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Granted, this story gets a lot less steamy when I tell you that I'm torn between the work of two oil painting artists, Adolph Menzel and Jonas Lie. I've studied the work of both of these artists on my own for quite a while, trying to puzzle out why I like each of them. Menzel's oil painting...
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"If you could get inside the heads of the people around you, you'd probably be surprised at how unsure and unconfident they feel. It's likely that they'd feel the same about you. We're pretty good at hiding our true thoughts; it's why we're always so shocked—and relieved—when...
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A long time ago I read a quote from artist Nathan Goldstein and it has always stayed with me. He implied that artists are truly artists once they learn something and then forget it. I took that to mean I didn't have to study too hard in college since I was supposed to just let it eventually disappear...
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More Facebook poster quotes, Einstein this time: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." This, along with the following quote, makes a matching set, the kind you hang up behind the sofa in your living room: "Insanity is doing the same thing over...
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It always makes me smile when I see an artist who loves a pet so much that the drawing or painting they do of their four-legged companion comes out a little like a tall tale, where Snowball the pet cat is drawn like a wild lion prowling the grasslands. It makes me giggle, but it also reinforces what...
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When I use the words "fantasy pictures," I'm usually referring to all sorts of imaginative realism--not only sci-fi art or wanting to know how to draw a dragon. But bringing in a layer of fantasy to your paintings or drawings can be daunting because you don't want it to be cheesy. If...
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Second only to language in the hierarchy of advanced survival skills must be the ability to imagine something that does not yet exist, and then make that dream into something solid and real. Just look around you as you read this, and try to find something in your house or office that at one time was...
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Perhaps the toughest skill that the artist painting outside must learn is the ability to judge values accurately, and then mix them in paint. The reason that this skill requires so much practice to get right is because our eyes and brains are constantly adjusting to the light, kind of like a video camera...
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I hesitate to admit that some of my education these days is derived from Facebook, thanks to those seemingly endless placards with quotes that people are always posting: "I think it's weird how some days I feel skinny and some days I feel like a busted can of biscuits." While this is cute...
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With the rapidly expanding emergence of social media over the last several years, I think the majority of artists--like most people--have looked upon the phenomenon with anything from mild curiosity to enthusiastic interest. Many of us have jumped on the bandwagon to one degree or another, thoroughly...
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What is success? Be honest with yourself. Do you truly believe that a successful person is defined by the car he drives, the title after her name, or their number of Twitter followers? Life is bigger, wider, deeper than what you can fit into a shoebox. Walk onto that beach with confidence, knowing that...
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I roll my eyes every time I hear about representational art and realism being "imperiled," because there are so many important representational artists painting right now. It's almost offensive how people think legitimacy comes with the passage of time. History can be a great equalizer...
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"Frustration isn't always such a bad thing. It's a sign that you're trying something new, different, or outside your level of familiarity, and in working your way through it (and you will) you conquer this challenge and move on to the next one." -- Start Your Week with Steve , a...
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Here it is: If you aren't going to really push it when you make a landscape painting , it is going to be completely forgettable. Having looked at thousands of landscape paintings, and made a few myself, I'll be honest and tell you that only the best of the best landscape art really sticks out...
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The loss of an artist and teacher from childhood has caused me to reflect upon not only her life and work, but also those lessons that she taught me. The myriad distractions of daily life, from the constant need to earn money for survival to the many mundane chores and tasks required to keep it all going...