. "People cross over and work on many different projects—children's books to postage stamps to calendars." Harrington also mentioned that his former illustration students from Moore College of Art and Design, in Pennsylvania, have worked in as diverse fields as the film industry and prop houses, to the advertising and branding departments of companies such as Target.

What seems to be a common denominator for such successful draftsmen and illustrators is a strong grounding in the traditional arts. "Our students want to understand how to paint in oils; how to do life drawings, compositions; understand negative and positive space, and value structures," Harrington explained. If students are working with modern technology, time-honored artistic practices still hold a lot of appeal. "Even in the digital realm there's crossover to a lot of different mediums, which probably was not done so readily 10 or 15 years ago," Harrington said.


	1027 by Dominic Saponaro, digital.

Another change that was also not so apparent with illustration a decade or two ago is the changing status of the field. "There's a new respect for illustration and a renewed interest level," Harrington explained. "Not because of any kind of nostalgia, but because with illustrations, people know what it is about and because illustrations give viewers information they need, and no one needs to explain to them what it means. There's a certain comfort level there—not a 'fuzzy bunny' comfort, but a comfort in being entertained and stimulated."


Man Sleeping in the Temple by John Thompson, acrylic on wood panel.

That stimulation isn't always easy to evoke. As a society, we are pretty savvy viewers, inundated by images all day long. Most don't make any kind of lasting impression, but, obviously, some images stick with us. They evoke a response and we enjoy seeing them. Think of the last book you picked up from the shelf for no other reason than the cover appealed to you, or a billboard advertisement that made you pause mid-stride or slow down as you drove by.

"I was once told that the best painters are former illustrators," Harrington quipped. By that, he meant that an inherent part of an illustrator's training is learning to harness the communicative possibilities of visual media. Knowing that you can tell a story, create a mood, and make people react with images. All artists should be so lucky to have this kind of awareness. Coupled with honed traditional artistic abilities, this understanding allows art of any kind—created in oil paints or acrylics, mixed media or watercolor, sculpture or comic-book storyboards—to stay relevant and memorable.

To put your work well on the road to being relevant and memorable, a solid foundation in drawing is crucial. Drawing Nature for the Absolute Beginner is like taking a fundamental drawing class that leaves nothing out. You'll come away knowing how to create images of nature that capture the attention and stimulate the imagination of your viewer. Developing this skill set can allow you to communicate effectively with your work, sending out your own message for the world to see.

Please Read, Artist Daily E-Newsletters Subscribers

Courtney Jordan — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:40:00 GMT

Hi All,

We are doing a bit of reorganizing and revamping here at Artist Daily, and that includes making a few changes to our E-Newsletters. For those of you who get the Artist Daily E-Newsletter, nothing will be changing. You'll be getting the same great articles and resources--and my smiling face!

If you have receive the Artist Daily Week in Review, you will start to receive the Artists Network Week in Review, which will feature all the unique inspirations, techniques and tips from Artist Daily under our mother-company's title.

If you receive the Artist Daily Special Offers, you will now start receiving messages from Artists Network Partners.

If you receive emails from the Artist Daily Shop, you will receive messages from the North Light Shop, where all Artist Daily resources are now available.

For all email subscribers, you will see a new and improved email preference center with a streamlined list of all of our email newsletter offerings in one convenient location. You will be able to modify your email preferences via the "Manage Subscriptions" link found in the footer of each email you receive. Please note that emails from before June 7, 2013 will not link to the new email preference center.

To make sure you don't miss a thing as we make this transition, you may want to add the following email addresses to your safe sender list:

Artist Daily: artistdaily@artists-hub.com

Week in Review: arn-wir@artists-hub.com

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North Light Shop: north-light-shop@artists-hub.com

Let me know if you have any questions because I'm always here to help!!

The Simplest & Most Common Mistake

Robert Stollar — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 03:59:00 GMT

Let's talk about common mistakes we all make because if you are making these mistakes and are told to look out for them, it will speed up your progress considerably. I am using examples of my student's drawings from the masterclass I teach to illustrate my points. Drawing 1, figure drawing of incorrect placement of the arms. In my last article, Attack of the Masses , I talked about massing. In this article I want to talk about the simplest and most common mistake we all make as we learn to...(read more)

Discover a Powerful Painting Method

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 03:29:00 GMT


	Half Dome, Yosemite 1920, 15 1/4 x 13 1/4, watercolor and pencil on paper. All works by William Zorach. Images courtesy Michael Rosenfeld Gallery.

William Zorach is a well-known 20th-century sculptor who participated in the Armory Show of 1913 and whose work is held in numerous public collections. But as his career unfolded and he found his way as a sculptor, watercolor painting was always part of his practice.

"I have continued to paint watercolors all my life," Zorach wrote in his 1967 autobiography, Art Is My Life. "Their spontaneity gives me a certain release and satisfies my love of color. After all, painting was my training and my world for all my early years, and I will always see the world in color as well as form. ... All art is correlated; all stems from the great creative impulse. There is no reason why sculptors shouldn't paint and painters sculpt."

