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Wet-in-Wet

A painting technique in which wet color is applied into or on top of paint that is still wet.

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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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  • New Free eBook on the Color Wheel and Color Schemes!
    It feels right to talk about color and art during this time of the year, when flowers are blooming, trees are budding, and skies are (mostly) blue. After months of dull-colored scenery, everything seems to be flourishing wherever I look, which makes me
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  • Seeing Double?
    I just finished a very interesting commission. I've shared my oil painting, Pandora , on Artist Daily before. It was one of the central paintings from my 2012 exhibit at Forbes Gallery. I got a lot of positive feedback on that painting--and then got
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  • Proven Steps of Watercolor Painting Mastery
    One of the best things about joining the Artist Daily team is seeing incredible artwork on a daily basis. This is especially true in the area of watercolor. I wasn't too familiar with many contemporary artists working in the medium before I started working here, but I've become quite the watermedia
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  • Just What Is a Consultation, Anyway?
    When my Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson, gives an oil painting workshop, one of his favorite aspects -- as well as that of his students -- is when participants bring in their artwork for Steve to look at and make comments about. "I could spend
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  • An All-Or-Nothing Proposition?
    One of the best conversations I’ve had about art wasn’t with an artist. It wasn’t with an art historian, curator, or gallery owner, either. It was with a mechanical engineer. We went from discussing his latest design project to the artfulness of historical blueprints to Leonardo’s
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  • What Artists Reveal with Self-Portraits
    When I walk through a museum or gallery, there are certain paintings that I breeze past and others that always draw me in. Self-portraits definitely fall into the latter category. I’m always intrigued by how artists choose to represent themselves and perpetuate their own personal mythologies. True
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  • Summer Wind Patterns
    As we all start getting ready to step outside our studios and paint outdoors or create studio landscape painting based on our experiences in nature, I wanted to explain the design elements that I put together for this particular painting, Summer Wind
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  • How Do You Paint on the Go?
    It’s only May, and already I’m fantasizing about summer road trips and exotic jaunts. But then I remember that almost every time I go on vacation my glow wears off once the artists show up. Inevitably, I see a traveler who is painting or sketching, creating significant and personal mementos
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  • Getting a Second Opinion That Counts
    Friends and family are wonderful, but when it comes to getting an honest, straightforward statement from them about what your fine art oil painting really, really looks like -- well, they're just so incredibly . . . nice. And nice doesn't help
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  • Working Toward a Masterpiece
    The very idea of me creating a "masterpiece" is hilarious. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out how to paint! But the fact is that by learning oil-painting techniques and absorbing all of the information and advice from oil-painting artists
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  • Watercolor Painting Pencils? Sure, Tell Me Another One!
    For just a few seconds, I thought that watercolor pencils were some kind of April Fool's come lately prank. I mean, everything I think of and know about watercolor painting is that it is fluid and kind of uncontrollable. In a pencil, how can watercolor
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  • Affording Private Art Lessons
    When Steve, the Norwegian Artist , was a young boy, his parents sought out a local artist in his town and arranged painting instruction lessons -- people do this all the time with the piano, and yet when it comes to art, it seems so . . . impossible.
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  • A Passion for Gardens
    We are not alone as artists in our passion for gardens. We follow in the footsteps of several rather impressive artists throughout history. Our personal gardens are designed for plein air painting and inspire us in every season. But this year, we have
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  • Tie Your Hands Behind Your Back
    You can go the less extreme route, of course, but there is something to be said about a studio painting session in which you don't pick up a brush. You don't make any sketches. You just observe. I find myself doing this again and again when I
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  • Adept in Every Genre
    Discovering David Ligare's work was a great gift. Adept in every genre, he is master of composition, light, and color. With a classical sensibility and an ardent love of antique Greek and Roman culture, he is simply brilliant, and his work is beyond
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  • Turn Up the Temperature
    What makes an object look three-dimensional? We use a variety of cues to give us this information: light and shadow, contrast, pattern, color, texture, scale, temperature and value, usually in combinations. Our ability to measure these different parameters
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  • Paintings Fail or Succeed Because...
    Especially since the mid-1800s, many artists have stressed color over other elements in painting. The Impressionists are notable examples. Monet, for instance, explored how to paint light and its effects on the colorful scenes he saw in his mind's
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  • White Paint on White Paper
    Let me first clarify that the watercolor painting technique of white-on-white isn't a highfalutin, conceptual idea of existentialism and the true meaning of art. No, it allows watercolor artists to achieve brilliant and bright shades of white and
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  • Serious Serendipity & More
    So excited about the April issue of The Artist's Magazine ! We first saw the painting now on the cover of our April issue, Aine, Death Valley (oil painting, 20 x 30) when we were judging entries in The Artist's Magazine 's 2011 Annual Art
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  • Love Them Extra Because They're Weird
    I own up to the fact that I am drawn to the portraits artist Jenny Morgan creates because they are unconventional. Yet they capture qualities of the human face and our other human qualities in ways that read very true and lifelike. I like them because
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  • The Eyes Have It
    We can never imagine a world without vision. Whether one works as a realist painter or abstract artist, the quality of our vision determines the ultimate appearance of the art that we make. As viewers of art, we can rarely know or consider if the art
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  • With Instincts Like Vermeer & Vuillard
    Continuing the long line of intimists from Vermeer to Vuillard, Mark Karnes makes an alluring world out of the quietest aspects of his domestic life. Like all great painters of the near-at-hand, Karnes' work reminds us that beauty is to be found everywhere
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  • A Little Good News
    In a time when we often hear the arts being dismissed as unnecessary luxuries and when so many art classes in schools have been cut, it's nice to hear a little good news. Portrait of Claude Renoir Painting by Renoir, 1907, oil on canvas. A recent
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  • A Color Vortex
    Looking at Mark Messersmith's artwork is like being sucked into a kaleidoscope. The colors are bold, varied, and everywhere. It seems odd to say this. I mean, of course, there is color everywhere--it's a painting. But what stands out about Messersmith's
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  • Find That Dominant Sensation
    The Clubfoot Boy by Jusepe de Ribera, oil on canvas, 1642. Art...has the power to make any spot on earth the living center of the universe; and unlike science, which often gives us the illusion of understanding things we really do not understand, it helps
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  • Long Live the Explorer
    The last two centuries, in particular, witnessed the final great explorations of the surface of the planet by scientists, geographers, and surveyors. In those pre-photography days, and for a while after, artists were an integral part of any expedition
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  • The Emotional Bridge Between You and Your Viewer
    "A line is a path that can offer an interesting and varied journey, rhythmic and with occasional, pleasurable surprises. Thus is one tempted to take the journey again. " -Krome Barratt, Logic and Design: In Art, Science, and Mathematics Creating
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  • To the Aggressor Go the Spoils
    I went to an artist's talk the other day and was a bit taken aback when the artist admitted that she went door to door looking for a gallery, taking images to every venue she knew of and talking her way past many annoyed assistants to get a few minutes
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  • Pigment Wonderland
    Is color important in a work of art? Most would say a loud yes! However, look at the wonderful work of the great, late artist, Andrew Wyeth. His Dad, the famous illustrator N.C. Wyeth, was often telling Andrew that he needed to put more color in his paintings
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  • When the Situation Feels a Little Off
    Artist Allison Maletz forcibly breaks with convention and defies the observed rules of watercolor painting, working in ways that seem contrary to what the medium is capable of doing and exploring subject matter that can spark uncomfortable and often contradictory
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  • Stairways to Heaven
    "Of the original phenomena, light is the most enthralling." - Leonardo da Vinci Crepuscular rays are those wonderful beams of light we see at the beginning or end of the day that appear to radiate from the single point of the sun and stream
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  • How Strong Are They?
    I was always taught that effective color mixing starts with discovering the tinting strength of each color on your palette. For me, that is the basis of understanding how to mix colors, because it tells me how they will react when combined. A Breath Away
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  • I Want to Be By His Side
    If I had a time machine and could travel back to learn how to oil paint from any artist in history, I would not spare a second thought setting the clock to circa 1895, smack dab in the middle of the era when Odilon Redon was refining his fine art oil
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  • Your Colors Are a Wonderland
    Here's a sneak peek at a great upcoming watercolor blog by artist and instructor Robert Reynolds on the importance of color and how personal choosing pigments can be. And after you are done, be sure to check out the new book, Watercolor Unleashed
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  • Painting Fog and Mist
    Recently, we received a good question from a reader about how to paint one of our favorite landscape subjects--fog and mist. To understand how to paint light effects, it can be helpful to have a basic understanding of why things work the way they do.
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  • It Is Like a Gift From Above
    Working with artists is a lot of fun. Really, I would put nothing before it in terms of what I want to do with my life's work. But sometimes it can be a little like herding kittens, and it can get really frustrating if the artists aren't organized
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  • I Don't Need You Anymore
    In all the painting or drawing dabbling I've done, there is always a definitive moment that divides my experiences into "before" and "after." It's the moment I realize I don't have to worry about going back because every
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  • Fried Eggs on the Floor
    I had no idea that flipping eggs was such a seriously difficult thing to do. Our third daughter, Tired of Being Youngest, is in culinary school, and this quarter's project involves creating egg dishes of all sorts, with a major emphasis on being able
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  • Lovely, Peaceful, and Nostalgic All at Once
    It's not typical that an oil painting can stir up lots of contradictory emotions, but when I look at certain works it seems like the artist is able to capture not just one or two feelings but the whole emotional spectrum. When you see one of these
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  • You Have to Lie to Get What You Want
    I may have grabbed your attention at the risk of making you think I'm a big fat fibber, but I do think that when it comes to landscape painting, you sometimes have to lie--or at least exaggerate--to get what you want. This is based on personal experience
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  • A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
    In a lot of ways the art world can be a little like a trend-crazed teenybopper. What's new and exciting gets the most attention, while art and artistic movements and groups that have been around for decades or centuries fall out of favor. But I think
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  • No One Could Beat Rembrandt
    When it comes to being able to draw with a paintbrush, no one can touch Rembrandt. He was able to turn abstract brushstrokes into forms with texture, weight, and liveliness. He could turn two swipes of a painting brush loaded with white paint into the
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  • Nothing Too Extreme
    I don't usually think favorably of extreme ideas or extreme ways of doing things. Mostly, this is because I've found that sensible ideas often come with compromise. And in many ways, I think this applies to my ideas about fantasy art. I love fantasy
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  • Dark Shadows
    Why go to the trouble of painting from life when our cameras can take such great pictures? Digital cameras have gotten so good at taking properly exposed, beautiful photos that they can fool us into thinking that they are also accurate. To be sure, the
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  • He Truly Had the Joy of Sight
    It’s quite sad that 18 th -century painter Luis Melendez died poor and relatively unknown and yet he is now recognized as one, if not the, greatest still life art painter of his day. His style and approach as a still life artist breathed new life
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  • Paint What You Love
    We're pleased to announce that the Grand Prize winner in the "What Do You Love?" watercolor art contest is Johne Richardson, of Overland Park, Kansas. Congratulations, Johne! The winning image will be featured alongside the artist's
    Read More >>
  • A Painting Just Waiting to Happen
    I was in Florida a few weeks ago and felt so lucky to be in such a warm, sunny place that I don't think I spent a minute indoors. I was kayaking, mountain biking, walking on the beach, and swimming in the ocean. And again and again I would look around
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  • Um, Are Those Angel Wings??
    The style of artwork I make often falls under the general heading of realism, and this oil painting is a case-in-point of why I struggle with the term. First, here's a bit of background on the source of my angst. In the atelier system, students are
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  • What the Heck Is Gesso?
    Gesso is one of those words that seems to stop beginners in their tracks. It leaves many wondering how to use with acrylics or if you even need to use it in an acrylic painting . Historically, it is for oil painting and was traditionally used to prepare
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  • Investing in Art
    I love my Honda Fit. And while that may seem to have nothing to do with art, actually, it does. You see, I drive my Honda Fit everywhere and in the process of its being used it gets dusty, the tires see wear, the interior windows next to where my Toddler
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  • Friends, It's Not the End
    I look at paintings a lot. It's what I do--my work and my personal interests overlap. So yes, me and painting? We're on very familiar terms. And sometimes that can breed a bit of contempt as the saying goes. Sometimes I can be disillusioned and
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  • In Living Color
    It's a brand new year and I want to start it off with a bang! And the one thing that I can't get enough of is color. The color wheel holds such simple beauty and complex mysteries, from saturated primary colors to more involved color mixes, that
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  • What About Angels?
