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Rembrandt Lighting

A lighting technique often used in portraiture. One side of the face is lit well from the main light source while the other side of the face uses the interaction of shadows and light to create this geometric form on the face.

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  • Landscape Lessons from the Masters: Monet
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  • I’d Make You a Mixed Tape, But This Is Better. Plus, Our Collection Sale Starts Today!
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  • Speed Painting Outdoors
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  • I Want to Sculpt My Drawings
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  • Drawing Basics: How I Judge My Artistic Progress & Learning from Robert Liberace
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  • Mixing Harmonious Greens in My Plein Air Painting
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  • What’s the Impressionist Way of Painting with Color?
    In Dancers at the Bar by Edgar Degas, 1888, the artist used complementary colors to make a sharp contrast between the figures and the space. We all know that Impressionism heralded a new way of painting. Material and technical advancements--metal tubes
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  • Oil Painting Lessons From John Singer Sargent
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  • We Don't Have to Settle for Paint & Brush
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  • Plein Air Painting, Spring 2011
    The industry’s favorite plein air magazine is back with more of what you love! Last year, Plein Air Painting magazine flew off the shelves! Capture info from on-site studies, direct observations, and outdoor painting instruction from top plein air painters of today. Perfect your plein air painting
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  • Painting Outdoors: Fast and Easy Block-Ins
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  • 4 Crucial Figure Painting Tips
    On Hamilton's Prairie by Rose Frantzen, 32 x 40, oil painting. Rose Frantzen's work has been on my radar for a while and even more so after I saw her oil painting portrait show at the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, which featured
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  • Just Back Up and Let the Painting Breathe
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  • 5 Tips That Fine-Tune My Outdoor Paintings
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  • Don’t Just Paint. Pour!
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  • Plein Air Essentials: The Anatomy of Water
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  • It’s What I’m Here For: Free eBook of Watercolor Lessons & Painting Techniques from Artist Daily
    Overlay by Ali Cavanaugh, 12 x 12, watercolor painting. As a wannabe artist, I have a lot of years ahead of me to invest in perfecting my painting. Knowing this, I often think about the medium I will choose to work with—what will grow with me through
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  • Hybrid Method of Painting and Drawing
    Magnificent Malibu by Gerald Rahm, 2005, pastel painting, 16 x 20. 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
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  • Oil Painting Odyssey: Making Pandora
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  • The Art of the Dog
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  • Create a Painting On My First Try? Yes, Please!
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  • Art Isn’t Just About Pretty People
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  • Painting Portraits with Personality, Mood, and Character
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  • Lightening My Plein Air Pack
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  • Come Paint in My Backyard...Practically
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  • What's the Association Factor and Why Is It a Painting 'Must'?
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  • Composing On the Fly When Painting Outdoors
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  • Plein Air Painting with Clyde Aspevig
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  • Plein Air Artist Asher B. Durand Wrote Me a Letter...Sorta...Not Really
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  • Pop Quiz: How Good Is Your Painting Memory?
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  • Building a Bridge to China with Oil Painting and Contemporary Realism
    The ACOPAL show featured contemporary American Realist painting. Whenever I step inside the beautiful and historic National Arts Club, on Gramercy Park in Manhattan, I'm reminded of how long it has been a supportive home for American Realism. In May
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  • Plein Air Painting on a Freshly Primed Surface
    Wait until you are in front of your outdoor painting scene before deciding what to tone your surface. I've found that how you prepare your canvas has a huge impact on the finished result of your plein-air painting . Do you start your painting right
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  • He Told Me I Could Share His Secrets
    Looking at paintings can be like unraveling a mystery, especially with watercolor. Layers are so delicate and there are many interesting watercolor painting techniques that are quite subtle to the eye. That's certainly what I felt when I looked at the work of watercolor artist Miguel Dominguez. I
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  • Summer 2011
    As any artist can attest, versatility is the key to a long and illustrious career. The ability to work with a variety of media, subject matter, and techniques helps keep skills up-to-date, the mind engaged, and one's creativity consistently challenged. With that in mind, we've decided to use
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  • Painting This Uniquely American Place
    America is a land of rich diversity that extends throughout our landscapes, cities, and regions. I'd say that one of the most distinctive places we have is Cape Cod. Now, being a born-and-raised Southern girl, I have always romanticized the northern coasts and beaches because they always look so
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  • 3 Ways to Assure You Are Always Growing as an Artist
    Ellen Cooper’s In Defiance of Erebus won the People’s Choice and First Place Award. After participating in a panel discussion about career goals for artists at this year’s Portrait Society of America Conference I wanted to share a few more tips that I use to keep my art growing and
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  • Plein Air Time Machine
    Plein air watercolor sketches of sites in Kansas and Charleston, South Carolina. All works by John Hulsey. It took me awhile to realize it, but I have invented a time machine. I didn’t set out to invent a time machine exactly, but like many other
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  • Bring My Painting Back From the Brink of Disaster
    Meeting artist and Studio Incamminati instructor Lea Colie Wight was a little bit like meeting a favorite celebrity and miracle worker all rolled into one. Lea's execution and subject matter resonates with me, but it is her perseverance and desire to share common experiences in painting that really
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  • Draw with Your Brush
    When Scott Royston sets his sights on flowers for one of his still life oil painting compositions, he isn’t drawn to tiny buds or small bouquets but expressive flora in full bloom. For him, painting flowers is a gradual process that starts with a rough sketch in his sketchbook and toning his canvas
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  • Building a Career for the Long Term
    For the Portrait Society of America Conference in Atlanta this year, I was invited to participate in a panel on Professionalism, Leadership, and Service. I was asked to speak to “Building a Career for the Long Term.” Now, anyone who saw my tax returns for 2010 would NOT have put me on a short
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  • How to Paint Clouds in Watercolor
    In a recent post on how to paint clouds at sunset , we diagrammed a pastel painting and explained a bit about the types of clouds one may encounter when painting outdoors . This time, we have dissected a watercolor, Ghost Ranch IV , that I painted in New Mexico near Georgia O’Keefe’s house
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  • Highlights: Painting Instruction From Master Teachers
    Get instant improvement on your portraits, landscapes, and still life’s from master teachers.
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  • Finding the Warms and Cools of White
    Painting flowers is sometimes a study in the subtlety of color, as in Ann's flower oil painting, Philadelphus III (oil, 12 x 16). Painting large flower portraits has given me the opportunity to explore what seem to be the nearly infinite shades and
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  • What’s Up With the Floating People?
    That’s one of the first questions I put to artist Caitlin Hurd about her oil paintings, which feature dazed, inert figures floating through the landscape. But they aren’t floating as much as sleepwalking, according to Hurd. “It all started with how I wanted to live my life,” she
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  • It’s Like Coupon Clipping...But Not
    When I was a kid, my mom always cut coupons on Sunday morning. I’d sit beside her and do the same, but I’d flip through magazines and newspapers and cut out pictures I liked or lettering that I thought was neat, and I never gave up my artsy coupon clipping habit because it’s a great
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  • Reaching New Levels of Creativity En Plein Air
    Do you ever feel like you’re just painting the same old same old when you go outside to paint? Couple of trees, maybe some water—it’s actually fairly easy to fall into the rut of painting the same subjects again and again. At least, that’s how I get to feeling on occasion.
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  • Weekend With the Masters 2011: Exciting New Educational Opportunities & Breathtaking Location
    Golden by Daniel Gerhartz, oil on canvas, 16 x 12. Since its inception in 2009, Weekend With the Masters Workshop & Conference has brought together some of the top instructors of representational art under one roof for a long weekend of workshops
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  • There's Nothing Quite Like Custom Made
    I’ve always dreamed of having something, anything—shoes, a coat, a car!—custom made. While all of those are pretty much still out of my reach, I know that I can custom design how I get my art training. There are a lot of options out there for us art-minded folk, but I spoke to Rob Zeller
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  • The Artist’s Road—A Journey Not a Destination
    When John Hulsey and Ann Trusty told me the name of their website— The Artist’s Road —I smiled to myself because they got it so right! Art—painting, drawing, sculpting, all of it—is a path, a journey. Sometimes the path is smooth and things go right, and sometimes it is
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  • Step by Step: Sketch to Finished Painting + Plein Air Download for a Dime
    When Richard McKinley creates a landscape painting , he likens it to a dance, a push-pull between the artist’s feelings for the place and the tendencies of the medium. For his landscape art, he focuses on a subtle progression of color layers and
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  • Using Your Sketchbook to Good Advantage
    Hi all! This is my first blog at Artist Daily, and I wanted to jump right in and discuss one of the best things I think a plein air painter can do—use a sketchbook to plan your composition and clarify your vision of the finished painting you have in mind.
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  • Varnish, Varnish Everywhere
    I interviewed Sadie Valeri on her unusual wax paper paintings months and months ago, but since then I've been keeping an eye on her. She's got great spirit, enviable talent, and she's just super nice! Little did I know that her sweet exterior
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  • What Could Be Better Than a Free eBook on Landscape Painting?
    My answer to that is nada! Zippo! Zilch! As the weather heats up from coast to coast, now is the time when artists turn their attention to the excitement of landscape painting. But I'll be honest with you. I'm still intimidated by the whole landscape painting process. There seems to be so much
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  • Artist Daily Member Spotlight: Asghar Gonchehpour
    One of the things I love best as the editor for Artist Daily is getting to know the artists in our community. A few weeks ago, I saw a mixed media portrait in the Member Gallery that caught my attention. The painting--a girl with wild, colorful hair and a tranquil expression on her face--looked like
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  • The Gowanus Ballroom
    The Gowanus Ballroom brought together installation art, contemporary sculpture, and realist painting. Every once in a while, I get to do something that is comes uniquely from the place where I’ve chosen to live—Brooklyn. My studio is in Gowanus
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  • Bring On the Botox...Or Not
    Artist Daniel Gerhartz's new book, Not Far From Home , is a visual compendium of his life's work as a painter. In it, you not only find inspiring, lush photographs of Gerhart'z paintings, but insightful and instructional information as well. To showcase all of the great content in the book
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  • Painting to Establish Intimacy
    Artists create for a lot of reasons--ego, instinct, livelihood--but author and painter Margaret Krug creates for a very unique reason: to enfold us in the intimacy and delicacy of her personal artistic vision. Often working on a small scale, sometimes on a surface no larger than a postcard, Krug paints
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  • May I Introduce Odd Nerdrum?