Zorach's watercolor paintings bear no resemblance to his sculptural subject matter or style. Instead, the paintings allowed him to explore an entirely separate avenue of expression. During the summer the artist spent in Yosemite National Park, in California, the cliffs and peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains were his subject matter, and his watercolor art show how just a few strokes of paint on paper can create a sense of atmosphere and place.

The painting Half Dome, Yosemite, for example, comes together in what looks to be less than a few dozen strokes. There's a spontaneous sense of movement and a seeming understanding that the pigment itself can do a lot without much fussing and force from the artist's brush. The bright yellow that glints off the edges of the mountains gives a sense of the sun hitting the form, but it doesn't appear everywhere the sun would reflect. By applying the pigment in just a few places, the artist creates more impact and infuses the painting with warmth and shine.


Yosemite Trees, c.1920, 15 1/2 x 13 1/4 watercolor on paper.

The darkest shadow in the center of the painting—created using what looks like a drybrush technique—establishes the mass of the form and gives a sense of texture and depth. That, plus the blots and washes of purple and dusky pink, give an indication of the mountains' profile in a way that seems loose and free, a celebration of the moment, much as the artist intended.

"I spent five months in the Yosemite Valley sketching, drawing, painting, and doing watercolors," wrote Zorach. "Every now and then in life we have an experience that moves us so deeply, that holds us with such sheer, transcendent beauty, that it takes us completely out of this world. It is this feeling that only an artist can convey in his art. It is a journey into infinity."

The artist likened watercolor painting to writing poetry because there is fluidity and looseness that comes when artists allow the medium to guide them as opposed to steering it along at every step in a composition. To better understand the movement and freedom of watercolors, and to see how artists explore this medium both in and of itself and as a gateway to work with other tools and materials, the Expert Approaches to Watercolor Painting Kit is available and full of resources that practicing artists shouldn't do without.

3 Tips for Summertime Sketching

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 03:47:00 GMT

I love summer because I’m always on the go. It’s the best time of year to travel, and I just can’t seem to say no to any outing or adventure that comes my way. Want to take a road trip through the Carolinas, Court? I’m there. A holiday to Chicago? Sign me up. A vacation in California’s wine country? I wish, but yes!


Pastels, like the ones used to create Convict Lake by Colleen Howe, have such rich color and are easy to transport.

But with all this moving around, I want to make sure that my sketchbook doesn’t get ignored, so I’ve come up with a few on-the-go sketching and painting strategies that I want to share with you.

A Part, Not the Whole: Even with pastel, I find that I still work pretty slowly. When it comes time for me to set out on my travels, I know that time is going to be of the essence, so my plan is to target one part of the scene instead of hurriedly sketching everything in.



	Pencil sketches and color notes can allowyou to create art while traveling. Artwork by Colleen Howe.

For instance, at a roadside fruit stand, I may see bunches of people and dozens of inspiring compositions, but I’m going to focus on just a corner of the action. This way I can make the most of my limited drawing time.

Color Notes: I love sketching with color, so pastel drawing is a great travel option. One of the ways I like to work best is to abstract a scene and just focus on color. This can be a great way to make a sketch for something you might paint later in the studio. It can also stand alone as a fun memento of a time and place that meant something to you.

Different Strokes: Paring down what I work with when I travel means using versatile tools and getting creative about the different strokes I use. I really give my implement a workout. The few tools I bring must allow me to create fine lines and broad strokes, hatching or dotting on my surface, or incorporating wet brush techniques that I only need a single brush and some water to do. For example, wet brushing pastel softens my lines and disperses color in a really subtle way.

Thinking this way has gotten me even more excited about the sights I will see this summer because I’ll have a way to take a little piece of them with me when I leave. But to get ready for this, I want to sharpen my technical abilities so I feel confident about the way I work when I’m on the road. That’s where The Pastel Emag came in for me. As a resource guide it covers all media and gives instruction for techniques that work great whether you are practicing pastel drawing on vacation or in your studio. And do you have any summer sketch tips to share? Leave a comment and help me add to my list.

Venus Redux--Exploring a Series

Patricia Watwood — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 04:07:00 GMT

For the past year, I have been developing new work for my upcoming show at Dacia Gallery in NYC. Dacia is a small gallery on the Lower East Side, and the intimate size gave me the opportunity to put together a body of work with a narrowly focused theme. Often realist exhibits show the range of a painter's explorations and include work in various genres, but I wanted to do an entire body of oil painting artwork on a central theme. Like the recent post on my second version of Pandora, I wanted to revisit other paintings that I felt had more room for exploration.

In 2011, I made the oil painting Venus Awakes, for the "Myths & Individuals" show at The Forbes Galleries. I had never made a painting quite like it before, and I wanted do more with the basic idea of the composition, and dig deeper into the language of the body and the visual symbolism of the painting.

Venus Awakes by Patricia Watwood,
2011, oil on canvas, 38 x 34.