    I was doubly lucky last week because I had a thoughtful discussion with a great artist, Patricia Watwood, about how most notable representational art is "real" and about what happens to artists when they are faced with stepping outside that
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  • The One and Only You
    The Norwegian Artist and I walk 3-5 miles every day, broken up in two or three sessions. It gets the dog out, me off the chair in front of the computer, and the Norwegian from behind his oil painting easel. During the break, we propound to one another
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  • He Leaves Traces of Skin Everywhere
    That sounds gross, but in the hands of contemporary painter Alex Kanevsky, it's not. As a classically trained artist, Kanevsky's painting techniques and skills are strong. But the way he chooses to paint--in patches and broad swaths that lend
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  • A Dreadful Flood of the Unexpected
    While it was a lousy summer for tomatoes, something in the air made the pumpkins and winter squash particularly prolific, and we find ourselves with a workshop full of the stuff. What we are convinced is a flood of trouble may actually be a sea of opportunity
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  • I Hate to Say It, But Geometry Helps
    Another slice of my personal humble pie is the fact that I'm pretty bad at math in general and downright horrible at geometry in particular. You'd never ever find me trying to use these skills when making art--or so I thought. But when I was gleaning
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  • What a Roux Has to Do with Youx
    Our youngest daughter, Tired of Being Youngest, recently started culinary school, which means that we're eating a lot better these days. It's not so much that she's doing a lot of experimenting on us -- most nights she's home late and
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  • A Simple Productivity Tip from Da Vinci
    Ever wondered where Da Vinci found the time to create all his masterpieces? Alongside his fine art painting he managed to dabble as a scientist, geologist, architect, mathematician, engineer, and anatomist with a bit of aeronautical design thrown in for
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  • What You Really Want in a Winter Landscape Painting
    Around this time of year we are inundated with wintry scenes and beautiful snowy landscapes--on greeting cards, products, advertisements, calendars and more. But these winter landscapes aren't necessarily all created equal, and the same goes for the
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  • The Art of Slow Time
    I have tried hard the past few years--with mixed success--to avoid answering the question, "How are you doing?" with the response "Really busy." Some blame our cultural "time shortage" on the clock, progress, and our obsession
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  • Why Are Brush Sizes as Confusing as a Currency Converter?
    How does brush sizing work and where do you start? Have you every ordered some new brushes online, feeling pretty confident they'll be the perfect size for your latest oil on canvas creation? After all you spent all afternoon researching them. Only
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  • You Won’t Get Anywhere With Half Measures
    I've been told by more than one person that I try to see both sides of any issue. And my personal life aside, I can attest that I also do the same for art--I like to see it from all sides, materially speaking. That makes me a perfect match for mixed
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  • Is the Devil in the Detail?
    How to let go of small brush addiction so your paintings can move on to become more gestural If you lost all of your brushes, which one would you miss the most? For me, it's a 12 year old Filbert bristle brush that has lost its shape, has unruly hairs
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  • Taking That Leap of Faith
    Artists who step outside their studios take a leap of faith. When you determine that you are ready to create a plein air painting , you take a chance with lighting, composition, color, and time. All of these are variables that you need to contend with
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  • Santa, Here’s My Art Wish List
    My dad is a little manic about asking our family to get our holiday wish lists to him waaaaaaay before he has to fight the crowds and wait in long lines. As usual, I'm procrastinating, but if I were to give him my art wish list, I could have it ready
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  • 3 Ways to Train Your 'Wild Child'
    How many of us have started a work of art full of enthusiasm and excitement, only to wind up disappointed with an unfinished oil painting or watercolor sketch and you are left with no idea why? While there are many reasons for these false starts, they
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  • He Is Stealing My Heart
    I'm a water person. I love boating, swimming, scuba diving, and just looking at the ever-changing surface of nearby waterways. And I'm not alone. American artists--and those abroad--have been enamored with so many beautiful bodies of water over
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  • Back Away From the Hydrangeas
    It is such a treat when you see an artist's work and you like it. Then you talk with the artist and you like him or her. And then you see them in action as an instructor and you fall for their teaching in a big way because everything they say makes
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  • Get Outta Here, Hallmark!
    No need to buy a holiday card from the card shop or grocery store when you are as capable with paint and pencil, collage and design, as all of us at Artist Daily. This year, help us ring in the holiday season by participating in our Move Over Hallmark
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  • Can't Get No Satisfaction?
    We travel frequently to paint en plein air in new locations and sometimes teach workshops in those new environments as well. One of our favorite locations is northern New Mexico--the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch area. Each day while we are there, we plan our
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  • I Am Torn Between Two Men
    Granted, this story gets a lot less steamy when I tell you that I'm torn between the work of two oil painting artists, Adolph Menzel and Jonas Lie. I've studied the work of both of these artists on my own for quite a while, trying to puzzle out
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  • What Other People Think
    "If you could get inside the heads of the people around you, you'd probably be surprised at how unsure and unconfident they feel. It's likely that they'd feel the same about you. We're pretty good at hiding our true thoughts; it's
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  • Learn It, Then Forget It
    A long time ago I read a quote from artist Nathan Goldstein and it has always stayed with me. He implied that artists are truly artists once they learn something and then forget it. I took that to mean I didn't have to study too hard in college since
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  • It Means Never Having to Worry
    As much as I love the holidays I also stress a lot about gift-giving. I'm a people pleaser and want the friends and loved ones in my life to feel appreciated, which means I can sometimes get super anxious about how to show them how I feel. Myths:
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  • Einstein Thoughts
    More Facebook poster quotes, Einstein this time: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." This, along with the following quote, makes a matching set, the kind you hang up behind the sofa in your living
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  • Know Your Model
    It always makes me smile when I see an artist who loves a pet so much that the drawing or painting they do of their four-legged companion comes out a little like a tall tale, where Snowball the pet cat is drawn like a wild lion prowling the grasslands
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  • Their Work Was Almost Pure Fantasy
    When I use the words "fantasy pictures," I'm usually referring to all sorts of imaginative realism--not only sci-fi art or wanting to know how to draw a dragon. But bringing in a layer of fantasy to your paintings or drawings can be daunting
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  • It Can Kill Creativity
    Second only to language in the hierarchy of advanced survival skills must be the ability to imagine something that does not yet exist, and then make that dream into something solid and real. Just look around you as you read this, and try to find something
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  • Hit the Right Values Every Time
    Perhaps the toughest skill that the artist painting outside must learn is the ability to judge values accurately, and then mix them in paint. The reason that this skill requires so much practice to get right is because our eyes and brains are constantly
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  • "Greatness Is Determined by Service"
    I hesitate to admit that some of my education these days is derived from Facebook, thanks to those seemingly endless placards with quotes that people are always posting: "I think it's weird how some days I feel skinny and some days I feel like
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  • Looking Into My Crystal Ball
    With the rapidly expanding emergence of social media over the last several years, I think the majority of artists--like most people--have looked upon the phenomenon with anything from mild curiosity to enthusiastic interest. Many of us have jumped on
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  • Money and Fame May Not Be Enough
    What is success? Be honest with yourself. Do you truly believe that a successful person is defined by the car he drives, the title after her name, or their number of Twitter followers? Life is bigger, wider, deeper than what you can fit into a shoebox
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  • The Best Instructor I've Ever Had
    When I met a woman who told me about the best watercolor painting instructor she'd ever had, I had to know more. There are so many artists out there whose work is compelling but that doesn't always make them good teachers. I had to know what put
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  • No Crisis Here, Look Elsewhere
    I roll my eyes every time I hear about representational art and realism being "imperiled," because there are so many important representational artists painting right now. It's almost offensive how people think legitimacy comes with the
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  • Frustration Isn't Always a Bad Thing
    "Frustration isn't always such a bad thing. It's a sign that you're trying something new, different, or outside your level of familiarity, and in working your way through it (and you will) you conquer this challenge and move on to the
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  • It's High Time for Some Brutal Honesty
    Here it is: If you aren't going to really push it when you make a landscape painting , it is going to be completely forgettable. Having looked at thousands of landscape paintings, and made a few myself, I'll be honest and tell you that only the
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  • 5 Tips for Using Social Media to Market Your Art Business
    We all enjoy using Facebook to stay connected to our friends and family, and Pinterest is a lot of fun for collecting and sharing ideas, but have you thought about how you can utilize these social media tools as part of your overall marketing efforts
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  • Reconnect with Your Passion
    The loss of an artist and teacher from childhood has caused me to reflect upon not only her life and work, but also those lessons that she taught me. The myriad distractions of daily life, from the constant need to earn money for survival to the many
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  • I Learned To Love This Painting
    Note that I said learned—because I did not particularly care for or respond to Gauguin's oil painting Fatata Te Miti when I first saw it. I thought there was too much going on and the colors were too aggressive. It made me anxious and uneasy
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  • Deliberate Practice
    A few posts ago I wrote about how introverts are normal people (gasp!) and introduced you to Susan Cain's warm and informative book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking . I wanted to revisit it to talk about Deliberate
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  • They Appreciate First-Rate Art
    I'm so excited to tell you about the opening night for the Contemporary American Realism exhibit at the Beijing World Art Museum . We were all blown away by the scale of the presentation, the press core, the ceremony, and the huge crowd. This has
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  • It Makes Me See Red
    "The last mad throb of red just as it turns green; the ultimate shriek of orange calling all the blues of heaven for relief and support...each color almost regains the fun it must have felt within itself on forming the first rainbow." --Charles
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  • American Kids Growin’ Up In the Heartland
    I love that John Cougar Mellencamp song! Mostly because it reminds me of being young, and that life is full of possibilities and change. It's also a great reminder that the "small" stories of our everyday lives are the ones that matter most
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  • How to Let Flashes of Inspiration Come
    Swimming in the ocean of life, so to speak, it sometimes feels as though we must use every bit of energy to keep our heads above the waves. Over many years we have developed some techniques that help us to shed the heavy seaweed and barnacles of the daily
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  • Yup, My Junk Drawer Taught Me Painting
    When it comes to certain creative sensibilities--awareness of color, editing a concept--I trust my judgment. I think I have pretty good instincts--maybe not in the execution of said sensibilities in an oil painting I paint myself, but I know good color
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  • Dare I Say It: Greatest Painters of All Time?!
    Even writing the words "Top 10 Painters of All Time" makes me cringe a little bit because...really? Really? I find it a herculean task to narrow a list down to the best 100 oil painting artists of all time, let alone just ten. But in the spirit
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  • Ways of Interpreting Color: Studio vs. Plein Air
    In plein air we attempt a form of direct translation. In the studio, we may recall our observations of nature, but are freer to be inventive with color. Night Passage by Mitchell Albala, 2006, oil painting on panel, 20 x 20. It's September and the
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  • Beware of Falling in Love
    Painting is an act of creativity and intention, but it sometimes, many times, includes acts of destruction large and small. It may be that the one skill that separates the dedicated professional artist from the amateur is the willingness to destroy, obliterate
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  • It's Not Like Eating Junk Food
    When it comes to putting additives into your paints, it just isn't the same as eating a Twinkie or bag of Doritos. Additives are necessary in some cases, especially for landscape artists who work with varying conditions when painting outdoors . They
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  • 3 Painting Tools That Aren't Used Enough
    It is just reality that certain painting techniques and tools will get more of your attention than others as you develop your artistic interests and style. But knowing how to paint the way you want to paint should still leave room for new things, too
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  • Art For Thought: An Artist’s Lifespan
    "It's really hard for young artists. You're an adult at 18, but for a painter it takes longer. You really don't get it together until 35 or 45." La Blanchisseuse by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1884-1888, oil on canvas . Some research
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  • Your Website--Keeping It Up to Date
    There's a lot of work to getting an artist website up and running , and once it's done, take some time to pat yourself on the back and indulge in a flavored coffee with lots of whipped cream. But after you're done, it's time to wash the
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  • It Gets Complicated When The Clothes Come Off
    Human figure painting, particularly painting skin, is the height of artistic prowess for me. I'll know I've made significant strides as a painter when I can recreate the opalescent glowing surface of skin. But I have a strong handicap to overcome
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  • Free Kittens
    It's no wonder artists are starving. People want their art for free. This morning I received yet another plea from a charitable agency, offering us the opportunity to support their ongoing mission by promoting Steve Henderson's oil paintings.