    Summit by Odd Nerdrum, oil painting, 2000, 93 x 88. Odd Nerdrum: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Odd Nerdrum was born in Hälsingborg, Sweden, in 1944. He was a student at The Academy of Art in Oslo at the time when Modernism made its delayed
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  • May I Introduce Stephen Early?
    Glass Study 3 by Stephen Early, oil painting on masonite, 7 x 5. Stephen Early: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Artist Stephen Early began his art education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He has received many notable portrait
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  • May I Introduce Daniel Sprick?
    Untitled by Daniel Sprick, 2006, 24 x 24, oil painting. Daniel Sprick: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Daniel Sprick was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He studied at the Froman School of Art and The National Academy of Design and received his B.F
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  • May I Introduce Ray Roberts?
    Seascape by Ray Roberts, oil painting. Ray Roberts: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Ray Roberts is best known for his seascapes, figurative work, and majestic views of California and the Southwest, and is one of California's most respected plein
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  • May I Introduce Ron Hicks?
    The Love on the Road by Ron Hicks, oil painting. Ron Hicks: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Ron Hicks grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and was introduced to art at an early age under the influence of his artist mother. Continuing to pursue drawing through
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  • May I Introduce Albert Handell?
    Pastel painter and oil painter Albert Handell. Albert Handell: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Pastelist and oil painter Albert Handell was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. At an early age, a favorite activity of his was drawing with chalks on
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  • May I Introduce George Gallo?
    Connecticut Yankee Spring by George Gallo, 20 x 24, oil painting. George Gallo: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Award-winning writer, director, and painter George Gallo is capturing the hearts of both the general public and artist-audiences everywhere
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  • May I Introduce David Jon Kassan?
    Approaching Noise (in progress) by David Jon Kassan, oil painting on wood panel, 40 x 34. David Jon Kassan: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Following his initial drawing studies at University of the Arts, in Philadelphia, David Jon Kassan attended
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  • May I Introduce Daniel Pinkham?
    Sublime Order by Daniel Pinkham, oil painting. Daniel Pinkham: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Born in Los Angeles, Daniel Pinkham has been a principal force in the resurgence of plein air painting in California and throughout the country. Pinkham
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  • May I Introduce Mary Whyte?
    Graffiti by Mary Whyte, watercolor painting. Mary Whyte: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Born in Ohio in 1953, Mary Whyte grew up with all the rural Midwest has to offer. She graduated from Tyler School of Art, in Philadelphia, in 1976 with a Bachelor
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  • May I Introduce Anthony Ryder?
    Twilight by Tony Ryder, 1998, pencil drawing, 25 x 19. Tony Ryder: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Anthony Ryder studied at the Art Students League of New York, the New York Academy of Art, and the Ecole Albert Defois, in France, with oil painter
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  • May I Introduce Skip Whitcomb?
    Dawn, High Tide-Navesink River by Skip Whitcomb, oil painting on linen, 10 x 20. Skip Whitcomb: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Born in 1946, M.W. Skip Whitcomb has been interested in art since his childhood on a ranch near Sterling, Colorado. However
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  • May I Introduce C.W. Mundy?
    Morro Bay Rock, Near Cambria by C.W. Mundy, oil painting on linen, 16 x 20. C.W. Mundy: Weekend With the Masters Instructor C.W. Mundy, an American impressionist, was born in 1945 and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. He graduated with a B.F.A. from Ball
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  • May I Introduce Peter Adams?
    Crashing Waves at Three Arch Bay; Laguna Beach by Peter Adams , pastel painting, 12 x 16. Peter Adams: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Peter Adams was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 27, 1950 and he received his training in California at
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  • May I Introduce Kevin Macpherson?
    Santa Catalina Island by Kevin Macpherson, oil painting, 30 x 50. Kevin Macpherson: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Kevin Macpherson is one of the country's leading plein air painters and is highly respected among collectors and fellow artists
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  • May I Introduce Stephen Quiller?
    February Shadows, Rio Grande by Stephen Quiller, acrylic painting, 17 x 19 1/2. Stephen Quiller: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Stephen Quiller is an internationally known painter who works primarily in water media, monotypes, and intaglio printmaking
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  • May I Introduce Richard Schmid?
    Throughout his career, Richard Schmid has promoted art education through his books, articles, workshops, seminars, and television presentations. Richard Schmid: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Richard Schmid was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1934.
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  • May I Introduce Marcia Burtt?
    Winter Sun, Full Moon by Marcia Burtt , acrylic painting. Marcia Burtt: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Marcia Burtt graduated from University of California Berkeley with a major in psychology and earned an M.A. in art from the University of Montana
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  • May I Introduce Frank Serrano?
    Sunlit Birch by Frank Serrano, oil on canvas, 12 x 12. Frank Serrano: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Contemporary landscape artist and plein air painter Frank M. Serrano was born in Los Angeles on November 29, 1967. He developed an early interest
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  • May I Introduce Jacob Collins?
    Thinking Man by Jacob Collins, oil painting, 30 x 20, 2004. Jacob Collins: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Jacob Collins is a leading figure in the contemporary revival of classical painting. He earned a B.A. in history from Columbia College and attended
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  • May I Introduce Carolyn Anderson?
    Dave by Carolyn Anderson, oil painting, 16 x 12. Carolyn Anderson: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Carolyn Anderson , a nationally recognized artist, is an accomplished pastelist and oil painter. Born and raised in the Chicago area, Anderson attended
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  • May I Introduce Camille Przewodek?
    Vineyard Melody by Camille Przewodek, 16 x 20, oil on canvas. Camille Przewodek: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Camille Przewodek is a plein air colorist based in Petaluma, California, who received her B.F.A. in illustration from the Academy of Art
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  • May I Introduce Joseph Paquet?
    Morning Light Crystal Cove , by Joe Paquet, oil painting on linen. Joseph Paquet: Weekend With the Masters Instructor Joseph Paquet received his Bachelors of Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, and had the good fortune of being mentored
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  • Nothing Watered Down About Her Work
    Over and over again I hear artists cooing about the thick richness of oil paints and its appealing spreadability, and yes, all of that is totally true. But artist Bev Jozwiak is giving oil a run for its money in terms of buttery appearance and saturated colors, and she’s doing it with watercolor
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  • More Tips for Painting Water En Plein Air
    John and Ann’s recent post about painting water en plein air was so inspiring and right on target. I love painting water elements, too, because they always make plein air landscape paintings more interesting. John and Ann’s tips were great, and I have two more to add:
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  • What I Get From Other Artists
    Wilson uses the visual world as a lexicon of poetic images, as in his painting, Mary . In the 19th century, painters depicted modern life, embracing the “real” and eschewing narrative subjects and symbolism. Now, modern figure painters are
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  • Painting Clouds, Part I: Sunset Clouds
    Living as we do in the center of the country where the dominant feature of the landscape is the sky, we have always enjoyed painting the rich variety of clouds here. Besides being beautiful to look at, clouds can tell us all sorts of things about the weather, both present and future, that can prove very
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  • It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s an Artist?!
    Artists aren’t superheroes. No capes, no spandex onesies, and no butlers named Alfred. Artists don’t necessarily lead extraordinary lives in which they paint or draw between bouts of saving the world. Artists are like you and me. They are you and me, actually. We all go about our day-to-day
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  • The Romance Is Overrated
    I used to think so romantically about Monet, Pissarro, and the other Impressionists. Not romantic like Manet is so dreamy; romantic as in idealizing this particular group of painters—thinking they stepped outside of their studios and, snap, Impressionism just happened. Veneration can sometimes
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  • The Ultimate Backpack--Professional Tips for Packing Light
    Here's John using his heavy-weight watercolor gear while painting in Colorado. Through trial and error, over the years, we have figured out how to pack for our foot-powered plein-air painting adventures. We like to keep our heavy-duty Eagle Creek
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  • Do You Speak The Two Languages of Art?
    No, not Spanish or Italian or French. An artist needs to be fluent in the languages of realism and abstraction. By realism I mean the formal aspects of art--the painting techniques and drawing skills we develop over time through experience. Abstraction is the other side of the coin, the visual language
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  • Finding Meaning in the Details of My Painting
    Sometimes in making a small study for a larger oil painting, an artist will sketch in certain areas very loosely. It's almost as if she says to herself, "and there's some other stuff that fills in this area of the composition, but I'll think about that later." With the set of small
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  • A Painting Technique That’s Outside the Box…Er, Brush
    Breaking out of a painting rut sometimes requires a little more oomph than just adding another color to your palette or going from a still life to a figure painting. Sometimes your whole process needs an overhaul. A few years ago, artist Francis Di Fronzo took a fairly drastic measure to take his work
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  • How to Paint the Look and Feel of Spring
    I’m a color junkie. In fashion, in design, and especially in painting, vibrant color is what gets me creative. But before the image of Mimi from The Drew Carey Show becomes forever attached to my name in your mind, I’ll point out that I can control myself…sometimes. It’s tough
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  • How To Transfer a Study to a Large Canvas
    Study for Leaves of Grass . All works by Patricia Watwood. With the image of a female figure reading in the summer grass in mind, I began to develop my oil painting , Leaves of Grass . I started with a preparatory drawing. I work with models and from
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  • And the Award Goes to...