Venus Awakes is a classic "grand manner" nude, in a pose that is reminiscent of Correggio. (You know I'm obsessed with looking at Old Master work and reinterpreting the imagery!) I love the sensuality of the body, and am definitely exploring the line between the "naked" and the "nude," and the "ideal" and the "real." The top down view gave me the opportunity to treat the entire background not as a deep pictorial space, but as a flat field that I could compose pictorially on a flat picture plane, and cram full of objects with symbolic references.

Sleeping Venus by Patricia Watwood, 2013, oil on canvas, 40 x 40.

After completing this, I wanted to try a version with a lighter key. The first one I made all dark--so the nude emerges from a murky and somnambulant world. The second, I wanted to have the background in a mid-range tonal value, based on greys. I used one basic color--warm and cool greys--as the predominant tone, and then used saturated color notes to pull your eye from one detail to another. The yellow canary is the little star, its saturated brightness draws your attention as one of the primary narrative keys to the painting. Like Venus Awakes and Pandora, my bird is a symbol of awakening and hope. Here, the canary (in the coal mine) is emphasizing the call to awaken from mindless consumption and commercialism and cherish fragile beauty and the human spirit.

Drawing for Sleeping Venus by Patricia Watwood, 2012, pencil and gold watercolor on toned paper, 22 x 15.

There have been several steps along the way in exploring Venus's pose. The idea of it allows for variation--should the arms be this way or that? Turn the head this way or that? The variations all suggest a figure in relaxed slumber. The drawing here was done after I had finished the first oil painting, but before the second. I used gold watercolor washes to create the feeling of the swirl of stuff around her. In the second painting, I switched her arms, and also turned her head away from the light. This gave me a different angle on the nose and chin, and the face turning into the shadow suggests more a feeling of "still asleep." I was gratified that such small shifts in the pose could evoke different feelings and expressions.

Now that I have finished this second version, it is easy to imagine exploring more variations on the composition, adapting the pose, background, and details. Each painting can become an improvisation on the concept, and the combined images create a stronger message for the viewer to understand my point of view.

--Patricia

Meeting Your Artistic Match

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 03:30:00 GMT


Bottle Collection by Sadie J. Valeri, oil on panel, 18 x 24, 2009.

Not too many years ago, San Francisco based artist Sadie J. Valeri was an aspiring figure painter stuck in a still life studio. She had a good deal of time on her hands to hone her painting and drawing skills, but her workspace was less than 100 square feet. The space constraints, plus the costs of hiring a model, meant that figure studies were not a viable option. But Valeri wanted to make the most of her studio time and strongly test her abilities, so she set her sights on creating the most challenging still life composition she could come up with. Because she wanted to produce highly detailed paintings that would take anywhere from 60 hours to three months or more to complete, the artist steered away from still life paintings using flowers, fruit, and other perishables. “I wanted to work with objects that would stay still. I was searching for really dynamic and interesting compositions that were stable,” she says.

The artist found the perfect composition mainstay in the form of a commonplace sandwich wrap—wax paper. Previously, Valeri used this unlikely still life painting material to protect painted panels when they were leaning against each other. “That actually didn’t work too well, but I had the wax paper on hand and just grabbed a piece of it, crumpled it up, and tossed it behind the still life objects I already had in place. It created a nice composition and filled the space in an interesting way,” she says.


	Wrapped Silver Goblet by Sadie J. Valeri, oil on panel, 11 x 24, 2009.


	Wax Paper II by Sadie J. Valeri, oil on panel, 11 x 14, 2009.

Since that time, wax paper has been a good match for Valeri and she’s pitted her skills against it in numerous paintings. What’s kept her engaged is the paper’s unpredictability. When it is creased, crinkled, and folded, the resulting shapes and angles are always unique, and provide an interesting challenge. “It is really hard to paint,” she says. “The wax paper tended to look flat and not at all like itself when I generalized and simplified all the little details.” Instead, Valeri approached the wax paper as if she was painting a portrait, with each detail of the paper given as much attention as the features of a human face. “When we draw, we tend to center and straighten and organize, but when you commit yourself to seeing accurately, you have to resist the temptation to simplify, and instead show the actual weird and unique shapes in front of you,” she says. The artist trained herself to paint just that way, which has led to a series of virtuosic wax paper still lifes, including Bottle Collection, which won first prize in the still life category at this year’s International Art Renewal Center Salon.

Valeri did not start painting still lifes because she was a particular fan of the genre. “My goal has been to be a figurative painter,” she says, “but all the best artists who work in that genre also do landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. Each exercise allows an artist to become a better painter.” Luckily, still lifes can create endless challenges. From the incorporation of different objects, surfaces, and the ever-changing appearance of each new piece of wax paper, to the reflections, diffused light, and shadows that make up the composition of any still life composition, Valeri considers her time with still life well spent. “You can’t write off still lifes,” she says. “When you put a form in space, there’s just so much to challenge you, and if you come away with one problem solved, you’ve done a lot.”

