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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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First Bite , 17 x 16, 2009, oil painting. All works by Michael de Brito. Courtesy Eleanor Ettinger Gallery. Painting the people and places one sees every day can be either a mind-numbing trial or an impetus for creativity that just happens to be homeward bound. For New Jersey-based artist Michael de...
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I just finished a very interesting commission. I've shared my oil painting, Pandora , on Artist Daily before. It was one of the central paintings from my 2012 exhibit at Forbes Gallery. I got a lot of positive feedback on that painting--and then got an inquiry from a collector, "Is Pandora still...
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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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What makes an object look three-dimensional? 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...
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I own up to the fact that I am drawn to the portraits artist Jenny Morgan creates because they are unconventional. Yet they capture qualities of the human face and our other human qualities in ways that read very true and lifelike. I like them because they are different, but not just because they are...
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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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The Clubfoot Boy by Jusepe de Ribera, oil on canvas, 1642. Art...has the power to make any spot on earth the living center of the universe; and unlike science, which often gives us the illusion of understanding things we really do not understand, it helps us to know life in a way that still keeps before...
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"A line is a path that can offer an interesting and varied journey, rhythmic and with occasional, pleasurable surprises. Thus is one tempted to take the journey again. " -Krome Barratt, Logic and Design: In Art, Science, and Mathematics Creating representational art is challenging; a satisfying...
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In all the painting or drawing dabbling I've done, there is always a definitive moment that divides my experiences into "before" and "after." It's the moment I realize I don't have to worry about going back because every mistake is, in fact, a painting challenge that isn't...
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When it comes to being able to draw with a paintbrush, no one can touch Rembrandt. He was able to turn abstract brushstrokes into forms with texture, weight, and liveliness. He could turn two swipes of a painting brush loaded with white paint into the coarse cloth of a girl's sleeve. He captured...
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The style of artwork I make often falls under the general heading of realism, and this oil painting is a case-in-point of why I struggle with the term. First, here's a bit of background on the source of my angst. In the atelier system, students are devoted disciples of observation and "truth...