    I've been waiting all my life to have a red-carpet moment, but who knows when the Academy will get around to remembering my searing director's debut at the age of 14, when I put on a musical version of Hamlet to the theme song of The Beatles' "Obladi Oblada." (Maybe you had to be
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  • Workshop, Fall 2010
    Measure First, Draw Second; The Pathway to Great Compositions; Make Every ?Brushstroke Count; Learn How Top Artists Paint; How the Academic Technique can Work for You
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  • Okay, okay! You win! Here’s your Free eBook on Plein Air Painting
    Point Lobos , oil, 12 x 16. All works by Matt Smith . Have you ever had a moment where you’ve stumbled on something unexpected and you think to yourself, “What a find!” That was so me a few days ago. I read an amazing Q&A that one
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  • Palette Knife in Hand
    Palette knife painting sounds a little edgy and dangerous, but it’s really all about texture—the thick impasto swipes and flat sweeps of color that make up the surface of a painting. I’ve never created an entire painting with just a palette knife before, and I wanted to see what the
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  • The Art of Painting Water: 4 Plein Air Tips
    Water is perhaps one of the more challenging subjects to paint convincingly in a plein air landscape painting. Whether one is inspired by the ocean, a river, or a pond or lake, each subject requires a studied familiarity and often distinctly different paint handling. Here are a just a few tips that we
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  • Painting with a ‘Show Me’ State of Mind
    Darrell Brown paints simple, seemingly timeless "portraits" of fruits and vegetables. A few days ago a reader came to me with a good point: If an artist running a workshop can talk about the philosophy behind his or her oil painting art, all
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  • The One Skill Every Artist Needs
    As plein air artists, we have had to become very aware of our own visual filtering processes--our visual biases. We train ourselves to focus our eyes and our minds on the subject before us, but it is only when we can quiet the mind from labeling and judging what we see that we are ever able to truly
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  • Workshop, Summer 2010
    10 Keys To Making Accurate Judgments; Use Measurements & Simple Shapes for Better Portraits; Learn Variations of Impressionist Painting; 4 Stages Of Successful Plein Air Paintings
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  • Developing a Narrative Theme for an Oil Painting
    For a while now, I have been exploring narrative themes. This is what R. H. Ives Gammell called “poetical pictures.” In the 19th century, this was commonly referred to as “history painting”, but by history they did not just mean world events as we define the term. “Poetical
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  • Plein Air Painting Essentials: How to Paint Trees
    This plein air painting by Tom Brown is impressionistic, but gives you a distinct sense of the form and structure of the scrub tree he's painting. We often think of trees in a very human way—that they have personalities and traits that distinguish
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  • Video on Light and Shadow: Portrait Painting with Scott Burdick and Daniel Gerhartz
    The American Artist Weekend With the Masters events are always a whirlwind of activity—new people to meet, alluring art to gawk over, and then there are the workshops. Articulate, passionate artist-instructors share their own particular artistic
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    Clouds are not all created equal, just like not every sunset or skyscape is the same. They all have their own unique look and feel, even though we can see them all the time. And it is the plein air artist's goal, passion, purpose to eek out that unique something in every scene they decide to paint
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  • Home Ground - Finding Inspiration in the Familiar
    The lesson we first learned when living and painting in the Hudson Valley in New York is that as plein air painters there is a deep pleasure to be gained from becoming intimately familiar with the same piece of ground over many years. The process is essentially a silent conversation, in which we can
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  • A Painter's Best Bet: Stay in Kindergarten
    Jeffree , oil, 18 x 15. All works by David A. Leffel. I spend a lot of time brainstorming how an artist can become an Old Master of the 21st century. What kind of confidence, skill, and vision will it take for an artist working today to gain that reputation
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  • If I Could Paint Any Four Walls
    After developing an unnatural dependency on my galoshes and stocking my kitchen shelves with an outrageous amount of sugary sweets in case of snowstorms, I’ve come to realize that it is nice to be on the inside, cozy and warm, looking out. My creature comforts appreciation has definitely also influenced
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  • How Do You Paint a Natural Wonder?
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  • Faith in the Wilderness--How One Oil Painting Artist Stays Committed
    Perhaps sometime over the last couple of years, you looked at your most recent drawing or oil painting and thought “Why am I doing this?” The economic recession has caused all of us to rethink our commitments and has given many artists reason to doubt that “making it” as a professional
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  • How’s Your Plein Air Vision?
    Somewhere out there, maybe even as you read this, a group of hungry, dedicated artists are taking a plein-air painting workshop. And at some point during this workshop—perhaps right at this very moment—one of those aspiring artists will ask the classic question voiced at least once in every
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  • 5 Surefire Plein Air Painting Techniques
    The Evening Show by Clyde Aspevig, oil, 40 x 36. You can often tell a painting that was painted en plein air from one that wasn’t. There is an immediacy to the light and atmosphere depicted in plein air paintings that isn’t always achieved
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  • Inspired Vision - Why Traveling to New Landscapes is Important to the Plein Air Painter
    In the 25+ years that we traveled to northern New Mexico to paint, we have explored its charms in every season of the year and have never failed to find wonderful scene after wonderful scene for a plein air painting . A big part of this charm is that this area of the Southwest is just inherently stunning
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  • Oil on Canvas: What I'm Up To
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  • Is "How to Paint" the Right Question?
    When we start making art, we don't start from a position of, "I want to paint like so-and-so," or not even, necessarily, "I want to paint well." We should start from a position of, "I have a need to make art." This is an important principle; it gives us the strength
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  • Spring 2011
    Turn Mistakes into Masterpieces; create the element of surprise with acrylics; get creative with Sunlight and Shadow; use value studies To Save Time; go inside Workshops With the Pros
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  • How to Paint a Piece of Americana
    Shaker Barns by Charles Sheeler, 1945, tempera on board. When I think of the features that make up a truly American landscape, there’s one structure that always sticks out in my mind—a big, broadsided barn. They dot the countryside from coast
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  • Plein Air Painting: Finding Your Commitment and Accountability
    This past Saturday was a beauty. The weather was warm enough to be outside comfortably, the light was sparkling, and it would have been a fine day to paint en plein air. Would have... if I had painted. But I didn’t. Instead, I went to a meeting and then spent the afternoon on the computer, completing
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  • Extreme Painting - Part III: Painting the Winter Night en Plein Air
    I like pastel for winter work because of the ease of not having to deal with paint thinner, stiff paint, or mixing color on a palette. When winter graces us with her charms and everywhere you look is covered in a beautiful layer of snow, Ann and I get
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  • Free Video Demo—Watercolor Painting With Mary Whyte
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  • Bring Together the Outdoors and Indoors In Your Landscape Paintings
    When I’m landscape painting I’m always drawn to the curious, in-between places where the outdoors and indoors meet. This could be an ivy-smothered barn that almost looks like it is disappearing into the landscape, or an ocean view from an open window. The places where architecture and the
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  • The Upside of Plein Air Competition
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  • Oil Painting, Studio Practice, and More from New Blogger Patricia Watwood
    Waiting for Supper , 18” x 35”, oil on canvas, 2010. All works by Patricia Watwood . Hello! I am delighted to begin this new venture with Artist Daily and start an ongoing conversation about my painting process and my thoughts on art. Most
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  • Extreme Plein Air Painting - Part II: Shadow Light
    Tracks II by John Hulsey, pastel. With the high-contrast conditions of winter sun on brilliant snow, we have been exploring the colors of snow and shadows in our plein air paintings. Shadows are essential because they create the form and interest in a
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  • Twilight Painting en Plein Air--No Vampires, Please
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  • Landscape Painter Clark Hulings Dies at Age 88
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  • Extreme Plein Air Painting--Conquering Old Man Winter
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  • Sunset En Plein Air
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  • Plein Air Painting: Isn’t It Romantic?
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  • It's Finally Here: Our New Free eBook on Oil Painting Techniques
    I’ve always prided myself on learning good technique when faced with any new skill, and doing this has definitely made a difference. That goes for when I was learning to dance, swim, draw, or paint in oil. Art techniques were always especially rewarding to tackle this way, because once you grasp
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  • You're Gonna Need a Pair of Boots
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  • How to Evaluate Your Outdoor Painting
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  • Painting Instruction Highlights from Master Teachers, Fall 2009
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  • Don't Fear the Pack
    As much as the stereotype of the solitary painter working alone and shutting him- or herself off from the world makes artists seem mysterious and cool, I’ve found that artists tend to be fairly social creatures, and their cool factor isn’t lessened by their sense of community. Sometimes this
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  • Learn the Latest Tips in Our Free Portrait Painting eBook
    Trying to capture the likeness of a person in a finite period of time and meeting the high expectations often associated with portraiture are far from effortless tasks. They take commitment and savvy to do well. Our eBook Oil Painting Lessons on How to Paint a Portrait: 15 Portrait Painting Techniques
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  • Workshop, Fall 2009
    Use a Limited Pallette for Greater Benefits; 10 Concrete Solutions for Figure Painting; How to Accurately See the Color Light; Andrea J. Smith; Bryan Mark Taylor; Steve Huston; Clayton J Beck III.
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  • Nature with a Bit of Edge
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  • Make a Painter’s Resolution
    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 revamp my process, but there are a few old habits that I want to break and a few new ones I want to instill. I’ve found
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  • Don't Paint the Sky Blue!