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  • How to Get the Most Out of a Painting Workshop
    I don't get to attend as many oil painting art workshops as I would like, so when the opportunity to participate in one does present itself, I really want to get the most out of my time there. Here are a few of my own "warm-up to workshop"
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  • Entering an Art Show: Following the Submission Process Is Important, Too
    Following the submission process, exactly, when you send your portfolio to a gallery is crucial, be it emailing your website or sending off a package for consideration. The same attention to detail applies when you enter an art show or group oil painting
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  • A New Wave of Art
    Tricked ya! Sort of! On the one hand, fantasy art isn't that new at all. But as I was sitting in a meeting flipping through American Artist magazine's May 2012 issue --while still paying close attention to what was being said, of course!--I was
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  • When Less Is More: Dying Dog Edition
    I'm fascinated by the concept of "less is more," especially as it applies to representational painting. It's hardly intuitive that having less detail makes a painting more realistic, but that's often the case. We've all been
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  • These Paintings Don't Have to Be Cheesy
    Because learning about color complements on the color wheel is often one of the first lessons we are taught in art class, complementary color paintings--those contrasting blue and orange, yellow and violet, and red and green--are often thought of as for
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  • Gallery Submission Process--What Following It Exactly Means
    My kids accuse me of saying obvious things, along the lines of, "The car won't get you there if you don't put gas in it," or "Your clothes won't be ready to wear tomorrow if you keep them in the washing machine." But I
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  • It’s Never a Matter of Black or White
    I was in the studio of my oil painting artist friend the other day and she had a really sizeable bucket filled with oil paint tubes sitting beside her palette. Some of the tubes were so squeezed out and folded up that I wondered if there was anything
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  • Art for Thought: Defining Realism
    Attempting to define realism or to clarify the various styles of representational painting can be a challenging task. When writing about today's painters, I always hesitate to use words like "classical," "realist," "contemporary
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  • Your Online Portfolio--What Not to Do with It
    Your website can be a terrific online portfolio . But there are definitely ways to not use your website when marketing art. An initial temptation for many artists is to find as many gallery e-mail addresses as they can and send out their website information
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  • 3 Tips So You Don't Wipe Out on Smooth Washes
    I am rolling my eyes with embarrassment when I tell you that when I first saw watercolor paintings with wide expanses of color I assumed that these were applied and then wiped out and smoothed over after they were laid down. I had no idea that there were
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  • Art on the Square
    I was reminded that art grows in the most unlikely places and conditions when I recently heard about the art scene that is showing distinct signs of life in Fayette County, Georgia. Wildlife watercolorist Dylan Scott Pierce teaches students about layering
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  • Not Created Equal
    Not all art competitions are created equal. There are some that are themed art contests, and others are more open-ended about narrative. One art competition could have an open call for artists, and another could require its participants to submit work
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  • What's in a Nose?
    I'm not telling you anything you don't already know when I say that successful portraiture is successful when the portrait artist, foremost, captures a likeness. Yes, I ardently believe that there has to be something more to the story—a
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  • Zero-Point Perspective—Ever Hear of It?
    There's no shame in your game if you haven't heard of this kind of perspective drawing ...or lack thereof. I kind of pride myself on knowing a good bit about how to draw perspective (although my actual execution of a perspective drawing is usually
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  • The Kitsch Alternative
    The influential art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994) often cited the derisive term kitsch to critique artwork that, in his mind, failed to live up to the tenets of the modernist movement. His theories privileged formalist nonobjective abstraction
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  • 4 Tips to Get a Gallery to Call You Back
    I don't believe that gallery representation defines an artist or even makes one a professional, but if you are interested in pursuing that kind of relationship with a gallery there are a few tips to keep in mind. Make a solid connection. All the artists
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  • 3 Bad Art Habits to Break Right Now
    I don't mean to be an alarmist, but there are certain habits that artists develop when oil painting that can be detrimental to the larger arc of their professional progress. None of us intend to pick up bad practices but routine and absentmindedness
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  • Simple, Solid Shapes of Color
    Greetings everyone, Hello from Incamminati in the fine city of Philadelphia! A few days ago marked the fourth day of the Intensive Workshop being led by oil painter Lea Colie Wight , one of the senior Incamminati instructors, and a rising star in the
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  • I Coulda Been a Contender!
    It's that time again: the time for nations big and small to meet and lay claim to their dominance based on overinflated biceps--um, I mean, athletic prowess. I'm talking about the Olympics, of course. Whether you're an avid Games-watcher or
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  • Making Money with Your Art
    It's not an unreal aspiration to make money by selling your oil painting artwork or watercolors, but it will take a significant amount of work in two areas: 1) Your art. While it is possible to make money off of art that isn't particularly good
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  • He’s a Water Whisperer
    Every now and then an artist's body of work will resonate with me as being amazing, incredible, and just right not because the paintings or sculptures show technical skill or I'm moved by the subject matter, but because the artist seems to have
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  • May I Introduce Jeffrey Watts?
    Jeffrey Watts: Weekend with the Masters art instructor Jeffrey R. Watts is a southern California native. Growing up in rural San Diego county with an artist father, Watts demonstrated an early aptitude for the visual arts. After an injury cut short his
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  • May I Introduce Jennifer McChristian?
    Jennifer McChristian: Weekend with the Masters art instructor Jennifer McChristian was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. In 1986 she and her family took permanent residence in Los Angeles. In 1990 she earned a B.F.A with honors from Otis Parsons Art
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  • May I Introduce Michael Klein?
    Michael Klein: Weekend with the Masters art instructor Karina's Rose by Michael Klein, oil painting. Michael Klein is a young artist in the NovoRealist movement (new realism), creating melancholic oil painting art that has a distinct and haunting
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  • May I Introduce Daniel E. Greene?
    Daniel E. Greene: Weekend with the Masters art instructor Daniel E. Greene is a former instructor of painting at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York, both in Manhattan. He is the author of the book Pastel , which was
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  • May I Introduce Ken Backhaus?
    Ken Backhaus: Weekend with the Masters art instructor Kenn Backhaus was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and spent much of his childhood on the family farm near Burnett, Wisconsin. His fondness for nature became the catalyst for his art. Backhaus' parents
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  • May I Introduce Ken Auster?
    Ken Auster: Weekend with the Masters Instructor Clearing Skies by Ken Auster, oil painting. Ken Auster grew up with his feet deeply implanted in the sands of Southern California beaches. Caught up in the surfing culture of the 1960s, Auster ate, slept
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  • May I Introduce Juliette Aristides?
    Juliette Aristides: Weekend with the Masters art instructor Alexis by Juliette Aristides, oil painting. Juliette Aristides is a Seattle-based painter who seeks to understand and convey the human spirit through art. Aristides is the founder of and an instructor
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  • Michael Rosenfeld Gallery Moves to Chelsea
    The influx of artistic institutions moving into the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City continues with the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery prepared to make the leap. After showcasing groundbreaking oil painting work and other art pieces for the past 23 years
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  • Do I Have to Be a Fulltime Artist to Be a Real Artist?
    Given what we've discussed in the last two articles, Am I an Artist? and Am I a Real Artist ? Not to mention Part-Time Artists Are Artists, Too --you probably have a pretty good idea of what my answer to this one will be, but let's talk about
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  • Sketching the Wild Wilderness
    If art was a place on the map, pencil sketching would be its somewhat lawless backcountry. Sketching is all about freedom from rules and learning how to sketch what's in front of you no matter how unexpected. That's why sketching seem like the
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  • Tiger in a Tropical Storm
    Henri Rousseau is best known for his exotic jungle scenes, but did you know that he never left France during his lifetime? All the imagery he painted was invented entirely in his mind and perhaps coupled with inspiration he got from listening to others
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  • Life As YOU Know It
    When an artist chooses to work representationally, he or she inevitably has to take a stance on the use of photographs and the artistic merits of photorealism. Whether perusing a workshop catalog or engaged in a debate with fellow colleagues, the question
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  • Words of a Winner
    The winners of our Self-Portrait Cover Competition are featured in the September issue of American Artist, and they share advice about how to paint the figure and how to maintain a successful painting practice. When we asked David Tanner, the winner of
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  • Drawn to the Extraordinary
    Painters and draftsmen alike puzzle through perspective drawing issues. They almost have to if they want to establish any kind of sense of space in their work. Without linear perspective, all that remains is the flatness of the surface-and no artists
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  • The Question That Never Goes Away
    "Am I an Artist?" I can't help but wonder how many nuclear physicists get up out of bed each morning and ask themselves whether they are nuclear physicists. Granted, if one is a nuclear physicist, one has concrete evidence of the fact--education
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  • Artists and Artistes
    An artiste is something you don't want to be, that is, if you consider yourself an artist. While it sounds akin to archaic words like poetess or authoress, which in years passed denoted a female poet or author, an artiste is a "sort of"
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  • Dawn, Day, Dusk, Darkness
    Plein air artists are the first to tell you that you can go back to the same site over and over again during different times of day and it is like being in a whole other place. Light does that! It can turn a bright and sunny scene into a murky and mysterious
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  • The Beginning of the Affair
    We had a run of some pretty severe thunderstorms in the New York City area recently, and as a father of three, that's terrifying. Nothing can be worse than three kids under the age of five locked up in a house for a day, especially when the thermometer
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  • George Washington Looks Studly
    When I think of one iconic American oil painting , Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Leutze always come to my mind. I love talking to people about the work because it is so polarizing--some love it but some people absolutely hate it. So here's
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  • Part-Time Artists Are Artists, Too
    Last week we talked about whether "real" artists take workshops (they can, and do). Now let's consider whether you have to make your living full-time as an artist in order to be considered one. Many of us hold down other jobs while we pursue
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  • Awesome, Famous, and Get to Do What You Want
    Over the weekend, a friend of mine joked that an artist's ultimate goal should be something like 1) making work that is awesome, 2) being famous or having people appreciate your work so you can make a living doing it, and 3) doing what you want--meaning
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  • From the Window to the Wall
    I've always wondered how an artist decides how to paint the background of an artwork. Did Sargent--who painted everything, even air, with volume and texture--employ certain painting techniques for this section of his works? Are there actual painting
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  • Painting on Panels
    Focusing on traditional painting methods and their contemporary application including encaustic used in the Fayum region of ancient Egypt, egg tempera from early Renaissance Siena and oil painting from Renaissance Venice is a way to connect your studio
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  • Have You Met Édouard Vuillard?
    There are many wonderful exhibitions happening in New York City this summer, and one of the shows that has left a lasting impression with me is "Édouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940" at The Jewish Museum. Visiting this
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  • Finding Your Way Back
    I've always been fascinated by artists who live during incredibly polarizing times, but somehow still seem to go their own way. Elmer Bischoff--ever heard of this oil painting artist? He stands out as an artist in the aftermath of World War II when
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  • Are You a Real Artist?
    I chatted with a watercolor painting workshop student the other day who sighed, "I'm not a real artist. I probably never will be." "Why?" I asked. "First, because I'm still taking painting workshops and learning. Second
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  • A Votre Sante--To Your Health
    Watercolor Painting Step-by-Step Demonstration Rousillon is a sleepy village in the Luberon region of Provence, well-known for its ochre mines that provided the pigments for the manufacture of paints, including the ones we artists use. On our last workshop
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  • More Portable, Less Messy
    The size, clarity, and portability of an iPad begs for it to be used as a digital oil painting canvas or sketchbook page, and now you can do just that. I'm consistently amazed at the apps for artists that are being released on smartphones and tablets
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  • You Be the Judge: Oil Painting or Plate of Food?
    Fantasy art guru and top-notch artist James Gurney is a font of knowledge when it comes to so many aspects of drawing and painting . Whether you are into fantasy images or tend toward more realist compositions, Gurney has techniques and methods dealing
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  • Attitude Is Everything
    We've all had those moments when the details and concerns of keeping all the plates spinning distracts us from the one thing, the most important thing, that those of us who are creative people must do--create. Even doing chores that are pleasurable
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  • Is Art a Luxury?
    Let's talk about this term, luxury, first. A luxury is something that you don't really need, and by that definition, lots of things fall into this category. We need shelter; we need protection from the elements; we need food; we need water; we
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  • How Did They Get It To Look Like That?
