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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...
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Every year, we invite pastel artists to enter their work into our annual Pastel 100 competition, now in its 14th year. And every year, we receive thousands of pastel paintings. I am always stunned by the fantastic variety of the work and the extraordinary level of talent. We celebrate the impeccable...
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When I say "the perfect blend," I feel a little bit like I am describing a gourmet coffee flavor, but there really is a perfect blend that exists in pastel painting. For me, the crème de la crème of pastel drawings combines a certain level of literal representation with a modern...
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If I had a time machine and could travel back to learn how to oil paint from any artist in history, I would not spare a second thought setting the clock to circa 1895, smack dab in the middle of the era when Odilon Redon was refining his fine art oil-painting and pastel-painting skills. The Cyclops by...
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I recently had an Emeril Lagasse moment--and it happened when I mixed pastels with water for the first time. Three Sunflowers on Blue by Jimmy Wright, pastel painting, 30 x 41. A while back, I confided that I wanted to start an earnest study and exploration of pastel painting . That resulted in me mucking...
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It’s quite sad that 18 th -century painter Luis Melendez died poor and relatively unknown and yet he is now recognized as one, if not the, greatest still life art painter of his day. His style and approach as a still life artist breathed new life into a genre that was already well established,...
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When I met a woman who told me about the best watercolor painting instructor she'd ever had, I had to know more. There are so many artists out there whose work is compelling but that doesn't always make them good teachers. I had to know what put her instructor heads and shoulders above the rest...
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One of my unhappiest memories of making art is drawing a really 70s-looking still life that my art teacher set up for us in the sixth grade. I remember being soooo bored and not interested at all in what we were doing until my teacher gave us a challenge to use any of the different shading techniques...
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Not if artist Claudia Seymour has anything to say about it. This year I had the pleasure of meeting Seymour at the Salmagundi Club in New York City to create two three-hour DVDs with her, including this year's The Art of Painting Flowers in Oil . Spring Things by Claudia Seymour, oil on linen, 2011...
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We have always felt that as plein air painters we are observers of the landscape—recording moments and places that can rapidly transform with fleeting changes of light. In a pure landscape, figures and animals are rendered small and insignificant against the vast and awe inspiring backdrop of nature...
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Two Women with Still Life by Willem de Kooning, pastel and charcoal on paper, 22 1/4 x 18 3/4 in., 1952. The artifice of line is one of the aspects of drawing that I am most in love with. The fact that we can take line—which doesn't exist in the natural world—and create works of art that...
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One of my favorite still-life artists is G. Daniel Massad. He plays with space in an incredible way. His pastel paintings are stark, eerie, and lovely all at once. Above, Three Plums and Rosehip , 2005, pastel, 11 x 10 7/8. What I love best about still life painting is that I have absolute control—over...
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Quang Ho at his easel. Quang Ho: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Quang Ho was born on April 30, 1963, in Hue, Vietnam. He immigrated to the United States in 1975 and is now a U.S. citizen. His artistic interest began at the early age of 3 and continued through grade school, high school, and art school...
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G. Daniel Massad's pastel paintings (above, Studio , 2008) are eloquent examples of thoughtful, tension-filled compositions. I’m starting this year by reassessing my approach to painting and recommitting to more concentrated studio time. I don’t necessarily feel that I want to completely...
Posted to
Artist Daily
by
Courtney Jordan
on
2 Jan 2011
Filed under:
Filed under: plein air, How To Paint, Portrait Painting, acrylic painting, Artist Daily, still life, Oil Painting, Painting, Pastel, Color, Art
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Twilight by Anthony Ryder, 1998, pencil and pastel on gold paper, 25 x 19. The event I’ve been looking forward to since I came to Artist Daily is just a few days away. Weekend With the Masters 2010 is almost here. I’ve been told that the energy at the conference is incredible, with so many...