    Because it’s hardly ever really blue. Think of Turner’s skies or even Monet’s—they are multifaceted and carry the hum of several colors. As many of us transition from painting outdoors to inside the studio, we can sometimes make assumptions and take certain things for granted
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  • New Video Blog: See the Secret to Positioning Your Brush
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  • Free eBook—Full of Acrylic Painting Techniques for You
    Sunset in the Teton Valley by Gil Dellinger, 2008, acrylic, 16 x 20. Almost all the painting I did in college was with acrylics, and most of the students I worked in class with did the same. Painting with acrylics was our best option because the paints
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  • Should You Paint Lies?
    Les reclus by Philippe Jacquet, 31 1/2 x 46 1/2. All images courtesy Axelle Fine Arts. Most painters I’ve spoken to say that it’s somewhat liberating to paint an imagined subject or a fictitious place. Working in such a way does come with
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  • Portait & Figure Painting Highlights
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  • Where Exceptional Artists Gather
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  • Coming To You From Weekend With the Masters
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  • Counting Down to the Big Event
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  • Paint to Preserve the Scenery You Love
    As an artist who has painted the natural world for over 20 years, Adam Straus has a complicated connection to his environment. In the 1990s, he painted Oil Slicks , a series of paintings that referenced the oil spills that happened at the time, and the relevancy of these paintings has been asserted again
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  • Workshop, Fall 2010
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  • Defy Expectations—See In a New Way
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  • Draw on Tradition to Create Lasting Art
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  • Free eBook for Your Best Summer Outdoor Painting Experience
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  • Learn to Paint the Unexpected
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  • Best of Watercolor, 2010
    On the Cover: Barrens in October (detail) by Paul Rickert, 2002, watercolor, 11 x 14. Collection the artist. Artists In This Issue Anne Abgott Jane Paul Angelhart Sue Archer Bo Bartlett Dan Brown Peggy Brown Carl Dalio Sondra Freckelton Laurin McCracken
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  • Make the Most of the Plein Air Painting Season
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  • Paint Every Figure With the Power of a Portrait
    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 Brito-who has spent the last several years painting family members and friends in familiar surroundings, such
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  • Plein Air Classes at WWM 2010
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  • July/August 2010
    How to Paint Landscapes; 10 Cover Contest Winners Offer You Their Best Advice; Combine Watermedia & Pastel for Inspired Results; Express Content with Fewer Brushstrokes
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  • Sharpen Your Ability to Judge Color Tone and Value
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  • Discover How to Use an Extensive Painting Palette
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  • Workshop, Summer 2010
    On the Cover: Camie Davis (below) teaching at the Grand Central Academy of Art, in New York City. Photo by Nathan Kraxberger Cedric Egeli: Knowing How to Learn FEATURES Workshops as Shared Learning Experiences by M. Stephen Doherty A number of valuable
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  • How to Successfully Paint Color Relationships from the Start
    Painting instructors often ask students to consider two important relationships between the colors squeezed out on their palettes: value and temperature. By that they are asking them to consider whether one color mixture is lighter or darker than another, and whether the mixtures tend to have a warm
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  • Learn How to Paint Like a Sculptor
    Weekend With the Masters instructor Jacqueline Kamin paints with a sculptural sensibility that isn’t at all foreign to her practice. Earlier in her career she spent time as a bronze bust sculptor. “Working with sculpture is a lot of fun,” Kamin says. “It is very tactile and organic
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  • What Every Artist Can Learn From Plein Air Painting
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  • Adaptability and Durability are Proven Aspects of Encaustic Painting
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  • June 2010
    SPECIAL REPORT Explore New Creative Ideas With Acrylics; Learn From Sorolla’s Epic Masterpiece; Increase the Drama in Pastel Paintings; How to Plan & Improve Your Watercolors
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  • New eBook Teaches Acrylic Painting in 7 Steps
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  • Accessing Universal Emotions Makes a Successful Portrait
    Models With Japanese Screen by Malcolm T. Liepke, 1986, oil, 26 x 20. Courtesy Arcadia Fine Arts, New York, New York 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
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  • Take Advantage of Our Plein Air Expertise
    Kevin Macpherson is a renowned artist and instructor with 30 years of plein air painting experience. For newcomers, painting en plein air means literally, painting “in the open air,” and is the genre associated with painting outdoors. In 1996, Macpherson challenged himself to what I’d
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  • Free Tips and Techniques for Painting Oil Landscapes
    With landscape artist Chris McHenry's hard-won oil painting tips and techniques, you’ll start to understand how to create a realistic sense of contrast for objects in your paintings, establish depth and focus in a landscape painting with a balance of warm and cool colors, and more. Attending
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  • American Artist: Everything You Need to Know About Plein Air Painting
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  • April 2010
    How to Paint With Spontaneity & Insight; Benefit from a Beginner's; Sense of Adventure; Bring Drawings to Life In Watercolor Paintings; Professional Advice on Painting With Pastel, Oil & Watercolor and much more!
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  • Finding Your Personal Style
    It’s often said that artists don’t find their personal style—it finds them. Although I agree with this statement, I found in my experience that individual style develops only after a number of other tasks are accomplished. All professional
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  • Taking Advantage of Free Instruction
    I recently joined a gym in my neighborhood, with the hopes of working off some of those extra holiday pounds that seem to wear out their welcome around this time every year. My schedule is pretty busy, so I try to streamline my visits, making a beeline
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  • Workshop, Spring 2010
    On the Cover: John Morra teaching still life painting in New York City. Photo by Nathan Kraxberger Michelle Dunaway: Painting From the Center FEATURES Paul DeLorenzo: Learn the Basics of Academic Figure Painting by M. Stephen Doherty Having been trained
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  • Sight-Size Drawing and Painting
    I've written a number of articles on artists who use the sight-size approach to painting, but the method became clearer to me while I was writing an article on Paul DeLorenzo for the spring 2010 issue of Workshop . The procedure is to stand a measured
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  • Paint Landscapes From Sketches, Memory, and Photographs
    Ever since my trip to Venice, Italy, last year, I have been looking at paintings of the city by 19th-century artists such as Sargent and Whistler, as well as contemporary artists such as Steve Rogers and Leonard Mizerek . I've become more aware of
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  • Free Watercolor Painting Tips and Techniques
    It’s often said in sports circles that the best players often make the worst coaches. That’s because it is hard for naturally gifted athletes to relate to players who are not so innately talented. A perfect example of this is former Boston
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  • Watercolors by Architects
    Greek Steps, Sifnos by Thomas W. Schaller, 2008, watercolor, 12 x 9. I just finished writing an article on Thomas W. Schaller's watercolor paintings for the April 2010 issue of American Artist, and it occurred to me that Thomas is the third licensed
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  • Painting From Photographs
    I normally work from plein air sketches or my imagination, but this scene I photographed while on vacation in Costa Rica was just too beautiful to pass up. As most artists do when working from a photo, I made adjustments to the composition to better suit
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  • 24 Tips to Learn How To Paint a Plein Air Landscape
    Our newest free eBook, “24 Tips to Learn How to Paint a Plein Air Landscape,” is now available to download, and in it you’ll find tips on how to get started working en plein air and how to improve your en plein air painting technique
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  • Watercolor, Winter 2010
    On the Cover: Breakfast Club (detail) by Gordon France, 2004, watercolor, 20 x 28. Private collection. Artist to Artist: Dean Mitchell Modern Masters: Jan Kunz DEPARTMENTS Editor's Note Contributors Noteworthy FEATURES Weekend With the Masters Review
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  • En Plein Air: Holiday Exhibitions & Shows
    ‘Tis the time of the year when galleries across the country host their annual holiday exhibitions, giving artists, dealers, and collectors the opportunity to gather around great art and share some Christmas cheer. Whether these shows are organized
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  • Important New Research on Artists and Art Materials
    It’s quite probable that you were already creating artwork by the time you were 20 years old. In fact, you were likely spending a good bit of time drawing, painting, sculpting, or crafting when you were 12. Those are two of the inferences that might
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  • En Plein Air: One of the First Filmed Plein Air Painters
    Although revered for his portrait work and known for being an artistic rival of his contemporary John Singer Sargent, Philip de László also painted landscapes, and one of the first known film documentations of an artist painting en plein air depicts him. That film clip of the artist painting
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  • Free Lessons From Top Watercolor Artists
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  • Showcase Your State: North Carolina Finalists!
    The American Artist editors have reviewed the submissions for the Showcase Your State: North Carolina contest, and below are the four chosen finalists. Whether it was expansive views of the Blue Ridge Mountains as seen from the Highlands; still, serene
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  • Building Rich and Full Layers
    By subtly layering pastel, Marlene Wiedenbaum creates a luscious and convincing sense of the world.
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  • Why I Must Paint Plein Air Studies
    I admit that I am not one who adores painting on location. If the truth be known, when I visit a national park, I'd rather be exploring and walking around—taking photos of everything that strikes my interest. Oh yes, I've paid my dues by
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  • En Plein Air: The Physics of the Sky
    Yesterday, as the articles from the upcoming winter issue of Workshop magazine circulated around the editors’ desks, I was struck by how many high-quality artists are featured in this issue and what valuable advice they offer readers through their
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  • How to Adjust to New Painting Subjects
    Curt Walters painting at the Grand Canyon. None of us want to be stuck in the rut of painting the same subjects over and over again, so we try different landscape locations, select new groups of still life objects, or join a sketch group that hires models
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  • How to Act Like an Art Collector
    When artists shop for a gallery to represent them, it's helpful if when they first visit they avoid acting or looking like an artist and instead take on the behavior of a collector. This can help you to learn how attentive a gallery’s staff is, and it allows you to assess how much they know
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Jacob Collins
    Known primarily for his figurative work and for leading a resurgence in classical art education through his Water Street Atelier and the Grand Central Academy of Art, in New York City, Jacob Collins is now the founder of the Hudson River Fellowship ,
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  • En Plein Air at Weekend With the Masters
    Weekend With the Masters recently concluded in Colorado Springs, and I thought I’d share some of the photographs from the plein air portion of the event with you here. Enjoy!