If you’re looking for a new challenge, or just want to learn more about still life painting, Sadie Valeri is about to release her own still life painting DVD. Catch a sneak preview here. Enjoy!

An Exquisite Balance

johnandann@theartistsroad — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 03:21:00 GMT

The sensitivity that is at the core of being an artist, whether a writer, designer, oil painter, or draftsman, is both a blessing and a curse. The paradox seems to be in how to maintain and nurture it while at the same time developing the necessary hardness to protect oneself from the bumps and bruises of life. It is good to refresh ourselves from the reading of other artists' words. Here is a favorite:


After the Deluge by John Hulsey, pastel painting. Quotes taken with permission from "William Stafford: An Interview with Nancy Bunge" in American Poetry Review 10, no. 6 (November/December 1981).

The wonderful poet, William Stafford, said in an interview, "I think what I'm trying to locate is that condition of a being who has not been distorted from the receptive, accurate encounter with experience. It's possible to overlearn fear or overlearn confidence. The conditions of life are such that they make survival depend on the organism's ability to come back level again and be ready for the conditions of life as they are on the earth. . . . An individual's intellect and emotions should be like a good seismograph: sensitive enough to register what happens but strong enough not to be wrecked by the first little thing that happens.

"And so human beings have to occupy that position between being so steady and dumb and dull that they can't register and being so sensitive that they're wrecked by anything they register. So I just try to get into the readiness and be receptive, not stampeded, not overly trustful. I suppose we're all looking for that, but I feel the formulations that some people use disguise the necessity for avoiding both extremes. It's very easy to make powerful poems out of suffering all the time. It's all right; but that makes you a casualty."

He continued, ". . . the essential thing we're doing is we're having enough faith in our own perceptions and decisions to make them paramount. You've just got to do it, if you're an artist."

The secret, as William Stafford has said, is to live in the center--neither a casualty nor a champion, but an honest artist be.

For more interesting articles, demonstrations and interviews with prominent artists, please join us on The Artist's Road.

Accessing Universal Emotions Makes a Successful Portrait

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 03:26:00 GMT

When I went away to college I took a token from each of my loved ones. There was a Frankie Laine CD from my dad, a grungy Pearl Jam T-shirt from my brother, and a charcoal portrait of my mom that was made on the boardwalk of Virginia Beach when she was 14 years old. I lost the CD, and the T-shirt was relegated to the rag bin, but I still have the portrait.


Models With Japanese Screen by Malcolm T. Liepke, 1986, oil painting, 26 x 20. Courtesy Arcadia Fine Arts, New York, New York

The power of a portrait painting often lies in the emotional connection it forges with the viewer. It can be a visceral, close connection shared by the few who know the subject, or the likeness can have universal appeal. Artist Malcolm T. Liepke is a leader in the genre of contemporary figure painting. When painting portraits, he works to establish a connection with viewers by letting his emotional response guide his painting process. “Everyone goes through life with their own problems, but we live in a pretty universal world,” he says. “I’ve found that the more personal the piece, the more people connect with it.”

Liepke attests that the power of his portrait paintings is largely due to the way in which he works. He allows his natural inclinations free reign and never takes on a subject that doesn’t hold his attention. He also has upwards of 30 paintings in progress at once, which not only prevents him from overworking a piece but also allows him to paint spontaneously, moving from one canvas to another at his own pace.

When executing a likeness, Liepke strives to retain a few distinctive features of a model, even if variables like hair and clothing change during the painting process. “You can’t make up features because the people will look cartoonish,” he says. This picking and choosing also applies to the settings in which he places his figures, as they often lack visual cues that would attach the subject to a specific time period or location. This gives the resulting painting a sense of being timeless, but there are enough details to unify the composition and evoke a response from the viewer.

Executing a successful portrait is often a matter of finding the right balance between literal and general. Liepke does this by seeking out intriguing subjects and capturing moments of universal human emotion. You can find more information on the unique art practices of some of the best artist-instructors out there in the latest art resource DVDs available at the North Light Shop. Take a look for the valuable instruction you are after and enjoy!

Hybrid Method of Painting and Drawing

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 31 May 2013 03:52:00 GMT

When I'm hiking or walking on the beach, my attention span is really short. I flit from activity to activity, sight to sight, just trying to take it all in. That's why pastel painting is a perfect fit for me when I want to create art outdoors. I can work quickly and see results equally fast, creating a pastel landscape painting in a short span of time. And I'm by no means an expert in pastel drawing, but it is great for painting outdoors, and I have a few tips for getting the most out of the medium and the experience if you decide to sketch outside with them too.


Magnificent Malibu by Gerald Rahm, 2005, pastel painting, 16 x 20.

Pastel painting is sort of a hybrid, blending methods of drawing and painting. One of the drawing aspects of pastels that I have really glommed on to is using all the available surface edges of the stick, just as if it was charcoal. I start with the broad side, covering the expanse of my surface with broad shapes and adding definition with the sharp edge or blunt tip of the pastel.