    Have you ever looked at an abstract art piece or oil painting genre scene or pastel seascape and wonder, how'd they do that?! Chances are the answer lies somewhere in mixed media. Art that tends to defy our eyes does so for a reason--it isn't
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  • A Grumman Fighter Plane Crash Lands
    The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Presents Work by Emerging Artist Jordan Griska for Lenfest Plaza In the newly constructed Lenfest Plaza located adjacent to Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), artist Jordan Griska
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  • What Is Grisaille and Why Do We Care?
    When I discovered grisaille oil painting I thought I'd gone to heaven. Learning how to oil paint is a lot of fun, but it is also just a lot . There is so much to deal with--getting your forms right, steering toward an interesting composition, brushwork
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  • Art for Thought: The Golden Land of Opportunity
    California has long been seen as a land of opportunity. People have been flocking there since the Gold Rush of 1849, which brought close to 300,000 settlers to the state and incited an economic and cultural boom of epic proportions. For artists, the attraction
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  • The Self Taught Artist – Who Isn’t?
    Some artists make a big deal out of being self taught, but truth of the matter is, all artists are self taught. The difference between the two is encapsulated in two questions: Are you learning oil painting for example only from yourself, just from what
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  • Struggle, Overpaint, Layer, Sand, Soul-Search
    When you can do something well, it can be difficult to set it aside or modify that skill for the good of your art. John Evans is an American artist who admits to battling the tendency to overwork his oil paintings, sliding between depiction and evocation
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  • Get Really Close--No One's Going to Call Security
    What was that beautiful work I saw at the Met? Which room was Sargent's portrait painting , Madame X , in? I loved that Renoir but didn't have time to go back and spend a little more time with that work and that work alone. How do I answer these
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  • Plein Air Watercolor Survival Guide
    When plein air painting , one of the most enjoyable and facile medias I've found to work with has to be watercolors. Hands down. The supplies are minimal, you can paint quickly and move from place to place making sketches of what catches your interest
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  • Framing Paintings
    In any painting, the biggest expenditure for the artist is the frame that goes around the finished piece. If it's a watercolor painting, there's the matting, the glazing, and the frame holding it all together; for the oil on canvas or acrylic
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  • It's Stilleven, Nature Morte, Dead Nature, or Still Life
    The art of still life painting is a time-honored one that has been around since at least the time of the ancient Egyptians. Still life paintings were often used to adorn the interiors of Egyptian tombs with the belief that these depictions of food and
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  • Heart Melting…So Cute!
    I'm not blessed at this point in my life to have children, but if I did you can bet I'd be one of those mothers who want portrait paintings of her children at every stage of their lives. Even better, I could learn how to paint children like artist
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  • Forget the Finishing Touches
    I love Masterpiece Theater on PBS. Recently the movie Birdsong aired--a love story about a soldier on the battlefield of World War I and the lover he left behind. Claude Renoir Writing by Pierre Auguste Renoir, lithograph, 1902/3. There was a scene from
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  • Inner Visions: Women Artists of California
    Mural From the Oaks Hotel by Jessie Arms Botke, 1953, oil on canvas with gold leaf, 82½ x 173½. Courtesy The Irvine Museum, Irvine, California. The Irvine Museum in California is shining a powerful spotlight on the artwork of talented female
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  • Finding Your Space
    If you do not have an official, proper, "real" painting studio, don't feel bad. Your studio can be in a corner of your dining room. Many people's are. Or it can be a section of the garage where you make your oil painting art ; a spare
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  • Wax On, Wax Off!
    I now have my own range of watercolor painting brushes and while going through the process of choosing their design, fond memories came flooding back to me from my time living and studying art in China. There I was fortunate enough to meet a wonderful
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  • The Fugitive Color
    We are big admirers of J. M. W. Turner's work in oil and watercolor, especially his magnificent, ethereal watercolor paintings . Unfortunately many of his paintings are much less vivid today than they were when he painted them. We know this from written
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  • The New Three-Day Rule
    Regardless of the kind of art you practice, if you have any hopes of making a living at it, you'll eventually have to share your creations, whether at an open mic, in a YouTube video, or putting together an oil painting group show with artist friends
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  • Classic, Commercial, and an Art World Constant
    You don't have to think terribly hard to figure out that the painting genre that has all of these characteristics in common is floral painting . It is a practice that has inspired artists to create beautiful, graceful paintings for centuries, but
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  • The Right Stuff
    I work with knitters, and a student recently told me, "I don't like the way my stuff turns out." When I asked her what kind of yarn she used, she replied, "Oh, I just picked up something cheap. I didn't want to spend money on something
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  • Sharing Tea and Portraits with Natalie Italiano
    Recently the students at Studio Incamminati went to New York. I chose not to go, instead wandering around the school looking at the drawings and paintings on the student walls. Natalie Italiano , an instructor in the core program as well as a Fellow there
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  • What Do Painters Really Do?
    Do you know how frustrating it is to love something, but not necessarily know everything about it? That's sometimes the way I feel about color. I have such a visual lust for color--learning new colors, discovering new paint mixes, figuring out how
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  • Grandpa Is Wearing His Batman Costume Again
    Earlier this week I was lucky enough to attend the opening of Jason Bard Yarmosky's solo show "Elder Kinder" at Lyons Wier Gallery, in New York City. It's a terrific painting exhibition, and it got me thinking about how an artist can
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  • Painting on Autopilot
    I can't think of a single parent who lolls in the passenger seat of the car, detached while observing their teenaged driver's inaugural foray into the city streets. Sometimes we rest, relax and dream--not, however, when we are actively painting
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  • Artist Mother, Artist Son
    My mom is an artist, but she's nothing like me. For all that, we're both artists. If you want to know where I got my artist genes, I got most of them from her. Genes alone don't make an artist, though. Making art is kind of a stupid career
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  • It's Not What You Know--It's Who You Know
    I've come to realize that that old saying "It's not always what you know, but who you know," is spot on. Even at American Artist magazine . Luckily, "we" know a lot of people, and as a result we have remarkable access to some
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  • Getting Trashed
    I've heard of painting for yourself, for school, for work, but painting for the trash can?! Artist and watercolor painting instructor Jean Haines explains why working this way isn't rubbish at all. Enjoy! The aim of being an artist is to create
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  • Variation By Subject
    Emma Twice , 2009, oil on canvas, 48 x 48. All works by Daniel Maidman. Over the past few posts, we've been discussing shocks to the system as a way of avoiding growing complacent and thoughtless in your art. I shared two of my own tricks— varying
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  • Not Painting
    The Norwegian Artist and I have a friend who specializes in painting small pet animals...that is, when he paints. While to paint regularly, you don't need a huge space, you'll find yourself happiest with a designated one. On the Horizon by Steve
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  • Words of Wisdom From Antonio López García
    I'm sure many of you are aware of the Spanish living legend Antonio López García, but I'm ashamed to say I was not familiar with his artwork until recently. And as with any new discovery, once you become aware of a new person, place
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  • 4 Ways to Paint Without Preconceptions
    Short of lobotomy, we will always have the equivalent of mental trails that our brains follow when we are painting. Artists develop these based on painting techniques that they've learned along the way, or they can be expressions of inherent ideas
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  • Silver Bullets and Miracle Pills
    Different people attend painting workshops with varying expectations, but the ones who get the most out of the experience are those who recognize that workshops are not: A workshop gives you the opportunity to start at one point in your artistic journey
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  • Lucian Freud Had Great Skin
    I started off seeing skin tones in a closed off way, not really pushing to find the dimension and depth right in front of me. I almost felt I was still pulling a Crayon out of the box to color a figure's form from head to toe like I did in childhood
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  • Now Everyone Squeeze Together
    It's funny how I have gotten so immersed in art that I tend to project very human emotions or ideas to inanimate objects in paintings and drawings. Still life painting objects that don't spatial connect in some way most often won't connect
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  • Toning Your Canvas
    A few weeks ago I had a studio session with Lea Colie Wight , a great painter who had a really lovely tone to her oil painting surface that many of us loved and wanted to know more about. I wanted to share that info with you! Canvas Toning Process The
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  • Get Your Work Seen By 100 People a Day
    Yep, it is a pretty lofty goal. I know it. But there are so many incredible artists out there who are doing incredible work and deserve more visibility! Here are a few ways that you can elevate your artistic profile in the wider world. By no means are
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  • Painting Into the Light
    One of the major challenges of painting outdoors is the need to gather enough visual information about our subject in a brief moment of perfect light. In rushing to capture the light in nature, it is easy to lose those subtle details and tonal changes
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  • How Do You Pick the Right Workshop?
    Whether or not you like to be around a lot of people is one thought to consider when you choose the right workshop for you. Descent into Bryce by Steve Henderson, 18 x 18, oil painting, also available as a limited edition signed print . Let's assume
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  • He's So Sketchy
    But in the very best way! When I was trolling for artists who draw like they paint and vice versa, Giovanni Boldini immediately came to mind. His mark making is a tour de force, no matter if he is working in oils, pastels, or when charcoal painting. Spanish
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  • Not Just For Ink Blots Anymore
    Drawing with ink takes the precision of a master draftsman and the skill of a watercolorist handling a fluid medium. When I was in school I was completely captivated by the silky dark lines of one of the most famous pen and ink artists, Aubrey Beardsley
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  • Should You Take a Workshop?
    I deliberately entitled this post using a word that I have eliminated from my vocabulary: Should. Like sunrise to a new day, the right workshop can lead you to fresh new beginnings in your art pursuits. Awakening by Steve Henderson, 24 x 40, oil painting
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  • Your New Free eBook: Step by Step Painting Techniques
    Painting is a deep and vast ocean. It is a world full of possibilities. And while I am deeply drawn to that wide-open aspect of it, I'm also super intimidated by it too! I feel like there is no limit to what I can learn, and while I'm thirsty
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  • Art For Thought: Great Artists, Great Paintings
    A Summer Night by Winslow Homer, 1890, oil on canvas, 30 3/16 x 40 3/16. The word "great" (or "greatest") can be pretty subjective, and lately I've been thinking about how to better qualify the term. To celebrate our 75 th Anniversary
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  • Licking the Dog's Nose
    A friend mentioned to me that someone challenged her to read, within one year, a particularly long and demanding book. "I didn't really want to do it," she confessed. "But he's knowledgeable and he was insistent, so I did."
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  • Behind Every Good Painting Is a Good Still Life
    The Sensorium by Walton Ford, 2003, watercolor, gouache, pencil and ink on paper, 152.9 x 302.3 cm. Yes, that is a complete exaggeration. But my point is that a lot of times in the art world people tend to silo or separate genres of painting to such an
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  • Pick Up a Few Pointers from This Dutch Master
    A willingness to experiment with perspective and style is often the determining factor between a competent artist and a master. A new exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art , "Van Gogh Up Close," takes a compelling look at the choices
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  • How I Built an Art Network in My Hometown
    Patricia Watwood is a skilled oil painter and incredibly deserving of a lot of praise for the art career she has built for herself. She's also quite willing to share her approach to building a network for her art, as she attests below. Enjoy! The
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  • Afraid of the Dark?
    Carnations flowing in a loose watercolor with exciting watermarks and color effects evident within the composition. I have just taken a week of watercolor painting workshops and I came across a problem that many watercolor artists have in common. Many
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  • It Means Never Having to Say ‘No’
    One of my first self-assigned duties at Artist Daily was to get out in the local American art community and see the kind of work that is being made all over the country, what kind of art techniques are gaining in popularity, and how artists are communicating
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  • The Complete Painter's Handbook
    In our new special issue, American Artist guides you through the most important aspects of the painting process, from selecting your materials to preparing a canvas to advanced techniques for accurately depicting landscapes and figures.
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  • Is It Better to Learn From One Artist or From Many?
    While I was working recently on American Artist's new special issue, The Complete Painter's Handbook ( order now! ), I had a little debate with myself. The question at hand: If you are working to learn how to paint, is it better to focus on following
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  • Here Comes a Video Series on Portrait Painting
    Portrait artist and painter David McLeod is amidst an exciting project: creating a 10-part video series on portraiture . McLeod takes viewers through the steps that all portrait artists go through to create a compelling, visually appealing portrait, but
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  • Spare Me All the Dirty Details
    Moonrise, La Giudecca, Venice by JMW Turner, 1829, watercolor painting, 8 7/8 x 11 1/4. Delicacy, luminousness, light, and color--these are what you can expect when you look at a watercolor painting . But details? Heck no--or at least, not much. With
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  • Why Can't You Be Blue Over Me?