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  • Painting Instruction Highlights from Master Teachers, Fall 2009
    14 Top Instructors Share Their Secrets; How to Paint From Photographs; Complete Instruction in Painting Figures, Still Lifes & Landscapes; 12 Step-by-Step Demonstrations & Lists of Materials Check out what's featured in the Fall 2009 issue of American Artist Highlights.
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  • Presentations That Help Sell Artwork
    I recently attended the opening of an exhibition of artwork by a group of artists, and the display raised questions in my mind about the impact of presentation on sales and career development. The exhibition was a temporary display in a community center
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  • November 2009
    Check out what's featured in the November 2009 issue of American Artist.
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  • The Artist We Love to Hate
    Although most of the recent news about Thomas Kinkade has concerned the disagreements between his company, former employees, franchised gallery owners, and the FBI (detailed in articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and in the Los Angeles Times ), it
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  • Priming Your Mind for Painting
    by Lori Woodward Simons As I've mentioned in past blogs, artists are motivated visually—at least I am. It seems our minds follow and are motivated by what we see. So in order to get busy on a painting, I need to remove myself from distractions
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  • Watercolor, Fall 2009
    Check out what's featured in the Fall 2009 issue of Watercolor .
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  • Behind the Scenes: Artists' Studios
    My office is also a conference room on the third floor of a building on 46th Street in Midtown New York City. The desk and file cabinets are pushed against the east wall of what was once a library, and a large conference table and eight chairs are arranged
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  • 3 Proven Ways To Start Watercolors Outdoors
    Michigan artist Jim Johnson offers valuable hints for successful watercolor painting outdoors.
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  • October 2009
    Check out what's featured in the October 2009 issue of American Artist.
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  • Workshop, Fall 2009
    Check out what's featured in the Fall 2009 issue of Workshop magazine.
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  • Andrea J. Smith: Expand From a Limited Palette and Focus
    In the new atelier she opened in Rome, Andrea J. Smith teaches students to use a limited palette of colors when painting exactly what they see from a measured distance away from the subject and the easel.
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  • Plein Air Exhibition on Balboa Island
    The artwork of nationally recognized plein air painters Greg LaRock, Jeff Sewell, Carolyn Hesse-Low, Jeff Yeomans, and JoAnn Royal will be the subject of a celebratory exhibition at Rainey Fine Art, in Newport Beach, California. The gallery is commemorating its first anniversary by featuring the works
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  • Drawing with Acrylics, Charcoal, Ink, & Conté
    Most of the students attending workshops and art classes rely on the instructor’s list of recommended supplies when deciding what drawing and painting materials to use, so their resulting artwork usually looks quite similar. However, when artists
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  • Plein Air Painting to Help Special-Needs Teens
    Nancy Bea Miller, a painter and mother of three, has organized a plein air paint-out to benefit the Camphill Special School’s Transition Program for teens and youths with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The paint out will be followed by an exhibition of the artists’ work at The
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  • Drawing Basics: Does Mr. Ed Have an Advantage Over You?
    It's crazy to say that horses have a visual advantage over humans, but with eyes on opposite sides of their heads, they surely don't see in three-dimensional terms like we do. There are times especially for beginners when seeing less--seeing a
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  • En Plein Air: Prepatory Sketch, Or Finished Work?
    I recently returned from a trip to Colorado, and while on that trip I got into quite the (heated) debate with two figure painters who claimed that plein air painters who sell their on-site sketches are bringing down the overall value of art. What’s your opinion? Is plein air painting a means to
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  • Drawing Basics: The One Rule We Hear More Than Any Other From Art Teachers
    Very few rules are absolute in art. But one rule keeps popping up in our magazines, quoted by art instructors and artists of all types...
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  • En Plein Air: The Golden Hour
    Photographers have coined the term “The Golden Hour” to explain the ideal lighting situation that takes place during the first and last hours of light each day. Plein air painters have an equal admiration for this time of day and find the quality and character of light to be well worth the
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  • Children Painting, Laughing, Learning and Your Valuable Advice
    I recently assisted my granddaughter, Amanda, as she painted with water-soluble tempera colors in our backyard. Like most four-year-olds, she loves to draw and paint, and although her drawings have become increasingly controlled pictures of herself, her parents, five pets, and her home, the paintings
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  • The Sublime and the Beautiful: Painting the Hudson Valley
    In honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage, the art community prepares to celebrate the extraordinary history of painting along the Hudson River.
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  • En Plein Air: Paint-Out in Central Park
    Kevin Macpherson, Kenn Backhaus, Joe Anna Arnett, and James Asher—four professional artists who are featured in the PBS series Passport & Palette—will convene in Central Park this Saturday, July 18, for a plein air paint-out. This event is free and open to the public, so be sure to join
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  • En Plein Air: For the Love of Light
    If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about dedicated plein air painters, it’s their love of light and the great lengths they’ll go to behold and/or paint the perfect light condition. I’d like to hear your stories of a particular instance where you risked life or limb to get
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Camille Przewodek
    California landscape painter Camille Przewodek's approach to plein air painting is all about capturing the color of light. She credits her teacher Henry Hensche with opening her eyes to this new way of seeing when she was a student, and now she helps other plein air painters see the light through
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  • How to Paint En Plein Air: Beginner Landscape Oil-Painting Techniques
    California landscape painter Frank Serrano is a popular instructor of plein air painting, generously sharing his knowledge and experience with students and helping them develop a foundation in the fundamentals of painting outdoors. Here we present two step-by-step demonstrations, taken from his book
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  • En Plein Air: The 400th Anniversary of the Hudson River Valley's Exploration
    As the Hudson River Valley gears up to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage, landscape painters are remembering the famed 19th-century Hudson River School painters who put the Hudson on the map and are celebrating with plein air events and exhibitions of their own.
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  • Drawing Basics: Drawing Day Results
    I can't speak for anyone else, but I sure enjoyed Drawing Day 2009 ! I went to Central Park with a friend, loaded down with drawing pencils, drawing sketchbooks, painting supplies, and Gatorade. Several scenes screamed out to be captured in a quick
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  • En Plein Air: On Location in Malibu
    The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University is once again presenting an exhibition of California Art Club members’ interpretations of the idyllic region of Malibu, California.
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  • Minimal Means, Maximum Impact
    Using subtle washes and minimal detail, Keiko Tanabe creates a powerful sense of time and place.
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  • Showcase Your State: Now Accepting North Carolina Entries!
    Our Plein Air: Showcase Your State competition allows artists from all over the country to share paintings and personal sentiments about the landscapes they love with the American Artist online community. We are now accepting entries for the state of North Carolina, and finalists will be announced in
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  • How to Triumph In Spite of the Odds
    Emerging artist Daniel James Keys couldn’t enroll at an art school, but he used every other available means to educate himself as an artist, to connect with other painters, and to promote his artwork. His experience proves that with determination, support, and computer savvy, artists can make significant
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  • Showcase Your State: Massachusetts Winners
    Our national Plein Air: Showcase Your State competition allows artists from around the country to share their interpretations of the landscapes that define their home states. This month we feature the Showcase Your State: Massachusetts finalists.
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  • Qiang Huang: Myth Buster
    This Texas oil painter shatters multiple myths—including the notion that artists are myopic and single-minded. Qiang Huang helps workshop participants learn how to draw, paint, and sell their artwork using modern technology and traditional painting methods.
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  • Workshop, Summer 2009
    The Table of Contents for the Summer 2009 issue of Workshop magazine.
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  • William Jameson: The Elements of a Great Workshop
    During a recent workshop in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, William Jameson provided instruction in plein air oil painting, but he knew it was just as important to offer encouragement and direction to students while they enjoyed the experience.
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  • En Plein Air: Pearls From Painters Past
    Plein air painters deal with many challenges outdoors, but the first hurdle they usually come across is choosing something to zero in on amid miles of potential subject matter. Here’s what two great landscape instructors of the past have to say about composition and design.
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  • En Plein Air: Favorite Places to Paint?
    All artists have at least one magical place where, no matter what is going on in their day or their life, they can go and just concentrate on the beauty of nature and be rejuvenated by their surroundings. What’s yours?
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  • 6 Tips on Using Color Mixtures
    The articles we publish in American Artist and our quarterly magazines repeat basic advice about one of the most challenging aspects of painting: selecting and mixing colors. Here’s a summary of those recommendations.
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  • En Plein Air: Local Color
    Los Angeles screenwriter, director, producer, and plein air painter George Gallo's movie Local Color will be released this summer and is already touching artists and audiences everywhere through prescreening promotion. Here is a preview of that movie and the story that inspired it.
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  • Rivalries Among Artists
    Steve Doherty asks readers if they have experienced bickering or tension between competitive artists at art association meetings, and compares those rivalries to the ones that occured among artists in 16th century in Venice, Italy.
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  • American Artist Cover Competition Winners Announced
    Artists from across the country submitted their work for consideration in the 2009 American Artist Cover Competition. After an extensive selection process Suzanne Eisler’s Still Life With Butterfly was chosen as the winning image. It is presented here, along with artwork from the nine other finalists
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Scott Christensen
    Idaho artist Scott Christensen is one of the most well-respected landscape painters in the country, and his understanding of light, ability to achieve pure color, and reverence for nature also make him a highly sought-after instructor. In this Q+A section, we list Christensen’s responses to 10
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  • Plein Air Painters at Weekend With the Masters
    More than 18 top painters will be teaching at American Artist’s Weekend With the Masters Workshop & Conference this September, including the following five plein air painters who will be leading master workshops and demonstrations in Colorado’s beautiful Garden of the Gods and Monument
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  • Highlights: Painting Instruction From Master Teachers
    Get instant improvement on your portraits, landscapes, and still life’s from master teachers.