When making a pastel drawing, I want to give myself options when I'm in the midst of working. Techniques, like dusting, are best done with my drawing surface in a horizontal position, so before I plant myself down to work I try to think ahead about how I'll manage that if I decide I want to do it. Though sometimes dusting is an effort in futility on a breezy day out by the water!


	Hazy Sunset by Peter Adams, pastel painting, 12 x 16.

The most important of all the pastel painting lessons I've learned or, let's face it, stumbled upon after much trial and error, is to use a testing strip. What I do to keep values true on any work is to start with a larger piece of paper than I intend to use and mark off an area on one edge to test my pastels before I use them. This is crucial because you don't use a palette with pastels, so the testing strip is the only place you can play around before putting color and marks down right on your final surface. The rule with the testing strip is to put colors side by side—if there is a distinct edge, you've got colors of different value, so try again. It's a rule of thumb I've found has helped me a lot. Later on, I just cut the testing strip away.

Really thinking on it, I realize that I enjoy pastels so much because they combine vivid color and drawing—two of my favorite things when I am creating art outdoors. They will always be what I reach for first, and that's why I've tried so hard to work on my compositional skills and pastel techniques of late. The Pastel Journal has helped me on that road. It is beautifully illustrated with tons of examples and the artists featured are ones I respect and hope to learn from in person eventually. That's how much I've grown from their instruction. I hope you decide to do the same with a subscription to The Pastel Journal. Enjoy!

What's Sfumato with You?

johnandann@theartistsroad — Thu, 30 May 2013 03:53:00 GMT

Each day, people from all over the globe travel to Paris to visit the most famous oil painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. Many are just curious, and want to see the real thing for themselves. Some admire the famous enigmatic smile, the perfect proportions and ideal composition of the piece. Still others seek to explore some of the fantastical and mysterious claims about the fine art oil painting. Unfortunately, the painting is behind thick glass and a wooden railing keeps everyone a good distance away. The huge crowds create additional obstacles to close inspection. It's too bad, for Leonardo was the most prominent practitioner of a painting technique known as "sfumato," which translates literally as, "gone up in smoke."


Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, oil painting.

Leonardo himself described the sfumato technique as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the picture plane." During the Renaissance, oil painting underwent radical changes as artists learned to manipulate the new theories of linear perspective to create ever greater depth of space and lifelike images. So, in one sense, the quest to eliminate the flatness of the painting surface, and indeed the picture plane itself, from an image could be considered a natural outgrowth of those investigations. However, taken in the context of the time, it was still a rather radical idea, if it could be achieved at all. Leonardo came closer than anyone else with his Mona Lisa.

It has been discovered that he applied very thin, nearly transparent layers of oil paint with his fingers over many months to slowly build up the glowing, softly focused image of Mona Lisa: from 20 to as many as 40 layers of paint. This technique allowed him to not only realistically duplicate the translucency of skin, but also to create such a lifelike presence that she appeared to actually be in the room, as if she were sitting in a window.

To paint on a flat surface a vision of someone not confined to that surface required the artist to hold two paradoxical thoughts in mind simultaneously--flatness, but with the illusion of realistic three-dimensional form. Leonardo had the genius of his vision and sfumato technique gave him the means to get there. Today, we build easily on the pioneering artistic advances he invented, and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude.

For more interesting articles, demonstrations and interviews with prominent artists, join us on The Artist's Road.

--John and Ann

Telling a Story on Canvas

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 29 May 2013 03:26:00 GMT




Works by J.P. Peer.

Storytelling often comes naturally to artists. Sometimes the story starts on a single canvas or sheet of paper and doesn’t end until there is a gallery full of paintings, a suite of drawings, a set of illustrations, a series of fantasy art comic strips, or an entire graphic novel. Certain subject matters compel an artist to revisit them again and again, building on a concept or pushing it in different directions. The narrative can be a visible part of the artwork, in the form of a written story, but oftentimes it acts as an invisible framework that guides an artist through the creative process.

“Narrative is like an infrastructure that you can come back to and get more and more out of it each time. Each work turns out rich by itself, but there’s also something to reach for,” says artist David Sandlin, who is also an adviser for second-year graduate students in the Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City. Students in the program work toward discovering what is integral for all artists to discover—the kind of artists they want to be and what form their work will take, whether fantasy pictures of other worlds or realistic views of the places and people around them. Along their journey they also develop an understanding of the possible uses of narrative in their work.

“Telling a story visually seems poignant and resonates strongly with me,” says Laura Peyton, an artist, bookmaker, and illustrator who is graduating from the program this year. “There is something about communicating visually that is incredibly powerful, but sometimes the words seem overwhelming. I often start with images, building the story from the images I create. That way, the viewer can have their own personal interpretation.”




		Works by Laura Peyton.