    Where would painting be without the color blue? It is so easy to obtain artist paints of any hue these days that we forget that in the time of both Michelangelo and Titian, a pure, vibrant blue pigment could only be made by laboriously cooking and hand
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  • If This Sounds Harsh, Forgive Me...
    Below you'll find artist and blogger Jennifer King's discussion of when a plein air painting can be too real. I don't think she's being harsh at all, but you'll have to decide for yourself. Enjoy! ***** I think it's time for some
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  • Art for Thought: My Eye It Is A-Changin’
    There was a time in the not-so-distant past when my interest in art history stopped at Post-Impressionism. When I read art books and visited museums, I was instinctually drawn to artwork from the Italian Renaissance through Impressionism and curious to
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  • Man's Best Friend Is Art's Best Friend Too?
    We have always felt that as plein air painters we are observers of the landscape—recording moments and places that can rapidly transform with fleeting changes of light. In a pure landscape, figures and animals are rendered small and insignificant
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  • Want to Show Painting Improvement Now?
    Portraiture is, in my humble opinion, the domain of artistic masters. All the greats, such as Velazquez, Rembrandt, Goya, and Sargent, can be counted as incredibly skilled and innovative portrait artists in addition to being pretty brilliant at everything
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  • The Truth About Drawing Faces in One Free eBook!
    Woman with a Hat (detail) by Henri Matisse, 1905, oil on canvas. Archimedes (detail) by Jose de Ribera, 1630, oil painting. Self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh, 1888, oil painting. A few days ago I was hanging out with a mixed bag of artists. And by mixed
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  • The Lasting Influence of Illustration
    I love that my job allows me to learn something new every day—and the fact that the majority of those discoveries are art-related make them all the more inspiring. Lately I've been in art-historian mode, and I've have been trying to better
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  • Putting the Air in Plein Air
    I don't care how many times I see Monet's paintings, they never cease to inspire me. I just had the great pleasure of seeing the new Monet show at the Cincinnati Art Museum with my art buddies, and especially for those of us plein-air artists
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  • Solving the Mystery of Monet
    The Water Lily Pond by Claude Monet, oil painting, 1899. Mitchell Albala is an inspiring art instructor in the field of landscape painting , and it turns out he's an awesome detective as well. Recently, he did some sleuthing on a rare video clip of
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  • He’s So Freakin’ Formal!
    Yellow Pen by Nat Meade, oil on linen, 24 x 20, 2011. Focusing on formal concerns in art does not make an artist uptight or unimaginative. Quite the opposite actually—pursuing matters of pattern, line, space, and color can prove to jumpstart free
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  • Painters Who Made the Biggest Splash
    Sometimes the question shouldn't be what to paint as much as how to paint. There are centuries' worth of artists who fill art history textbooks, but those who stand heads and shoulders above the rest do so because they turned their painting art
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  • Is White Really a Color?
    There are differing opinions among color theory purists whether white should be considered a color at all, since it represents the absence of hue or chroma, and cannot be made from the three primaries, as black theoretically can be. It's not usually
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  • Artistic Keys to the Kingdom: Flexibility and Discipline
    Artist Daily Member Spotlight: Steve Henderson Summer Breeze by Steve Henderson, oil on canvas, 24 x 24. Artist Daily: Tell me about your oil painting process . Are there rules you adhere to or just the opposite? Steve Henderson: Although I do follow
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  • Reflections on Creating an Artistic Body of Work
    Inkhead , 2009, oil on canvas, 29 x 16. Dorothy , 2010, oil on canvas, 14 x 14. Anakin Padawan , 2009, oil on canvas, 44 x 28. I have been blogging this past year about preparing for my exhibit, "Myths and Individuals." Now, it's time for
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  • 3 Techniques Moved Me to the Head of the Class
    At least I feel that way. I set myself a goal this week—I wanted to learn a few new watercolor painting techniques because I feel like when I contemplate working in watercolor, I only know the "first gear" approaches. I feel like Tim Saternow
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  • Art Dieting: Skip Dinner and Paint It Instead
    When I was young and taking art classes, I was always stumped when my teachers would let us decide individually what to paint. There were just too many creative options and I would simply shut down. One time I went home in a funk, stressed out about what
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  • Painting for the (Trash) Bin
    The aim of being an artist is the ability to create. But with this desire of wishing to constantly achieve wonderful paintings that can be framed or exhibited comes an enormous amount of pressure on our shoulders. We expect to always succeed in our goal
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  • If You’ve Been House Hunting, You Know What I Mean
    Have you ever been looking for a new place to live, visiting different apartments or houses, and every time you experience a new reaction to a place and its spaces? It always happens to me. Either I love the architecture and light in this one, or the
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  • Fish, Lemons & Glass Bowls
    Dutch still life painting set the standard for out-of-this-world virtuosity in the 17th century, and I'll never get over the unusual mix of objects artists chose to depict: food of all kinds, polished silverware and gleaming glass, embroidered and
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  • What's the Wisp?!
    Elton , 11 x 14, mixed media on gesso board, 2011. Yesterday was an interesting day for me. I thought I was near finished with a painting I had been working on for over three months, but when I sent it over to my agent in New York, who I call my third
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  • I Heart Contemporary Painters Who Use Classical Methods
    Artists working today that I admire most all usually have one thing in common—they have developed their own unique contemporary practice while still utilizing classical methods. I've come to realize that I have a bias for artwork that has a
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  • Only As Good As the Hand Wielding It
    A painting brush isn't animate. It isn't going to teach me how to paint or go about painting art when no one is looking. It needs the hand of the artist to do its job. Penitent Mary Magdalene by Titian, 1560s, oil on canvas. But one thing a brush—by
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  • Educate + Inspire + Equip
    Old Cedar by Bill Guffey, oil, 18 x 24. Peasant by Joan Langdon, watercolor painting, 10.5 x 11.5. Tomiko by Adriana Guidi, oil on canvas panel, 14 x 18. That's Brian Neher's mantra for his upcoming free art contest , and it is one that I can
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  • Are Your Colors Going to Be "In" This Spring?
    I know it is only January, but I'm already thinking spring! And so is the Pantone Color Institute . The organization has just released their seasonal color report, and while this is specifically written for the fashion and design industry, we art
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  • Color Wars
    When I asked friends and colleagues about landscape painting artists with the best use of color, the conversation got downright heated. Mostly because there's so much to consider when you look at each individual artist's color "theory"
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  • The Cosmic Dance en Plein Air
    Spring in the Hills II by John Hulsey, 5 x 7, oil painting. Whenever we get to feeling that there is nothing really new to be discovered in art or the world, we have to keep in mind that the "undiscovered country" often lies in our own backyards
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  • Why Collect Art?
    Children on the Seashore by Joaquin Sorolla, oil on canvas, 1903 . I was once again reading through my copy of the catalog for the 1989 exhibition, The Painter Joaquin Sorolla , and came across this 1933 quote by John Paul Getty in an article called Creative
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  • Do It with a Stranger
    Eva Mullarky by Kristin Künc, oil on linen, 9 x 13, 2011. I can be a really hard sell when it comes to portraiture because from a beginner painter's perspective, I'm not always sure how to get the most out of a portrait painting session.
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  • Insane: They've Never Seen Contemporary American Paintings Before!
    Venus Awakes by Patricia Watwood, 2011, oil on canvas, 38 x 34. Karen in White by Paul McCormack, oil on canvas, 40 x 29. Enigma (Self-Portrait) by David Leffel, 2009, oil on canvas, 52 x 34. On Sunday, January 22 nd , the ACOPAL group will celebrate
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  • Painting with a Magical Medium
    Astor Place by Emily Falco, watercolor painting, 14 1/2 x 14 1/2, 2009. It warms my heart when I hear artists expressing excitement about their chosen painting medium because artists are the ones in the business of knowing all the ins and outs of their
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  • Photograph Your Art Like a Pro
    Our contributing bloggers John Hulsey and Ann Trusty of The Artist's Road wrote a really informative blog about how to get the most out of a photograph of your painting or drawing, and I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy! Film holder frame attached
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  • A Fresh Foray with New Artists
    I get excited and a bit chagrined whenever I discover oil painters of the past that I've never heard of. I realize that I'm no walking encyclopedia, yet I like to think I've got sound footing in oil painting . But the history of fine art oil
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  • Don't Let Your Plein-Air Skills Grow Cold
    Don't give up your plein air focus over the winter months. Try to paint from life indoors and keep sketching. ( Melting Snow by Ben Fenske, 60 x 75, oil on canvas.) For some of us, winter weather is just a bit too unpredictable and chilly to spend
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  • Paint the Body Parts That Turn You On!
    Back II (Joshua) by Martha Mayer Erlebacher, 2003, oil on canvas, 42 x 42. The human body is beautiful—as a whole and in its parts. Body drawings that accentuate the sensuous lines of the body and the power of the human form are steeped in a knowledge
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  • Why I Workshop
    We spent a lot of painting time along the cliffs outside San Juan. Painting can be a pretty isolating affair, and though I love the alone time spent with my muse, I miss the collective energy that working in a group of like-minded colleagues provides
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  • Come Winter, I Head to the Hothouse
    The botanical gardens in Washington, DC, near the Capitol. When I'm visiting family in Virginia during winter, I always make a point to walk through the botanical gardens near the Capitol in Washington, DC. It is one of my favorite places, and the
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  • Shrink Your Painting—Does It Still Work?
    Philadelphia Story II--Spires by Sarah Yeoman, watercolor painting, 14 x 20. I don't mean literally shrink it, but if you take a photo of your painting and reduce it to thumbnail size and it still holds together compositionally, you've got a good
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  • Skies Don’t Have Brushstrokes In Them
    Watercolor artist Thomas Schaller achieves convincing and dynamic effects in his skies ( Salisbury Cathedral , watercolor painting). I know it is a bias, but sometimes I can't help thinking that painting skies belongs to a particular realm of watercolor
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  • I Can’t Believe I’m About to Say This, But…
    I plan on spending quality time with the catalog published by the Whitney Museum on Lyonel Feininger ( Gaberndorf II , oil on canvas, 1924, 39 x 30.5). Take this time and don't draw or paint. Okay, I was kind of thinking the world would end if I said
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  • Ala Carte Your Art
    Grisaille copy of Jacques-Louis David's Patroclus , oil on linen, 48 x 78. At this time of year, we all travel so much that it can be a real challenge to figure out how to bring our painting supplies with us when we visit family and friends. Whether
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  • The Artist Watch List—Are You On It?
    In the December/January issue of American Artist magazine, the editors and staff put out feelers throughout the art community to find artists who are established or up and coming, and deserve recognition. They had limited space in the print issue, so
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  • Color That Can Be Saturated and Subtle—Who Knew?
    I adore color—deep ruby reds, bold blues, verdant greens, rich golden yellows...I could go on and on, but one thing that I often forget in my zeal is that color is not just a matter of hue. Saturation and subtle color layers also play a huge part
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  • How I Built an Art Network in My Hometown
    The Honorable Clarence Harmon, Mayor of St. Louis by Patricia Watwood, oil on canvas, 24 x 18, oval, 2002. Collection of St. Louis City Hall. Someone recently asked me what I did to get recognized and become part of the art scene in my hometown of St
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  • Your Free Portrait Painting eBook--But I Didn't Get a Chance to Gift Wrap It
    Ariadne by Janet Rogers, watercolor painting. Since coming to Artist Daily, my parents are both super supportive of me and our web community. My mom does her best to get everyone she knows to join us at Artist Daily, and my dad buys me art supplies in
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  • You Paint Them By Not Painting Them?
    T o Be Where There's Life by Ryan Coleman, oil on canvas, 30 x 40, 2010. The coolest thing I ever learned about painting flowers , specifically how to paint a rose, was when a painting teacher told me that you paint them by not painting them. Back
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  • Surviving the Trauma of an Art Breakdown
    I remind myself that even artistic legends like Michelangelo struggled. When he did the Sistine ceiling in fresco, a medium he wasn't familiar with, the first few sessions were stressful and trying for the artist. But he persevered and created one
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  • How I Restored Freshness to My Work
    We've been discussing shocking your system to keep your art practice from falling into routines. Another excellent means of accomplishing shock is to switch media. By and large, I work in two media: graphite and white pencil on toned paper, and oil
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  • It's an Excuse to Paint Umbrellas
    The Coming Storm by George Inness, 1879, oil on canvas, 27 1/4 x 41 3/4. Are you as bored of pretty outdoor painting scenes as I am? My eyes just seem to glaze over when I see a plein air painting scene with picture perfect sunlight over an idyllic landscape
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  • 3 Things I've Got to Have to Keep Going
    My family and I at my opening. Cute bunch, right? The show included works from the last 10 years. I know it's been a while since I've written. Let's see--the last time was just when I got back from my summer vacation. And now it's....November
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  • "Let's Get Physical. I Wanna Get Physical..."