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  • Connecting With Each Other, In Person and Electronically
    Steve Doherty talks about a young California artist he discovered while browsing the American Artist member's gallery.
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  • Resources for Landscape Painters
    Steve Doherty talks about landscape painting, and shows a video of a recent painting excursion in New Orleans.
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  • Showcase Your State: Massachusetts
    American Artist is now accepting Showcase Your State submissions for artists residing in the state of Massachusetts. The submission deadline is April 31, and finalists will be announced in May.
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  • How Do You Personalize Your Still Lifes?
    Recent visits to still life painting workshop and exhibitions has reminded Steve how still lifes provide an opportunity to share some aspect of our lives with those who look at our drawings and paintings. Here, he expands on that thought, and asks about the ways you compose, execute, and personalize
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  • En Plein Air: Kevin Macpherson's Reflections on a Pond
    In the upcoming May issue of American Artist, we feature Kevin Macpherson’s Reflections on a Pond project and describe how he approached this exploratory series on light and atmosphere. That article is posted here, and it can be seen in its full layout when the May issue hits newsstands on March
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  • Watercolor: Setting Up and Painting a Floral Still Life
    A simple floral arrangement can be the perfect subject for beginner still lifes.
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Joseph McGurl
    Joseph McGurl grew up under his talented father’s artistic tutelage while cultivating a passion for boating and a love of the sea. This early influence, coupled with years of hard work and practice, have made him one of today’s foremost landscape painters, and in this interview he shares
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  • Showcase Your State: New Jersey Winners
    American Artist would like to thank all of the plein air painters who submitted artwork for our Showcase Your State: New Jersey contest. From images of babbling brooks and sunlit fields in the suburbs to depictions of sailing ships and lighthouses at the Jersey Shore, New Jersey is clearly a subject
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  • The Impressionists' brushstrokes
    Q: What mediums did the Impressionists use to paint such soft, colorful strokes? A: The long strokes have more to do with technique than a particular medium. It is often said that artists are products of their age. This adage is particularly true of the
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  • English distilled turpentine
    Q: My instructor for an upcoming workshop is requesting we use English Distilled Turpentine. How does this differ from regular turpentine? His painting medium is a mixture of English turpentine, linseed oil, and dammar varnish. A: English Distilled Turpentine
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  • Painting Airy Clouds
    Q: I'm a beginner painter, and I'm hoping you can recommend a technique for painting clouds that will create the illusion of airiness. Can you help me? A: Regardless of your medium—watercolor, acrylic, or oil—the basic rules for edges
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  • April 2009
    The Table of Contents for the April 2009 issue of American Artist magazine.
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  • Modern Ways to Sell Traditional Art
    Ed Terpening may represent the future of art education and marketing. His skills as a plein air painter and a software engineer allowed him to use social-media marketing to build a flourishing art career. Reading about his experiences could help you navigate through the new world of digital communication
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  • Workshop Spring 2009
    The table of contents from the Spring 2009 issue of Workshop magazine.
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  • Quang Ho: Essential Information for Painters of All Levels
    Colorado artist Quang Ho’s new instructional DVD series offers a concise version of what students can expect in his workshops, including his eight visual approaches to painting, his views on developing understanding, and a discussion of everything he wishes he had known before he started painting
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  • En Plein Air: Favorite Landscape Instructors?
    Over the last several years workshops have increased in popularity and attendance as artists find that they can often gain just as strong a skill set and insight by spending one week with an accomplished instructor that they can in months or even years of taking accredited art classes. Who are some of
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  • En Plein Air: The Life & Work of Robert Wood
    Jeffrey Morseburg—the owner of Morseburg Galleries, in Los Angeles—has become an expert on the great landscape painter Robert Wood, having learned of the artist through his father’s personal and professional relationship with Wood, as well as having organized two retrospectives and
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  • What Do Viewers Say About Your Art?
    Steve Doherty talks about the various comments he's received while painting en plein air, and asks other artists what they've heard while working on or exhibiting their art.
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  • En Plein Air: Favorite Quotes?
    In this blog entry, Allison Malafronte lists some of her favorite quotes related to landscape painting and nature, and encourages you to share the phrases, sayings, or sentiments that have inspired you.
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Clyde Aspevig
    Clyde Aspevig's technically astute and aesthetically impressive landscape paintings have been inspiring collectors and painters alike for years, and he is often refered to as a living master among those in the landscape genre. Here, the artist offers valuable insight into how he continues to increase
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  • Drawing Basics: Is Pastel a Drawing Medium?
    Many pastelists consider their pieces to be paintings. Here at American Artist, we have tried to steer clear of the debate on whether pastel is a drawing medium or a painting medium, although when put against the wall and poked in the chest, we'll
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  • The Social Aspects of Watermedia Painting
    Steve Doherty discusses the social aspects of watermedia painting and the proliferation of watermedia organizations.
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  • En Plein Air: Favorite Landscape Painters?
    Plein air artists both past and present continue to serve as inspiration for today’s landscape painters. Here associate editor Allison Malafronte offers a look at some of her favorite historical and contemporary landscape painters and asks you to list those who have influenced your painting process
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  • En Plein Air: Letters On Landscape Painting
    Asher B. Durand was one of the great leaders of the Hudson River School of landscape painters, and his monthly “Letters on Landscape Painting” column he wrote for The Crayon offered readers of the time invaluable insight into his approach to painting nature. Durand’s advice is just
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  • Showcase Your State: Extended Deadline
    We are extending the deadline for the Showcase Your State plein air contest until January 31, 2009. We are accepting submissions for New Jersey, Massachusetts, and North Dakota. The first Showcase Your State finalists will appear on this blog in February
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  • En Plein Air: Nocturne-Painting Tips
    At some point most plein air painters try their hand at painting at twilight or at night, otherwise known as a nocturne. This can be a fun and challenging way to expand your skills as a landscape painter and force yourself to judge colors and values under
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Lynn Gertenbach
    by Allison Malafronte It’s time for my favorite En Plein Air post of the month: “A Conversation With”! This month I had the pleasure of interviewing Lynn Gertenbach, the accomplished landscape painter and instructor from California.
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  • Gifts Artists Give One Another
    Steve Doherty asked several well-known artists what gifts they would present to another artist during the upcoming holiday season. Here's what they said.
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  • Exhibition: Sur le Motif: Painting in Nature Around 1800
    This exhibition focuses on the practice of painting sur le motif , or in nature, as it developed in Europe in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. A golden age of plein air painting emerged in Italy around the turn of the 19th century, and artists
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  • En Plein Air: The Salmagundi Centennial
    A Lumpy Sea by James Gale Tyler, 1909, oil. by Allison Malafronte The Salmagundi Club, in New York City, has a long history of being one of the most important art organizations in the country and has held exhibitions over the years that have featured
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  • En Plein Air: A California Exhibition
    Stately Palms by Paul Grimm, oil, 20 x 24. Private collection. by Allison Malafronte There’s a wonderful exhibition of landscape work currently on view at The Irvine Museum, in Irvine, California, that I would like to share with all of you. It’s
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  • Real Men Paint En Plein Air
    by Allison Malafronte Nothing proves a plein air painter’s prowess like surviving a hard-core painting session battling the elements of nature. The young, talented California artists Jeremy Lipking and Tony Pro learned this the hard and—as
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  • En Plein Air: Showcase Your State!
    American Artist is announcing a new contest for the Plein Air section of our website that will allow plein air painters from across the country to showcase their state and tell us a little bit about the landscape they call home. Beginning in December
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Matt Smith
    by Allison Malafronte Every month I allow you to come into my cube for a few minutes and “listen in” on a conversation I had with a top plein air painter. I try to ask the artist the questions I think you as aspiring professional plein air
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  • Useful Art Links
    We have provided a list of links to online art resources that we think are helpful. You can also access these links in the Art Educators section of our website. Art Associations Plein Air Plein Air Painters of America The Plein Air Scene Indiana Plein
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  • En Plein Air: Painting the American Landscape
    by Allison Malafronte Kenn Backhaus painting on the shores of Resurrection Bay, in Seward, Alaska. Part of my job as an editor at American Artist and the “En Plein Air” blogger is to inform you of any events, exhibitions, or products that
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  • Oil Critique: "American Grenadier"
    One of the most useful aspects of painting workshops is the personalized critiques offered by knowledgeable instructors. Now you can get this advantage anytime through the American Artist Critique Blog. Through this blog, you can get commentary and suggestions
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  • Anatomy of the Landscape: Trees
    Yesterday morning I had a wonderful conversation with Carolyn Anderson, the talented figure artist and workshop instructor from Montana who teaches at some of the top art schools around the country. I was interviewing her for an upcoming article we’re
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  • En Plein Air: A Conversation With Curt Walters
    Welcome to “En Plein Air,” the new Plein Air blog on American Artist’s new online community! The former Plein Air section of www.myAmericanArtist.com lived off our main homepage for nearly a year, and during that time I enjoyed sharing
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  • Acrylic: Fine Art or Illustration?