Even if they are not aware of it, visual artists often develop some sort of narrative in their work. Storytelling takes many forms and at its root is about communicating and connecting with the viewer, which many artists aspire to do. “Michelangelo is one of the greatest artists in history, and every work he produced was informed by a story. Working in an unclear manner with no effort to reach your audience can be problematic,” says J.P. Peer, an oil and acrylic painting artist and draftsman who is also a recent graduate of the Illustration as Visual Narrative program and the creator of many fantasy images that speak to the worlds available to an artist with an open mind. “I used to think of each piece I did as a standalone work, but stepping up to a blank canvas can be intimidating. But if you have a story—or a world of stories—in mind, it’s like painting an entire world, one that’s created in your own style and by your own hand. It’s liberating, and if you do it correctly, people respond and they escape thoroughly into your work.”

There seems to be an undeniable affinity between figurative and representational artwork and the presence of a narrative, whether it be one where fantasy images come to the forefront or steeped in representational realism. How do you find yourself using narrative and storytelling in your work? Is it in the forefront of your process or a more like a well of inspiration? Let us know by leaving a comment.

If you'd like to explore the process of painting and the accompanying techniques of a visual artist that can communicate your story, consider Linda Kemp's Negative Painting Techniques - Acrylic, a unique and highly useful resource-and possible source of inspiration as well. Enjoy!

The Beauty Formula

johnandann@theartistsroad — Tue, 28 May 2013 03:27:00 GMT

We read an interesting article recently in The New York Times titled, "Why We Love Beautiful Things" in which the architect and author, Lance Hosey, wrote about some of the latest research findings and his opinions on the subject.


Peony Bouquet by Ann Trusty, oil painting.

The focus of his article is on all the effort and money that is being applied to attempt to quantify and systematize the sort of designs and images that appeal to most people. Studies have found that workers tend to be more productive when they can see the outdoors from their work spaces and that images of landscapes or a landscape painting can help to speed patient recovery in hospitals. Hosey writes that findings also show that the visual patterns of fractals in nature at a particular mathematical density can reduce test subjects' stress levels by as much as 60 percent, simply by being in view. The research is fascinating and seems to show our deeply rooted and strong need for nature. Is beauty archetypal?

Using the principles of beauty to inspire better design is a positive and constructive model. But the notion that art and beauty can be number and factor-crunched into a system seems too simplistic. Art cannot be defined this way, if it can be defined at all.

While the genesis for our need for beauty might be archetypal, the expression of it in any given cultural time period is a moving target and tastes in beauty tend to change. Artists are always the ones who strive to find the beauty of their age and present it to us.


	Lilies in Candlelight by Ann Trusty, oil painting.

Art comes out of our immensely complex brain functions and radical associations of disparate ideas, some of them subconscious. Few artists can tell you how they arrive at their ideas because inspiration often comes in a flash after a period of intense work. There is a beautiful mystery in this. How do you systematize that? And if one even could, wouldn't art then lose its beauty, and like the butterfly turning back into a caterpillar, become something much less inspiring?

We welcome your thoughts on beauty. Leave a comment and let us know what your reactions are. For more interesting discussions and articles, please join us on The Artist's Road.

--John and Ann

Paint Water in Every Season

Courtney Jordan — Mon, 27 May 2013 04:06:00 GMT


Shaw's Cove by Ray Roberts, 2003, oil painting, 12 x 16.

When I was in college, I read a lot of Romantic poetry, and what still sticks in my mind is all the water imagery those writers used. For them, water was a stand-in for life, transcendence, and the creative impulse. With such inherent possibilities, it’s all but essential for painters to be able to accurately depict this inspiring element, and that’s why we’ve compiled several methods and solutions for doing just that.


		Vernal Falls by Stefan Baumann, 2003, oil, 27 x 17.

In the natural world, water is rarely absolutely still. There is always some kind of movement, whether it is the wind blowing on the water’s surface, underwater currents, or waves cresting along the shore and flowing back out to sea. When painting water, be mindful of its motion, which is given away by the light reflections on, and refractions in, the water. In acrylic painting, scumbling with wet paint over dry is a great way to achieve these visual effects.

Water is a chameleon. It takes on colors around it—that of the sky, of its close surroundings, and of its contents. In most landscapes, water takes on a greenish cast and tends to darken with its depth, so shallow waters often have warmer tones that grow cooler as the water gets deeper. When water painting, it is always good to remember that.


The Brooklyn Bridge by T. Allen Lawson, 2002, oil painting, 7 x 10.

Mirrorlike reflections are not the domain of creeks, rivers, and oceans. Reflections of sky on water tend to be darker than the sky itself. In the same way, dark shadows cast on the water tend to be lighter than the actual shadows.

In keeping with the essence of water as inspirational, free-flowing, and surprising, consider a resource devoted entirely to the subject: Vibrant Watercolors: Painting Water with Soon Warren. The DVD explores painting compelling and unique seascapes and you'll also get direct access to the artist-instructor's inspirations and thoughts on the work. In a way, water is like a window into all the beauty of Nature and into the artist’s mindset—equally inspiring on both fronts. Enjoy!