    Ugh, after all the holiday eating I've been doing, I should probably go exercise or run laps. But as a warm up I thought I would talk about physicality, power, and movement in oil painting . Maybe this'll be the inspiration I need to get off my
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  • That Painting Just Said ‘Eat Me!’
    This being the day after Thanksgiving, we celebrate leftovers in my house—and pretty much all other activities that result in eating. So I thought, why mess with family tradition? I'm devoting today's column to one subject matter I rarely
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  • Photograph Your Art Like a Pro
    All the hard work and unique vision that we pour into our painting and drawing can result in artwork that we are proud of. The next step is to make an accurate photographic record of our art to share with friends, collectors, galleries and perhaps to
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  • Norman Rockwell in the House!!!
    The Gossips by Norman Rockwell, 1948. I think every one of us loves Norman Rockwell's illustrations, whether it is a little bit or a lot. They tell stories and always seem to capture expressions and reactions so perfectly. My favorite has always been
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  • I'm Scared--What If I Freeze Up When I Paint This Way?
    Faded Glory by Rose Frantzen, 36 x 48, oil painting. If there were daredevils of art, I certainly would not be one of them. I'm always hesitating and rethinking what I'm doing. (In my day-to-day life I'm not such a scaredy cat—I swear
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  • Can You Outgrow Your Art?
    Train Tracks by Valerio D'Ospina, 2011, oil on melamined MDF, 30 x 24. Some artists such as Jackson Pollock discover and use their own visual language to communicate with the world, and this singular voice takes them through an entire career of putting
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  • Bringing Artists Together
    I want to share an inspiring story I just heard from one of our members, Mark Beale . Enjoy! Bryce Canyon by Bruce Stam, oil painting, 8 x 10. Backwater Twilight by Mark Beale, oil painting, 9 x 12. Bruce Stam and I are two landscape painters from opposite
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  • Wild But True: I Want to Paint Light
    Lee's Ranch - Sunny Day by Camille Przewodek, 9 x 12, oil on canvas. Even now it sounds like a beautiful, incredible, impossible thing to accomplish. I mean, paint light ? It seemed like magic to me at first. And I didn't understand what it all
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  • Art That Reminds Me of Home
    During this time of year I like to reflect upon and appreciate all the blessings in my life (...also eat a lot of carbs and watch TV marathons). But lately I've been dwelling on how lucky we are to have so much amazing art created and inspired by
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  • Breakfast of Champions: Free Still Life Painting eBook!
    The Remains by Joe Gyurcsak, 2007, oil painting, 24 x 24. If I start my morning with a bit of artistic inspiration, it really carries me through the whole day, just like a wholesome breakfast does! And today is a very good day because I was able to begin
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  • Can a Caricature Help My Portrait Painting? Plus Our Self-Portrait Contest!
    The Grimaces by Louis-Leopold Boilly, 1823, lithograph, 13 1/8 x 10. A few weeks ago I was in the Met and saw "Infinite Jest," an exhibition of drawings and prints that explore satire and caricature from the Italian Renaissance to the present
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  • Paint the Place You Call Home
    We plein-air artists seem to put a lot of emphasis on traveling to far off places to paint, don't we? The fields of Tuscany, the rugged California coast, the farmhouses of the Cotswolds all seem to beckon. And heeding that call can be fantastic. I
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  • Priceless: A Representational Artist Who Understands Abstraction
    Delphinium by Sherrie McGraw, oil painting, 8 x 10. Sherrie McGraw's work always surprises me because she doesn't allow the objects she is painting to dictate how she paints. Instead, McGraw paints to articulate form, masses, and her own ideas
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  • Will You Please Put Some Clothes On?
    Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard (attributed), 1585. I can only imagine the excitement and thrill of sitting for any one of the great portrait painters in history such as Bronzino, Velazquez, and Sargent. But then my mind goes directly
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  • Don't Set Yourself Up for Failure from the Start
    Optimal Orientation of Subject and Artist in Plein Air Before the first daub of paint is squeezed out of the tube and brush is put to canvas, many plein air painters have already set themselves up for failure. How? By selecting a site that doesn't
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  • Take a Peek at Jamie Wyeth’s Watercolors
    This is one of the artist's more traditional pieces in terms of his painting process. ( Raspberry House by Jamie Wyeth, 1988, watercolor, 22 1/2 x 28 1/2.) Watercolor is one of those wondrous materials that can be manipulated in so many different
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  • Desperately Seeking Homer
    The Red Canoe by Winslow Homer, watercolor painting, 1889. Some years ago, Ann and I drove to New York to deliver a vanload of watercolor paintings to a gallery for a solo exhibition of my work. The exhibition was going up for a month, after which we
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  • He Was Rejected Over and Over
    Camille au métier by Claude Monet, 1875, oil painting. "My rejection at the Salon brought an end to my hesitation [to settle in Paris] since after this failure I can no longer claim to cope... alas, that fatal rejection has virtually taken
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  • The Bravest Painters I Know...
    ...are ones that paint self-portraits. As we all well know, artists have a lot of firepower at their disposal. It comes from being trained to look critically and creatively at the things you see. For an artist to turn that kind of acuity on him- or herself
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  • Capturing a Sense of Place--What Does It Mean To You?
    When discussing landscape painting , we often hear the phrase "capturing a sense of place." What does that mean to you? To me, it means so much more than just recording the physical attributes of the location. It goes way beyond suggesting the
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  • Are We Wired for Beauty?
    Flamenco by Ann Trusty, oil painting, 48 x 60. The science community is busy investigating the mechanisms and processes by which people are able to perceive the world around them and make visual sense of it. There are many basic questions still to be
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  • He’s Nobody’s Fool When It Comes to Putting a Painting Together
    Breaking the Light by Don Demers, 24 x 36, oil painting. Don Demers knows that inspiration is always there if you know how to look for it, but he's also nobody's fool—he understands that to create a breathtaking and moving painting you sometimes
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  • His Painting Palette Was the Size of a Piano Top
    Under the Awning by Joaquin Sorolla, oil painting, 1910. "There is nothing truer than truth. All the mistakes committed by great artists are due to their having separated themselves from truth, believing that their imagination is stronger...There
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  • Just Put a Nail in the Wall and I'm Done
    Isn't hanging a painting as easy as that? Yeah, right! There are so many ways that you can showcase your work, and each one can make such a difference in how each painting or drawing is perceived. Unframed. I prefer the art that I have in my apartment
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  • A Very Different Kind of Landscape Painting
    Ernest Lawson (1873 - 1939) came to maturity at the dawn of the 20th century, so his work was modern and gritty and real. His are not the idyllic landscape paintings of Corot , nor are they the dazzling light shows in Monet's plein air paintings
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  • Learning How to Let Inspiration Come to Me
    Slicker by Mary Whyte, watercolor painting, 18 1/2 x 18. I went through a phase when I thought I could control everything--where my career was headed, how my relationships were going to turn out, and what kind of life I was going to have. Ah, I crack
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  • Painting a Season in All Its Glory
    Study for Gapstow Bridge in Sunlight by Bennett Vadnais, oil on canvas, 12 x 16, 2007. Fall is my favorite time of year. It's my birthday season, so of course I'm partial, but I also just love the smell of autumn. It's crisp and clean, and
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  • Portrait & Figure Painting Highlights
    Reflect Your True Vision with Accurate Form Now you can paint the human form with the depth and detail it deserves - your artwork will come alive with this exciting special issue from American Artist: Portrait and Figure Painting Highlights Fall 2010. Improve the detail of your portraits with 100 pages
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  • Sitting Down with the Editor of Watercolor Magazine
    Farm Visitors by Hardie Gramatky, watercolor, 1971. I can't get over the fact that Watercolor magazine is celebrating its 25 th year. For a quarter of a century it has been the eyes and ears of watermedia artists all over the country, and has featured
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  • Can’t I Be Part of a Painting Dynasty?
    Paris by Danny McCaw, 24 x 16. Not to be a whiner, but I don't have an artistic legacy to build on. So far as I know, no one in my family is an artist or has any particular leanings towards painting or drawing. That's why I'm so enamored with
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  • Please Forgive Me If This Sounds a Little Harsh...
    But I think it's time for some straight talk. I've participated in many, many plein air painting critiques over the years, and I can't begin to tell you how often I've been faced with landscape paintings that are a little off. Perhaps
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  • I Could Start Every Painting This Way
    Here's the oil painting by Casper David Friedrich that I have on a postcard called The Sea of Ice (1824, oil on canvas, 38 x 50). In college, I created a series of mixed media collages that incorporated several of the same images, but each looked
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  • Before You Accuse Me, Take A Look at Yourself
    And I am! I'm calling myself out on the carpet. I've got a handful of mirrors in my apartment and don't take advantage of what is right in front of me. Which is why I'm fired up about getting people to do more self-portraits--including
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  • Who Is Odd Nerdrum and Why Do We Care?
    Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum, currently facing time in prison for tax fraud, is certainly a character, taking on more of a dramatic persona than most people do in their day-to-day lives. He's also a bit of a polarizing figure. I know artists who think
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  • Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About
    Lucrezia by Francisco Benitez, 30 x 30, encaustic on panel. I recently had a conversation with an artist about how she is struggling to get her drawings and oil paintings noticed by the "art world" and her frustration that she can't seem
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  • Thomas Eakins Taught Me All About Painting People
    Female Nude by Thomas Eakins, oil painting, c. 1881. The Thinker by Thomas Eakins, oil painting, 1900. Thomas Eakins earned himself quite a reputation during his lifetime. He didn't suffer fools gladly, he didn't hold his tongue, and he didn't
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  • Fall 2011
    This issue marks the 25th Anniversary of Watercolor. To celebrate, we present 25 tips, 25 painting locations, and 25 tools that today's top watermedia painters say they can't do without. We also take a look at the innovations of early practitioners and trace the masterful use of watercolor throughout
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  • Do’s & Don’ts of Artist Websites
    Self-Portrait by Kristin Kunc, oil on linen, 2011. As you probably well know, I'm online...a lot. And I'd like to think of myself as somewhat well informed about artist websites. I'm on them all the time—whether it is through an email
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  • Landscape Painting Lessons from the Masters: Inness
    These four oil paintings have something in common. Yes, of course, they were all painted by George Inness (1825-1894), one of the greatest American landscape painters of all time. But there's something else, an incredibly valuable lesson. Have you
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  • A Few Favorite Resources from My Bookshelves
    Sarah Simblet (her pen drawing, Isis 38 , above) taught me a lot about how intertwined the semblance of motion and mark-making are in really good drawings. Maybe it is part of having an arts career or maybe it is just me, but I love books and magazines
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  • That’s a Chicken with the Body of a Snake
    When I flipped through the Fall issue of Watercolor magazine—celebrating their 25 th year in print (whoop whoop!)—I was super impressed with the feature article on "25 Artists to Watch." It confirms what I know is happening out in
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  • Painting Bridges, Alleys, and Avenues of My Favorite Cities
    I was born and raised in the suburbs, with rural farmland and city centers nearby so I have an unbiased appreciation for both. I'm attuned to the natural elements around me and I love to be outdoors, but I also get so energized by the sights and sounds
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  • Landscape Painting Lessons from the Masters: Corot
    Recollection of Mortefontaine by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, landscape oil painting, 1864. One of my great heroes in art is Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), the world-famous French artist who is still considered one of the best landscape artists
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  • Help! I’m Stuck in a Plein Air Rut!