    Whether creating fine art or illustration, for Connecticut artist Bernie Fuchs—who boasts a long and successful career as an illustrator—it’s all the same. Either way, “I’m making a picture,” he explains. A Perfect
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  • See Your Art Objectively
    While packing to move into our new offices, I came across a self-portrait I painted several years ago that was lost in a stack of papers. I immediately recognized that the face was drawn inaccurately—an error I didn’t see at the time I created
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  • VIDEO: Phil Sandusky's "New Orleans Street With Construction Crew"
    In the November 2008 issue of American Artist, we presented a collection of dramatic post-Katrina scenes of New Orleans, painted by Rolland Golden. Here, we present a video featuring Phil Sandusky, another artist whose paintings focus on hurricane ravaged
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  • Watercolor: Back to Watercolor Basics
    Connecticut artist John Falato primarily paints in oil, but he also enjoys introducing students to the nuts and bolts of watercolor in his exciting, fast-paced beginner classes. August Road 1983, watercolor, 21 1/8 x 16. All artwork this article private
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  • Beginners: Back to Watercolor Basics
    Connecticut artist John Falato primarily paints in oil, but he also enjoys introducing students to the nuts and bolts of watercolor in his exciting, fast-paced beginner classes. August Road 1983, watercolor, 21 1⁄8 x 16. All artwork this article
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  • A Practical Approach to Creating & Marketing Oils and Pastels
    When J.C. Airoldi left a successful career as a designer, she applied the same level of determination, practicality, hard work, and marketing skills that she used in her previous profession to creating and selling paintings. Gloucester Solitude 2008,
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  • Art Business: Warm-Up Exercises for Artists
    Warm-up exercises are as important for artists as they are for musicians and athletes. by Daniel Grant Athletes stretch before a game. Prior to performing, opera singers sing scales, and actors practice their lines. Warm-up time is important in a variety
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  • "American Artist" Magazine Cover Competition Winners
    Hundreds of artists from around the country sent in submissions for American Artist’s 2008 Cover Competition, and the editors narrowed the selection down to the 10 they thought best captured the skill level and style of our publication. When those
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  • Colleen Howe's 4 Steps to Building Stronger Paintings
    Utah artist Colleen Howe is an accomplished pastelist and workshop instructor who is widely known for her sensitive and colorful landscapes of the West. Here she shares four helpful steps to achieving successful works of art. by Colleen Howe, as told
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  • Janet Monafo Chat Transcript
    Read the transcript from yesterday's live online chat with pastel artist Janet Monafo. 2008-06-09 11:00:12.0 Administrator: You have joined a chat with Janet Monafo, a top pastelist who has been highlighted in American Artist magazine. Feel free to
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  • Casey Baugh's Workshop: Seeing Accurately and Solving Problems
    This dynamic young artist believes anyone can learn the language of painting and use it to express themselves, which he proves in both short-term and extended workshops. by M. Stephen Doherty Baugh working directly on a student's canvas “There
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  • Drawing Basics: Judith Carducci's Workshop and the Benefits of Drawing and Working From Life
    During a recent plein air workshop in Southern France, Judith Carducci helped students who worked with pen-and-ink, pastel, watercolor, and oil colors. The unifying themes of the 10-day class were that drawing basics are a foundation of all media and
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  • Judith Carducci's Workshop: The Benefits of Drawing and Working From Life
    During a recent plein air workshop in Southern France, Judith Carducci helped students who worked with pen-and-ink, pastel, watercolor, and oil colors. The unifying themes of the 10-day class were that drawing is a foundation of all media and working
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  • Tony Curanaj's Workshop: Knowledge and Structure Allow Freer Painting
    This New York City artist has found that the more he understands the science of the elements in his still life scene, and the more carefully he executes his drawing and underpainting, the freer he can interpret the subject matter in the final stages to
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  • Artist of the Month: Sarah Siltala: Capturing Utter Stillness
    This New Mexico artist slowly builds up transparent glazes of oil colors to create still lifes and landscapes with luminous, vibrant, and subtle textures. Evening Solitude, 2008, oil on board, 15 x 15. All artwork this article private collection. by Naomi
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  • Acrylic: Ellen Rolli: Painting Coach
    This Boston acrylic painter teaches art the way a life coach helps a client achieve life goals. by Bob Bahr Rolli advised students to keep their still life arrangement simple so the emphasis is on painting rather than drawing. Students come to Ellen Rolli
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  • Oil Painting: Daniel E. Greene: Gleaning Inspiration From Formative Experiences
    In the Fall 2007 issue of Workshop magazine, we presented Daniel E. Greene's approach to teaching drawing and painting in art-school classes, short-term workshops, and filmed programs. Here we reproduce the article from the November 2007 issue of
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  • Acrylic: Critique: "Catching the Red-Eye Flight"
    Pay careful attention to edges and incorporate foreground colors into the background to create a unified composition. by Joyce Washor Catching the Red-Eye Flight 2006, acrylic on Masonite, 16 x 20. This bird is painted very well. However, a few adjustments
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  • Acrylic: Barbara Edwards: Acrylic Exploration
    Barbara Edwards experiments with media and techniques in her paintings that make use of both representation and abstraction. by Lynne Moss Perricelli Mountain Pasture 2007, acrylic, 27 x 22. All artwork this article collection the artist unless otherwise
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  • Drawing Basics: Female Nude Figure Drawing
    David Jon Kassan comments on Robert C. Dacey's Andrea in Shadow. Andrea in Shadow by Robert C. Dacey, charcoal drawing on Bristol board, 20 x 30. by David Jon Kassan This piece is a great figure drawing study in light and dark contrasts. It has a
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  • Oil Painting: The Knowlton Gallery Presents Yosemite on Canvas
    During the spring of 2008, 13 women painters from California, Nevada, and Utah gathered together in the Yosemite Valley to paint the national park for a week. Yosemite on Canvas: 13 Western Artists Paint the Park Through November 29 Knowlton Gallery Lodi
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  • Pastel: Masters
    Artists looking to work with pastel can learn valuable techniques and tips by studying artists who first explored the medium and discovered the possibilities the medium offers. by Naomi Ekperigin Although the work of oil painters and draftsmen is well
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  • Watercolor: "Watercolor" 2008 Cover Competition Finalists
    Congratulations to the 10 finalists chosen in the 2008 Watercolor Cover Competition. These accomplished artists each take a different approach, revealing the versatility and adaptability of watermedia. Here, they describe their sources of inspiration
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  • Pastel: Denise LaRue Mahlke: Art as a Calling
    Denise LaRue Mahlke believes that being an artist is a calling that involves preserving, celebrating, and sharing in God’s creation. That’s one of the reasons she challenges herself to strive for excellence as a pastel painter and a teacher
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  • Artist of the Month: Karen Kaapcke
    This New York City artist’s creative process involves self-reflection, during which she asks herself not only what she is painting, but also why she’s compelled to do so. by Naomi Ekperigin Daniel I 2006, oil on linen, 22 x 18. Collection
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  • Artist of the Month: Nick Clulow: Interior Acrylic Portraits
    This Maryland artist always paints from life, creating work that gives personality and history to inanimate objects. Apartment Fridge 2001, acrylic on panel, 5 x 7. All artwork this article private collection. by Naomi Ekperigin Nick Clulow paints household
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  • Oil Painting: Daniel E. Greene: Gleaning Inspiration From Formative Experiences
    In an exhibition opening this month in New York City, Daniel E. Greene presents still-life and figure paintings inspired by the experiences and objects of his childhood. Those paintings allowed him to explore the themes of challenge, contrast, and competition
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  • Jeffrey Reed: Introducing the Basics of Painting
    Students at the Community College of Philadelphia receive thorough instruction in the fundamentals of drawing and painting, especially those currently enrolled in Jeffrey Reed’s introductory course, Art 115—Painting I. by M. Stephen Doherty
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  • Art and the River at The James A. Michener Art Museum
    The James A. Michener Art Museum, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, will host this exhibition celebrating the influence of Bucks County Pennsylvania's waterways (the Delaware River and Delaware Canal) on regional landscape artists. Art and the River Through
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  • Susan Lyon's "Gold-Trimmed Shawl"
    Watch a demonstration of Susan Lyon's figure painting in Gold-Trimmed Shawl. Lyon is one of the artist featured in the summer 2008 issue of Workshop magazine (1:29). Susan Lyon Posted to Artist Daily by Karyn on October 08, 2009 Click to Play | View
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  • World Tour for Landscape Artists
    Two of the world's foremost international landscape painting groups—Landscape Artists International (LAI) and International Plein Air Painters (IPAP)—have come together to organize the international art exhibition "Far and Near Horizons
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  • Oil Painting: Susan Lichtman: The Powerful Use of Light in Oil Interiors
    This Massachusetts painter uses a closely controlled palette and open painting approach to create highly evocative visions of interiors and figures. by John A. Parks Family at Sundown 2005, oil on linen, 48 x 72. All artwork this article collection the
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  • Oil Painting: David Koch: Using Photoshop to Create Ageless Paintings
    Utah artist David Koch likes to bring elements of his state’s pioneer past into his computer-aided compositions. by Linda S. Price Crossing The Sweetwater 2002, oil on linen, 55 x 44. Collection Walt and Katie Gasser. Until David Koch won a competition
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  • Acrylic: CRITIQUE: "Silver Server With Cups"
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  • Florence Griswold Museum Presents “Impressionist Giverny”
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  • BACAA: Classical Training From Contemporary Masters
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  • Oil Painting: Cecilia Beaux's Legacy
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  • Watercolor: Kathleen Kolb: Versatility in Vermont
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  • Drawing Basics: Colored Pencil 70th Anniversary Competition Winners
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  • Pastel: Robert Hoffman: About Brown County, Indiana
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  • Oil Painting: Meredith Brooks Abbott: Seeing Nature With Fresh Eyes
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  • Artist of the Month: Alexandre Reider
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  • Using Egg Tempera & Gold Leaf to Achieve Renaissance Luminocity
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  • Pastel: Jean Ranstrom: Discovering Unexpected Subjects for Pastel Paintings
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  • Oil Painting: Colin J. Callahan: Seeking Energy and Light
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  • Masters: Lessons Learned: Monet's Influence on Robinson
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  • Drawing Basics: Woodcut Prints or Oil Paintings?