Go For Awesome

Courtney Jordan — Fri, 24 May 2013 04:38:00 GMT


Looks Like Heaven by John Budicin, 2002, oil painting, 32 x 40.

Almost any artist will tell you that there's a certain appeal to working outdoors that can't be found anywhere else. With spring in full swing, many of us have left our studios for our porches, backyards, and beyond. To celebrate the season and all of the landscape art being made, here are 10 ways you can make the most of your next outdoor painting session.

Start with a good, long look. Painting landscapes lets you create work that can take the viewer on a journey into a new environment. To create a truly expressive work of art, it helps to take more than a cursory look around and quickly set up shop. Walk around, sit a spell, and really soak in the landscape around you.

Focus your eye. Whether's it a rocky cliff or a busy urban street, outdoor settings can offer a myriad of potential subjects. Sometimes, however, it can be too much to take in, leading to a painting that feels busy, cluttered, and lacking a center of interest. Massachusetts-based artist Nancy Colella starts every composition based on what she's visually drawn to. She makes those elements the focal point of her painting, and tones down everything else so that they come to the fore.

It's all about the light. Light changes throughout the day, which makes accurately capturing it one of the biggest challenges of painting outdoors. The flip side, of course, is that when one is able to do this correctly, a painting is instantly elevated. Observe the quality of light, aiming for a spontaneous interpretation that still takes observation skills into consideration.


	Birds Wading by Stephanie Sanchez, 1989, oil on panel, 32 x 46, private collection.


	Marble Cascades by Jane Bertram Miluski, 2003, watercolor, 14 x 21.

Don't paint a blue sky. They rarely exist! California watercolorist Dick Cole acknowledges that landscape painting has enhanced his skills as a colorist and helped him to realize that the sky, along with many elements in nature, are made up of a variety of colors and not just one pure hue.

Strike a balance. Spend as much time observing as you do painting. For artist Glenn Rudderow, this is a crucial part of his plein air practice. "Nothing can take the place of direct observation—of being there, seeing, communicating, and expressing the spirit of one's subject," he says.

Go for awesome. Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran of the Hudson River School produced paintings of the American landscape that were technically masterful, but most of all they were awe-inspiring. They created luminous paintings that seemed too bright to be true. They amplified the elements of the landscape that inspired them most, leaving the viewer with the same sentiments.

Don't bring your studio outdoors. The thrill of working en plein air is that you can shake up your routine and work differently than you might usually. Use the change in location to try new techniques, such as working on a smaller scale or focusing predominantly on light and other atmospheric qualities.

Colors contribute to a sense of space. When creating her landscape paintings, Kansas artist Kim Casebeer adjusts her palette in order to accurately render atmospheric changes and a sense of space. For example, there is usually more red, orange, and yellow running through objects in the foreground, and blue, indigo, and violet for shapes that recede in the distance.

Go with the flow—of air. Air moves objects. It ripples water, curls leaves, and sways limbs of trees. Use brush strokes and shading to create movement in your work.

Perfection isn't everything. You can spend all day looking for a "perfect" composition that just doesn't exist. Embrace the reality around you—smog, power lines, even debris—and open yourself up to telling interesting stories with new subjects.

How have you been taking advantage of spring in your work? Leave a comment and let us know. If you want to learn more about painting landscapes—including how to paint mountainous vistas accurately, avoid compositions that lack cohesion, and more—Donna Dewberry's Essential Guide to Flower and Landscape Painting gives you all the one-on-one instruction you'll want to successfully paint landscapes and all the elements you'll find there. Enjoy!

Only 1 Week Left to Deadline

Courtney Jordan — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:29:00 GMT

There's really nothing quite like a deadline to get us in gear, am I right? I mean, when art is your passion but real life is your reality, sometimes it is hard to find ways to integrate studio time into our lives on a consistent basis.

But that struggle is completely worth the effort! The work that we (well, mostly you!) create is incredibly inspirational and certainly fuels my love of contemporary painting and drawing each and every day. And when you reflect back or look around at your recently finished pieces, you'll realize that you have produced much more art than you give yourself credit for!

Well, now is the time to shine a light on that effort and I wanted to take this opportunity to encourage you to not simply let dust sit on the work that you have completed. There are avenues to present your artwork that can bring you the credit and attention all your hard work and results deserve.

Right now, there's a week until the World of Art Showcase submission deadline. The show's opening reception is on October 31 in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the heart of the city's thriving art scene, and is open through November 3. Buyers, collectors, and art aficionados from all over the world will be in and out of the exhibition doors. It is a unique opportunity for exhibiting artists to gain worldwide exposure, sell work, and connect and network with members of the art world and their audience.

So seriously consider taking this opportunity! Your artwork deserves to be seen and I know I would be thrilled on your behalf if you take the next steps in submitting your work! It's what we should all be doing sooner rather than later!

To find out more about WOAS RALEIGH 2013 and how to become an exhibiting artist, email info@worldofartshowcase.com.

If you are ready to apply (yay!), you can simply download and submit your application at the World of Art Showcase website.