    Schloss Kammer at Lake Atter I by Gustav Klimt, 1908, oil on canvas. It seems impossible, right? I mean I'm out there painting, everything looks so fresh and crisp, the air and wind feel so good on my face, and then all of a sudden I am practically
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  • Treat Your Model Like a Well-Trained Pet
    I am kidding! So kidding! But I was thinking about this article and how I wanted to discuss working with a model, specifically how to position your model in a figure drawing , and what that position can convey both compositionally and as part of the narrative
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  • What It Means to Be an Artist
    Seeing John Phillip Osborne at his canvas reminds me of all the things I think of and value as an artist. I know I don't have to explain it to all of you , but when I am in situations with people who aren't as passionate about art I find myself
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  • 3 Painting Pointers That I'll Always Remember
    Notice how Gury scratches through the paint in his oil painting Autumn Glow , reinforcing the shape and outline of the tree limbs. I'm not one to ask or judge someone by their resume or history because we all walk our own paths and get meaningful
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  • All the Painting Ladies
    Judith and Her Maidservant by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1613, oil on canvas. I'm not one to put artist before artwork. If I like the painting or drawing, it has nothing to do with who the art-maker is. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe
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  • Prelude to a Kiss…Gotta Paint Lips First!
    In this large scale painting by Stephen Bennett ( Beach Baby , 2001, acrylic, 80 x 64), the faint lines and varied color on the lips are faithfully rendered. As an unrepentant smart mouth, I know how much value two lips have, in real life and especially
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  • Abandon and Control: Robert Liberace's Contradiction in Oil Painting?
    Oil painting demonstration by Robert Liberace. To listen to Robert Liberace talk during one of his demonstrations, sometimes, fleetingly, it sounds to me like there is an occasional contradiction. The most recent example I can point to is when he talked
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  • Say Bon Voyage to This Kind of Painting
    Passing clouds from my window by Jos van Riswick . The artist has made a commitment to doing a postcard-size oil painting a day. Wherever I visit, I always send my parents postcards. It's a way of sharing my travel experience with them; giving them
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  • Ah, Vacation.....Time for More Painting!
    I put aside my oil painting work to take up a sketchbook and watercolors to capture the sights and sounds around me during my trip . If you are a painter, you know that sometimes the best thing to do is get away from it all...and do more painting. I was
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  • Who Sent You Flowers? Me!—Our Newest Free eBook on Painting Flowers Is Here!
    Rhododendron by James Sulkowski, 2001, oil painting. Notice how the flowers are arranged in a curving S-shape, starting in the back and bring your eye to the foreground. Most artists have a love-hate relationship with floral painting. There's plenty
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  • Painting the Illusion of Distance—Is It Just About Perspective?
    Fifty by Mitchell Albala, 2006, oil painting on canvas. In this painting, the artist strongly distinguishes the land and sky to give a sense of vertical distance. This summer I've been traveling a bit, but of course it's never as much as I would
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  • Finishing My Oil Painting, Leaves of Grass
    Notice the chalk lines drawn over the figure to assess and check the proportion and length of her limbs. I have finally finished my oil painting , Leaves of Grass , which I have blogged about previously. In all, the painting probably took nearly 2 months
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  • Landscape Lessons from the Masters: Monet
    Le Parc Monseau by Claude Monet, oil painting, 1877. Interestingly enough, technology played a major role in influencing the course of art history in the mid-1800s. Among several notable technological revolutions was the invention of the metal paint tube
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  • Painting Essentials: Color & Light from James Gurney
    Sunset over the Catskills by James Gurney, oil painting. If I want to excel in my craft and become any kind of decent realist painter, the two aspects of oil painting that I need to focus on are color and light. Perfecting the two, together, will allow
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  • I’d Make You a Mixed Tape, But This Is Better. Plus, Our Collection Sale Starts Today!
    My version of an art "mixed tape" is a bunch of really great info and inspiration for us as we head into the home stretch of summer. Here are several of my favorite recent Artist Daily blog entries and American Artist online articles that have
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  • Speed Painting Outdoors
    John had to deal with rapidly changing weather conditions as he worked on his plein air watercolor painting, Cub Lake Trailhead . We outdoor painters are always on the search for beautiful places to paint, and so we become inveterate travelers and explorers
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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
    La Carmencita by John Singer Sargent, oil painting, 1890. I try and shy away from describing art in bombastic terms. It can become a slippery slope of flowery language with no real takeaways. But when I'm studying the works of no less than John Singer
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  • Show Some Skin...Er, I Mean, Paint It! For a Good Portrait Painting, It's a Must!
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  • The Gowanus Ballroom
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  • May I Introduce Odd Nerdrum?
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  • May I Introduce Stephen Early?
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  • May I Introduce Scott Waddell?
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  • May I Introduce Steven Assael?
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  • May I Introduce Edward Minoff?
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  • May I Introduce Nelson Shanks?
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  • May I Introduce Dan Thompson?
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  • May I Introduce Daniel Sprick?
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  • May I Introduce Ray Roberts?
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  • May I Introduce Ron Hicks?
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  • May I Introduce Dan McCaw?
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  • May I Introduce David Leffel?
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  • May I Introduce Albert Handell?
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  • May I Introduce Jacqueline Kamin?
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  • May I Introduce Jeremy Lipking?
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  • May I Introduce George Gallo?
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  • May I Introduce Nancy Guzik?
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  • May I Introduce John Salminen?
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  • May I Introduce Timothy J. Clark?
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  • May I Introduce Daniel Pinkham?
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  • May I Introduce David Jon Kassan?
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  • May I Introduce Mary Whyte?
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  • May I Introduce Susan Lyon?
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  • May I Introduce Robin Frey?
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  • May I Introduce Skip Whitcomb?
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  • May I Introduce C.W. Mundy?
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  • May I Introduce Jean-Pierre Roy?
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  • May I Introduce Kevin Macpherson?
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  • May I Introduce Stephen Quiller?
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  • May I Introduce Richard Schmid?
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  • May I Introduce Morgan Weistling?
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  • May I Introduce Alyssa Monks?
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  • May I Introduce Frank Serrano?
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  • May I Introduce Jacob Collins?
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  • May I Introduce Scott Burdick?
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  • May I Introduce Joseph McGurl?
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  • May I Introduce Stephen Scott Young?
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  • May I Introduce Clayton Beck?
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  • May I Introduce Daniel Graves?
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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 Daniel Gerhartz?
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  • May I Introduce Joseph Paquet?
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  • Meet the Instructors of Our Weekend With the Masters Events
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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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  • 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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  • 5 Forget-Me-Not Tips for Painting Eyes
    If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then a painter needs to get them right when creating a portrait. But the "oval, circle, dot" anatomy of the eye that we all first learned as children is far removed from how to give the illusion of a real eye in your work. Here are a few tips about painting
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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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  • Get Some Gallery Love: Part 3
    Bonita Williams Goldberg (her painting, Not Over Yet , above), is known as a Georgia Peach. She routinely sends new clients to her representatives, and she rotates consistently beautiful works in and out of her galleries. Artists love to gossip about
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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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  • 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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  • Stuff of Dreams--Painting on Panels Workshop in Italy
    Margaret Krug, painter, writer for American Artist , and author of An Artist Handbook: Materials and Techniques, is teaching a one-of-a-kind program, Painting on Panels , from August 12-26 in Spannocchia, Italy. The scope of the workshop is traditional
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  • It's Time to Take Sides: Color vs. Form
    Leah , oil on canvas, 2010, 24 x 20. The Sicilian Expedition , oil on canvas, 2010, 60 x 40. They say that there are two kinds of painter: color painters, and the other kind--the kind that focuses on form, tone, and line. I'm that "other"
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  • Watercolorists Come Together & Meet the Editor
    Slicker by Mary Whyte, 2010, watercolor. Watercolor magazine and the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York have come together for a very special event: WaterMedia Weekend 2011 . It is the opportunity for total immersion in the medium you love
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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Jumbo Fruit, Giant Seashells
    Lemons by James Tormey, oil on canvas. Natural objects in sharp detail--that says it all according to artist James Tormey. For him, creating great still life paintings is a matter of painting natural objects in sharp detail. Tormey works on large-scale
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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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  • 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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  • Oil on Canvas: What I'm Up To
    Study for Pandora , oil on canvas, 2010. All works by Patricia Watwood. For the past six months, I have been working away at a new series of figure paintings. Over the next weeks and months, I will tell you more about each of them, and the steps involved
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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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  • Free Video Demo—Watercolor Painting With Mary Whyte
    Learn more about Mary Whyte’s full-length DVD. I'm a reader and studier by nature, but the lessons and techniques that I learn from books and magazines always seem to click much quicker when I watch an artist paint, rather than try to puzzle
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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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  • 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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  • Harnessing a Mercurial Medium
    The limbs of each figure is achieved with a quick stroke in this watercolor sketch by Wendy Artin. When I think of gesture drawings or quick studies, I see myself with a pencil in hand—that's always just made sense for those kinds of spirited
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  • Plein Air Painting: Isn’t It Romantic?
    Oak in the Snow by Caspar David Friedrich, 1825, oil, 44 x 34.5 cm, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany. I think all landscape artists and plein air painters have a touch of the romantic in them. It doesn’t really matter what type of landscape
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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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  • Artist Daily Video--Watch A Master Start A Portrait
    Imagine breaking down even the most complex painting into just a handful of shapes. Painter Ron Hicks has found that the process of painting a portrait can be intimidating, if not overwhelming, to even the most practiced painters because a lot of detail is often confused with what makes a successful
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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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  • 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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  • Be An Artist Who Cares Deeply
    During this time of the year, as acts of generosity and appreciation abound, I’m drawn to the works of the painters and draftsmen of the Ashcan School, which thrived during the early 20th century. This group of artists—among them Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John French Sloan, and William
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  • Six American Artists Represent the U.S. in the 9th International Watercolor Biennial in Mexico
    Sunlight by Carol Carter, watercolor, 22 x 30. Mark Mehaffey, Nicholas Simmons, Keiko Tanabe, Carol Carter, Thomas W. Schaller, and Kathleen Alexander have formed the North American Watercolor Artists, a group of six U.S. watercolor artists, to represent
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  • It's Not in the Details
    Noelle with a Black Dress by Ron Hicks, 2007, oil, 20 x 16. Collection Gallery 1261, Denver, Colorado. I think photography has altered the way we judge the painted portrait. With the ability to capture a photographic likeness—from the details of
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  • Portait & Figure Painting Highlights
    Reflect Your True Vision with Accurate Form Now you can paint the human form with the depth and detail it deserves – your artwork will come alive with this exciting special issue from American Artist: Portrait and Figure Painting Highlights Fall 2010. Improve the detail of your portraits with 100
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  • What Painters Rarely Do
    The Lantern Bearers by Maxfield Parrish, 1908, oil on canvas board, 40 x 32. I have a confession to make: I've never glazed with oils. The process intimidates me a bit—creating luminosity and an inner glow on canvas is no easy feat—and
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  • Where Exceptional Artists Gather
    Watercolorist Stephen Scott Young getting into the details of his watercolor technique with students. All photos by Manuel Rodriguez . Artists of the past are often remembered as working solo, toiling alone in their private studios and intimate garrets
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  • Watercolor, Fall 2010 - 25th Anniversary Issue
    On the Cover: Seaside Stroll (detail) by Alan Wylie, 1993, watercolor, 15 x 21. Private collection. FEATURES Artist to Artist: Dale Meyers Cooper With a career spanning nearly 50 years and work in the permanent collections of such institutions as the
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  • Break Through Your Creative Roadblocks
    Collage materials can be added to add visual interest and texture to a painting surface. Artwork by Misty Mawn. When I feel creatively blocked or bored, I revert back to childhood and start to play. Doodling, writing stream-of-conscious text, or painting
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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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  • The Best Part of Painting?
    Clouds Moving , 1999-2009, oil on canvas, 31 1/4 x 37 1/2. All works by Bernard Chaet. Courtesy David Findlay Jr Fine Art . It’s the materiality—or, for many, that’s at least part of it. The buttery rich feel of paint moving across the
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  • Paint for Peace
    La Danse (I) by Henri Matisse, 1909, oil on canvas,102.4 x 153.9 in. I've always believed that art speaks most profoundly when it actually has something to say. Communicating with a viewer is a powerful opportunity, and The Peace Project engages artists
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  • Drawing with Thread, Paint, Paper & Pen
    Whiskey Creek (Spring) By Kate Ha rding, 2008, found leather garments, thread, grommets, and steel hooks, 54 x 35. One of the things I love about the artistic process is that we all share the need to put our creative energy into practice, we do it in so many different ways, and yet we usually have a
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  • Take Your Painting Skills Abroad
    Breakthroughs in our artistic practices often come with a change—of venue, of process, or even from within our own creative mindsets. Workshops offer the opportunity to step outside the studio, and suddenly we can see and evaluate from a completely different vantage point.