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  • Watercolor: Into the Heart of The Southwest: 20 Painters Interpret the Forbes Trinchera Ranch
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  • Oil Painting: Ned Mueller: The Importance of Value Studies
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: James M. Sulkowski's Oil Paintings
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  • Acrylic: CRITIQUE: "A Spanish Song"
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  • Acrylic: CRITIQUE: "West Coast Fall"
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  • Acrylic: CRITIQUE: "Sunset Edith", "Solvang" and "Stream"
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Ned Mueller's Landscapes and Portraits
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  • Oil Painting: Ruth L. Beeve: Responding to Chance and Planning Ahead With Water-Soluable Paint
    While on location at the Forbes Trinchera Ranch, in Colorado, Ruth L. Beeve used watercolor and water-soluble oil to capture a variety of subjects. Back in her California studio, she uses those studies as the basis for more ambitious graphite drawings
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  • Acrylic: Marcia Burtt: Bold Plein Air Painting From A Conservationist
    This Santa Barbara acrylic painter backs up her passionate views on land stewardship with an equally intense approach to painting the landscapes she loves. by Bob Bahr She is a calm, thoughtful person away from the canvas, but when she is painting, she
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  • Masters: Sweden's Sargent
    We went in search of Anders Zorn in his homeland and discovered a personality large enough to encompass numerous contradictions—and a natural ability to paint in both oils and watercolor. by Bob Bahr When Anders Zorn's name is mentioned in the
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  • Beginner Oil: Transistioning into Fine Art
    It's understood that a career in the visual arts can be personally fulfilling and professionally risky. That's why most people work secure 9-to-5 jobs and enjoy drawing and painting during evenings and weekends. But those limited hours just aren't
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  • Drawing Basics: From a Roman Fountain to a South Bend Studio
    In this excerpt from the fall 2006 issue of Drawing , David Mayernik discusses how copying the work of Old Masters trains his taste so he can draw and paint original work with the classical beauty he reveres. by Bob Bahr For David Mayernik , who has gone
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  • Acrylic: Painting On-Site on a Large Scale
    With adequate preparation and the right materials, it's possible to create large acrylic landscapes en plein air. by Andrew Paquette In early 2003, I left the high-stress feature-animation industry in Hollywood, California, and moved to Arizona, where
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  • Watercolor: Steve Rogers: Inspiration at Higher Levels
    Steve Rogers can point to the specific time in his career when his watercolors changed from being average to exceptional. That occurred when he met his future wife, found a subject he was passionate about painting, and had a religious experience. by M
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  • En Plein Air: Thomas Van Stein: Painting the Light of Night en Plein Air
    Along a moonlit Santa Barbara beach this past June, seven artists learned how California nocturne painter Thomas Van Stein employs strong value contrasts, soft edges, and a simplified design to recreate the light of night. by Allison Malafronte Thomas
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  • Oil Painting: Josh Elliott: Tapestries in Oil
    Oil painter Josh Elliott strives to paint tones and designs, not just picturesque scenes. by Bob Bahr Evening Shadows, Swan Valley 2006, oil, 12 x 16. All artwork this article private collection unless otherwise indicated. Josh Elliott is 33 years old
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of James Woodside's Remote Landscapes
    In the February 2007 issue of American Artist , James Woodside discussed how his paintings reflected his experiences in some of the planet's remotest locations. Here, we present more of his plein air paintings in this online exclusive gallery. Breaker
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  • Drawing Basics: Preserving the Landscape in Colored Pencil
    Ohio artist Linda Wesner depicts American scenes that are quickly disappearing because she feels it is important that the viewer recognize the universal theme of change. by Bob Bahr Light Along the Hudson 2006, colored pencil, 25 x 12¾. All artwork
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  • Pastels: Taking Charge of Color
    Michigan artist Sharon Will uses the elements of color—value, hue, temperature, and intensity—to give her paintings drama and excitement. by Collin Fry Rocking Chair 2002, pastel, 12 x 9. Private collection. All artwork this article collection
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  • Pastels: Teaching Values
    Maintaining a distinctive value structure is at the core of Joann Ballinger's pastel instruction--and her own paintings. by Lynne Moss Perricelli In both her teaching and her own pastel paintings, Joann Ballinger emphasizes the importance of a distinctive
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  • Watercolor: SPONSORED CONTENT: The Artist Behind the Brand: Joe Miller
    by M. Stephen Doherty Winter Ain't Far Away watercolor, 15 x 15. Can a pharmacist who describes himself as cheap actually convince artists to trust his advice about buying art supplies? He can if he is passionate about art, respectful of painters
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  • Watercolor: Essay: A Visit With Andrew Wyeth, March 9, 2006
    Editor-in-chief of Watercolor magazine, M. Stephen Doherty, recounts his memorable visit to the home of legendary watercolorist Andrew Wyeth. by M. Stephen Doherty In this account of my visit with Andrew Wyeth, I hope to convey the sense that he is like
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  • Watercolor: Betty Carr's Basic Principles for Painting
    In the fall 2006 issue of Workshop magazine, verteran artist Betty Carr taught the fundamentals of light and color in the cool spring of France's Loire Valley and in a Scottsdale, Arizona studio. We offer an excerpt from the article explaining her
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  • Oil Painting: Travis Schlaht: Following Inspiration
    New York painter Travis Schlaht looks for—and finds—compelling beauty in many corners of life. Then, using a restrained but powerful palette, he mirrors it on canvas. by James A. Metcalfe Bar II 2005, oil on linen, 26 x 36. All artwork this
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  • Oil Painting: Sean Cheetham: Common Weaknesses in Figure Paintings
    In the fall 2006 issue of Workshop magazine, California artist Sean Cheetham explained how to achieve accuracy and harmony in his alla prima figure paintings. Here, the artist discusses common weaknesses in figure paintings in an excerpt from the article
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  • Oil Painting: Randall C. Sexton's Painting Tips
    In the fall 2006 issue of Workshop magazine, Randall C. Sexton taught participants how to create oil paintings in response to subjects that they were anxious to paint. We present an excerpt from the article. by M. Stephen Doherty Keep your palette organized
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  • Oil Painting: Lynn Gertenbach's Handy Tips for Painting Water
    In the fall 2006 issue of Workshop magazine, Lynn Gertenbach taught her students that plein air painting is a partnership between the artist and nature. We offer an exerpt from the article with Gertenbach's tips for painting water. by Molly Siple
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  • Oil Painting: Thomas Van Stein: A Nocturne Painter’s Palette
    In the fall 2006 issue of Workshop magazine, California nocturne painter Thomas Van Stein taught seven students his process for capturing the light of night on canvas. Of the many challenges students faced, the most difficult ones seemed to involve value
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  • Watercolor: Sondra Freckelton: Planning for Expression
    Sondra Freckelton is widely recognized for her well-planned, thoughtful, and expertly crafted watercolors she develops using principles that expand artistic expression; and she is appreciated for helping others learn those principles while gaining a concrete
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  • Watercolor: Jamie Wyeth: Combining Water-Soluable Paints
    Like many artists accustomed to working with opaque paints, Jamie Wyeth prefers to use combinations of water-soluble materials rather than just transparent watercolor. He finds that layers of gouache, ink, graphite, acrylic, and watercolor allow him to
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  • Watercolor: Lee Boynton: Painting the Same Subject to Learn More About Light & Color
    Lee Boynton, a master of Impressionistic watercolor painting, explains how to learn more about color and value by simplifying your subject and painting it repeatedly under different light conditions. by Linda Gottlieb and M. Stephen Doherty Cozy Harbor
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  • Oil Painting: Milt Kobayashi: Paint What You Want to See
    Milt Kobayashi grants students permission to take complete control of their paintings and not feel obligated to paint exactly what they see. During a recent workshop, he encouraged participants to change a model’s pose, coloration, and costumes
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  • Drawing Basics: The Emergence of Tonal Drawing
    Tonal drawing--the juxtaposition of relative values, the notion of seeing masses rather than outlines--more closely replicates the way humans see than do lines. This emotional way of depicting the world has been explored since Leonardo; modern artists
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  • Oil Painting: James Gurney's Paintings: Fact & Fantasy
    This New York state plein air artist creates impressive landscape paintings informed by his work as an illustrator and inspired by the work of the Hudson River School. by John A. Parks Creek Above Kaaterskill Falls 2004, oil, 20 x 16. All artwork this
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  • Watercolor: 10 Tools for Better Watercolors
    Artists often limit their potential by not taking full advantage of watercolor paints and supplies. Here’s advice that has proven helpful to my students. by Catherine Hillis There is so much conflicting information and advice available to watercolorists
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  • Drawing Basics: Jon DeMartin's Drawing Workshops to Improve Paintings
    “One of the biggest reasons painters get into trouble is because their pictures don’t have a solid foundation of accurate and expressive drawings,” says New York artist Jon DeMartin. That’s why his drawing workshops are so helpful
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  • Drawing Basics: Inside the Atelier: Learning How to Draw on the Right Side of the Brain
    As the son of Betty Edwards, the author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain , Brian Bomeisler helps students access the right side of their brains to improve their drawings. The following describes the first day of Bomeisler’s five day drawing
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  • Oil Painting: Ken Auster's Technique in a Nutshell
    In the October 2006 issue of American Artist , California artist Ken Auster explained how he pursues an aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach to plein air painting. Here, we offer further insight into his technique. by John A. Parks Canvas. Cotton duck
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  • Oil Painting: Gene McInerney: The Delicate Engineer
    This Pennsylvania artist combines alkyd with oil to achieve poetic paintings of his local landscape using a closely controlled technique. by John A. Parks Gene McInerney paints delicate views of his beloved Pennsylvania countryside with a fullness and
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  • Oil Painting: Painting Interior Light
    Room interiors provide an excellent opportunity to paint a variety of light intensities, colors, and effects; but they also present challenges in trying to capture the subtleties of forms within those dimly lit spaces. by Joseph Gyurcsak Interior scenes
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