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It feels right to talk about color and art during this time of the year, when flowers are blooming, trees are budding, and skies are (mostly) blue. After months of dull-colored scenery, everything seems to be flourishing wherever I look, which makes me want to do whatever I can to capture that beauty...
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When my Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson, gives an oil painting workshop, one of his favorite aspects -- as well as that of his students -- is when participants bring in their artwork for Steve to look at and make comments about. "I could spend an entire workshop doing this," he's told...
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One of the best conversations I’ve had about art wasn’t with an artist. It wasn’t with an art historian, curator, or gallery owner, either. It was with a mechanical engineer. We went from discussing his latest design project to the artfulness of historical blueprints to Leonardo’s...
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When I walk through a museum or gallery, there are certain paintings that I breeze past and others that always draw me in. Self-portraits definitely fall into the latter category. I’m always intrigued by how artists choose to represent themselves and perpetuate their own personal mythologies. My...
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Taking private lessons to learn how to paint is a wonderful thing, but if you feel you cannot afford them, an art consultation , in which you show another artist, a dealer, or an art appraiser your work and ask for their opinion -- which you agree to pay for, naturally -- is a valid means of moving ahead...
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Friends and family are wonderful, but when it comes to getting an honest, straightforward statement from them about what your fine art oil painting really, really looks like -- well, they're just so incredibly . . . nice. And nice doesn't help, in this case. Friends and family are just terrific...
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For just a few seconds, I thought that watercolor pencils were some kind of April Fool's come lately prank. I mean, everything I think of and know about watercolor painting is that it is fluid and kind of uncontrollable. In a pencil, how can watercolor art still have that same looseness? But then...
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When Steve, the Norwegian Artist , was a young boy, his parents sought out a local artist in his town and arranged painting instruction lessons -- people do this all the time with the piano, and yet when it comes to art, it seems so . . . impossible. But it's not. It all starts with finding an artist...
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You can go the less extreme route, of course, but there is something to be said about a studio painting session in which you don't pick up a brush. You don't make any sketches. You just observe. I find myself doing this again and again when I discover a new artist or a body of work from a painter...
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Especially since the mid-1800s, many artists have stressed color over other elements in painting. The Impressionists are notable examples. Monet, for instance, explored how to paint light and its effects on the colorful scenes he saw in his mind's eye. Although many think of Monet as a painter of...
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Okay, I'm going to share with you my dirty little secret: I can't parallel park a car. Well, I can parallel park a car as long as I've got three blank spaces, in a pinch two, and it helps that I drive a Honda Fit. But for the most part I'm willing to drive blocks out of the way and walk...
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Let me first clarify that the watercolor painting technique of white-on-white isn't a highfalutin, conceptual idea of existentialism and the true meaning of art. No, it allows watercolor artists to achieve brilliant and bright shades of white and other light effects by applying white paint over and...
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Continuing the long line of intimists from Vermeer to Vuillard, Mark Karnes makes an alluring world out of the quietest aspects of his domestic life. Like all great painters of the near-at-hand, Karnes' work reminds us that beauty is to be found everywhere, at both expected and unexpected moments...
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Looking at Mark Messersmith's artwork is like being sucked into a kaleidoscope. The colors are bold, varied, and everywhere. It seems odd to say this. I mean, of course, there is color everywhere--it's a painting. But what stands out about Messersmith's work is that the colors, more than...
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The last two centuries, in particular, witnessed the final great explorations of the surface of the planet by scientists, geographers, and surveyors. In those pre-photography days, and for a while after, artists were an integral part of any expedition. Often these artists were also trained naturalists...