Remember, June 1st is the last day to submit your application!

Good luck!

Caption Contest: What Does This Photo Say to You?

Courtney Jordan — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:21:00 GMT

This cutie is wielding a paintbrush like a pro, right? When you look at the photo, what caption would you give it? Leave your caption in the comments section below and you could win an art resources bundle from Artist Daily. It's as simple as that. Entries will be taken until the contest is over on May 26, 11.59 EST.

Three members will be randomly selected to win. It could be you so get your thinking cap on and enjoy!

Attack of the Masses

Robert Stollar — Thu, 23 May 2013 03:14:00 GMT

I want to say a few things about massing. There are a few basic rules in figure drawing that will deliver results, but underlying them all is massing. If you cannot master massing, no matter how much you know of all the other elements of drawing, there will always be something missing. Somehow it just will not be quite right. So if you're not already versed in massing, give it your best and results will follow almost immediately. Drawings by Albrecht Durer. What is massing? To force images into...(read more)

How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Painting from Photographs

Courtney Jordan — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:18:00 GMT

I’ve spent way too much time in murky classrooms looking at slides, slides, and more slides. I’m convinced that the entire academic field of art history would grind to a halt without projectors, carousels, and slides. But what is weird about looking at so many images is that I find myself thinking that I know exactly what a sculpture or a painting really looks like because I’ve seen a photograph of it. Photographs can never tell you the full story of an object, landscape, or person’s face, but they are convenient references for artists. The reality is that most artists use source photos in some capacity when they work, whether to jog their memory of a particular place and time or to record specific visual details to incorporate in later pieces.


El Mercado by Mark Haworth, 2006, oil painting, 16 x 20.

But to produce a successful piece of art, an artist has to be wary and attentive to what he or she is seeing—and not seeing—in a photograph. That starts with understanding the limitations of reference photos. Artist Mark Haworth puts it this way: “The camera cannot see like the eye can when it comes to color accuracy, depth of field, and the warms and cools of highlights and shadows. There’s a lot of distortion that comes along with photographs.”

Pastel artist and instructor Denise LaRue Mahlke agrees. “Following a photo to a ‘T’ is a big mistake, because the camera lies,” she says. “Photos can be indispensible as a jumping off point, but even if the photo is an excellent one, you want to reinvent the scene for a painting to work.”

Haworth, for one, puts decidedly less emphasis on reference photos than on preliminary sketches made on-site or notes written in the field. “When I’m traveling through an area, I write what I am seeing,” he says. “My notes often give me what I can’t get in a picture. Photos don’t give the subtleties I look for to capture the look and feel of a place.”

When Mahlke is on-site and doesn’t have time to paint, she’ll often do the same—sketch and take notes. But she acknowledges that sometimes she takes as many photos as she can. “Having that multitude of photos can give you a lot to work with,” she says. “When I’m ready to start a piece, I’ll pull from many different photos for inspiration and do thumbnail sketches to familiarize myself with the subject and composition I’m working toward.”

I asked Haworth and Mahlke if constantly referring back to photos can lead to overworking or to a painting filled with a bunch of little details instead of a cohesive composition. Both artists knew just what I meant. “It can go from painting to documenting,” says Haworth. “You can take in all the details and go crazy.”


	Winter Stream by Denise LaRue Mahlke, 2008, pastel, 14 x 18.

Another point both artists stressed is the importance of working from photos they’ve taken themselves. “When using someone else’s photos, you aren’t painting your own concepts, just copying,” says Mahlke. “I tell my students, ‘Work from your own photos—your ideas are there.’”

What’s more, a reference photo, no matter who clicked the shutter, shouldn’t lead to a sense of obligation to show exactly what is depicted in the shot. Instead, an artist should feel free and inspired to manipulate or leave behind a reference any way he or she chooses. That assures there’s vitality in a piece of art and means you won’t miss seeing—and hopefully recapturing—the moments that will make a painting great.

With the Photo Reference for Artists: Landscapes, you'll be able to hone your skill with using reference photos, coming away with creative and technical food for thought on the advantages and potential pitfalls of working with photographs. Enjoy!

Join the Controversial Conversation

MaureenSharon — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:43:00 GMT

The moment the June issue of The Artist's Magazine hit the newsstands we started to receive a deluge of letters of protest and of praise. The cause of controversy was an article I’d written on the work of social realist Max Ginsburg, whose beautiful Swing graces the cover. Ginsburg’s immediate subject is the city of New York but the incendiary work in question shows the horrors—both physical (on the enemy/victim) and moral (on the warrior/perpetrator)—of war.

I invite you to join the conversation, as our September issue will feature our readers’ letters and Max Ginsburg’s response. Also in the June issue are articles on nocturnes in pastel (Stan Sperlak), improvisations in acrylic (Robert Burridge) and still lifes in both oil and pastel (Claudia Seymour), plus answers to your questions on using water as a medium for acrylic, advice on entering art fairs, and, as always, much more.

--Maureen