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  • Are You Using This Critical Painting Technique?
    The process of underpainting has such a buttoned-up reputation. If it were cast in a movie, it would be the uptight, by-the-book stickler that no one wants to hangout with. That’s because the process of underpainting is often associated with a belabored, rigid series of steps that delays us from
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  • September 2010
    Experiment with Acrylic; Learn from the Masters: Hawthorne, Hensche & Sargent show you how to become A better artist; Drawing from Life; Combine Media in Deep & Meaningful Still Lifes
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  • Free eBook for Your Best Summer Outdoor Painting Experience
    With summer in full swing, I've been spending as much time as possible outdoors, going to concerts and plays, walking from place to place when I do my errands, and just finding every excuse for an outdoor excursion. Plein air painting is another perk of the season. There's something invigorating
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  • Learn to Paint the Unexpected
    Artists are the sharpest of observers, attuned to a person's passing gesture or the play of light and shadow on a building façade—but not everything that catches our eye is a painting waiting to happen. For Utah watercolorist Joseph Alleman , the stories that hold his interest are reflections
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  • Break the Rules to Find Your Signature Style
    Brooklyn-based artist Allison Maletz doesn't want to use watercolor in a traditional way. Although her work is representational and often figure-based, exploring themes of human connection and the quirky, often dysfunctional, "average American family," she refuses be bound by any rules
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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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  • What Every Artist Can Learn From Plein Air Painting
    After several months of hiatus, the Plein Air blog is back! Our new Artist Daily editor, Courtney Jordan, and I have worked out a biweekly schedule to get the Plein Air blog back on track, and I’m excited to resume coverage of the artists, events, exhibitions, tools and tips, and conservation issues
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  • Recouping Lost Artistic Opportunities
    It’s often the case that when you live somewhere, you don’t take full advantage of the opportunities that the place affords, and only after leaving do you realize how valuable those opportunities were. This can be true for artists, who, after moving, may regret not utilizing a strong local
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  • Adaptability and Durability are Proven Aspects of Encaustic Painting
    After spending all day sitting at my desk, click-click-clicking away on my computer, I savor getting out and being active, especially if I’m learning a new activity or skill. It’s the difference between reading through the steps of a complicated, unfamiliar process and actually seeing it
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  • Workshops Raise the Bar for Artists
    Robert Johnson strikes the perfect balance between master artist and down-to-earth mentor, supporting his students while pushing them to create the best works that they can. At a recent three-day workshop sponsored by The Art League School in Alexandria, Virginia, Johnson led students through the stages
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  • When Your Art Goes on the Road
    Gaining exposure and recognition for one’s work starts with putting finished pieces in the public and critical eye. This can mean participating in local community shows or full-fledged exhibitions, entering competitions, and hanging pieces in galleries. It is an exciting prospect, but it can also
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  • Artists are Adventurers at Heart
    A few of my artistic heroes get worse than no respect. They get anonymity. Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, Philip Gidley King, James Cook, Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres, John James Audubon—all were artistic adventurers, and most of them are virtually unknown.
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  • A New Take on Still Life Painting
    A still life changed my life?! It sounds corny, but it’s a little bit true! It was Francisco de Zurbarán’s Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose . He was a Spanish Baroque painter and I was a freshman searching for a major. Bliss and art history degrees followed.
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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • How To Hang Your Show Like A Pro
    When I moved to New Hampshire in the mid-1990s, I joined a local art association where the members were a mixture of "newbies" as well as seasoned professionals. In many cases the "old pros" helped us newbies learn, not only how to
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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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  • Taking a Creative Gamble
    I recently met an artist who said, completely nonchalantly, “I never sketch, I never throw out a painting, and I’m always pleased with my final work.” If only we could all be so lucky! Sometimes when I’m writing a drawing basics
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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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  • The Breakfast Club
    Back in 1994, after my husband and I relocated to New Hampshire, an artist friend invited me to join a group of painters and photographers who met every Wednesday morning at a quaint café in downtown Nashua. This group of about a dozen artists
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  • Watercolor Painting as Live Performance
    The beach scene in Manuel Antonio. I normally paint with oils mixed with Galkyd fast-drying medium, so I assume I can make radical changes in the composition of shapes, values, and colors as I formulate the intended outcome of my pictures. But I had to
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  • Selling Without Galleries
    Over the past decade, I've worked with half a dozen commercial galleries, and although I enjoyed the prestige of being able to say that I am represented by a gallery, the truth is that I've been able to sell my artwork better on my own. Many of
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  • Free Lessons From Top Watercolor Artists
    The basic set of supplies John Hulsey uses when painting on location. The recent spat of wet weather in New York has made it difficult to get outside to paint, but that doesn’t mean we in the American Artist offices haven’t been thinking about
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  • December 2009
    Check out what's featured in the December 2009 issue of American Artist .
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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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  • Watercolor Fundamentals
    Roses and Delphiniums by Janet Walsh, 2009, watercolor, 201⁄2 x 16. Janet Walsh recently stopped by our New York office to deliver a new set of watercolor paintings to be photographed for her next article in Watercolor magazine. The images will
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  • 10 Steps to Determine Values in Watercolor
    Although I am known for using vibrant colors to create what appear to be playful, spontaneous images in my watercolor paintings, the key to the success of these paintings is the value structure of the compositions. Here’s how I teach others to use studies to plan effective compositions.
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  • Think Big, Paint Big
    Antonio Masi employs both the atmospheric and graphic capabilities of watercolor in his commanding paintings of New York icons.
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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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  • Drawing Basics: Drawing Is Memorization?
    When I first moved to New York City about a dozen years ago, I drew my father's face from memory quite a lot. It usually wasn't a good depiction at all, but occasionally it resulted in a decent drawing of a handsome man — which reminds me
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  • Clutter Causes Confusion
    When I meet artists at a workshop or at a convention, they often comment that I must be a highly organized person. Upon hearing this, I laugh inwardly and reply, “I'm organized in my thoughts but not with my stuff.”
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  • Welcome To "The Artist's Life"
    Lori Woodward Simons kicks off her new blog with a post about the 20-hour challenge
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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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  • 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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  • Winners of the Hot 100 Watermedia Competition
    The winners of the Hot 100 Watermedia competition are announced.
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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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  • 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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  • Celebrate Watercolor Painting
    Steve Doherty talks about upcoming exhibitions by national watercolor societies, and asks readers to relay their any experiences they have had while participating in juried exhibitions.
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  • Respond to What Paintings Need
    Mary Sipp-Green bases her oil landscapes on sketches, memories, and imagination, and she makes careful notations about color combinations that capture her feelings about a particular time and place. Nevertheless, there is a point in the creative process at which she has to “get out of the way”
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  • May 2009
    The Table of Contents from the May 2009 issue of American Artist .
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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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  • 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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  • Artist to Artist: Mel Stabin
    Artist and teacher Mel Stabin recommends painting loosely and boldly, an approach that has defined his career.
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  • Cherished Friends in the Art Community
    Steve wishes a happy 70th birthday to Joe Miller, owner of Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff, in Boone, North Carolina.
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  • Using masking tape on a watercolor
    Q: I used masking tape to mask out the border of my watercolor painting but it abraded the surface when I tried to remove it. What did I do wrong? Should I have used frisket? A: Two things may have contributed to your problem with the masking tape sticking
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  • Fixative for watercolors
    Q: Is there a spray fixative for watercolor paintings, and if so, should I use it? A: There is no fixative for watercolors. Fixatives are primarily used for four purposes: 1) to allow the piece to repel dirt and allow for light cleaning; 2) to make it
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  • Reworking an old painting
    Q: I want to rework an oil painting that has been sitting for more than a year. How should I go about it? A: Begin by cleaning the canvas surface. Wipe away any dust particles with a cotton cloth or with cotton balls. If any dirt is evident, remove it
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  • Oil drying time
    Q: Can I varnish my oil painting as soon as it is dry to the touch? I use a medium made of Damar medium, linseed oil, and turpentine, and have finished a commission that needs to go to the client in one week. Would it be better to not varnish? A: An oil
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  • Sealing paint
    Q: Is there a sealer that can be applied to a watercolor painting so that it can be framed and displayed with a glass cover? A: I would suggest using Lascaux Fine Art Fixative. It protects paintings from UV rays and prevents yellowing. It will protect
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  • Retouching oil paintings
    Q : What should I use for retouching? Are Liquin and linseed oil compatible on the same canvas? A : There are many products you can use to go back into your oil painting after it has dried. Winsor & Newton’s Liquin, which produces a matte finish
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  • Varnishing oil paintings
    Q : How often do I have to varnish an oil painting? How do I clean the painting before I apply new varnish? A : A final coat of varnish—on a finished and completely dry oil painting—can last hundreds of years. Sennelier makes two kinds of
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  • Painting Successful Portraits
    Q: I’m working on an oil portrait, but I’m having trouble getting the right tones. What colors do you recommend? A: Painting a successful portrait is similar to painting a successful still life. Assuming that the subject has one major light
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  • Adhering paper cutouts to oil paintings
    Q: One of my students wishes to mount some paper cutouts from magazines onto her oil painting on stretched canvas. What would be the best way to adhere these, and what is the best way to seal them once the surface is dry? A: If the surface is dry, your
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  • Last -Minute Varnishing
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  • Two Layers of Varnish
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  • Acrylic versus Oil Painting
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  • Priming Plywood for Oil Painting
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  • Varnish Recipe
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  • April 2009
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  • Exhibition: Joie De Vivre! Works by Janette Jones
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  • Drawing Basics: Is Pastel a Drawing Medium?
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  • The Social Aspects of Watermedia Painting
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  • Useful Art Links
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  • Watercolor Critique: "Taylor Road Barn"
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  • Oil Critique: "American Grenadier"
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  • Oil Painting: The Dutch Italianates at the Muscarelle Museum of Art
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  • Oil Painting: Open Spaces
    Francis Di Fronzo stopped working with paint brushes to create his own technique of “tapping the landscape into existence.” All Paths to War Lead Back to You (Part I) 2002, oil on panel, 48 x 48. Private collection. by Lynne Moss Perricelli
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  • Oil Painting: All The Water That Will Ever Be, Is, Right Now at the Irvine Museum
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  • New Work by Jason Bryant at Raandesk Gallery of Art
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  • See Your Art Objectively
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  • Technique: Growing Your Own Garden
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  • Oil Painting: David Malan: Storytelling With Figures
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  • Oil Painting: John Falato's Oil Paintings
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  • A Practical Approach to Creating & Marketing Oils and Pastels
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  • Art Business: Warm-Up Exercises for Artists
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  • Watercolor: A Bold Approach
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  • Beginners: Watercolor Tips: Achieving Optimal Effects
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  • Janet Monafo Chat Transcript
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  • Max Ginsburg's Workshop: Seeing Forms, Not Formulas
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  • "Drawing" Magazine Cover Competition Winners
    We chose 10 finalists for our Drawing Magazine Cover Competition—and then easily named William Rose the winner, as he best showcased the skill level and imagination of our readers. View the winners of the Watercolor magazine 2008 cover competiton
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  • Drawing Basics: Judith Carducci's Workshop and the Benefits of Drawing and Working From Life
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    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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  • Watercolor: “St. George's Harbor” by Ogden Pleissner
    James Toogood comments on Ogden Pleissner’s watercolor painting St. George's Harbor. by James Toogood St. George's Harbor by Ogden Pleissner, 1953, watercolor, 14 1/4 x 20 1/4. Collection Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, Paget, Bermuda
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  • Watercolor: William Trost Richards' "A Rocky Coast"
    James Toogood comments on William Trost Richards' watercolor painting A Rocky Coast. by James Toogood A Rocky Coast by William Trost Richards, 1877, watercolor and gouache on fibrous brown wove paper, 28? x 36¼. Collection The Metropolitan
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  • Watercolor: Judy Morris "Chinatown: San Francisco"
    James Toogood comments on Judy Morris' watercolor painting Chinatown: San Francisco. by James Toogood Chinatown: San Francisco by Judy Morris, watercolor, 34 x 28. This is a delightful piece, not overly serious but beautifully executed. It's a
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  • Oil Painting: Scott Tallman Powers' Oil Paintings: Developing the Concept
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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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  • Watercolor: Frederick Brosen's "Brooklyn Bridge"
    James Toogood comments on Frederick Brosen's watercolor painting Brooklyn Bridge. by James Toogood Brooklyn Bridge by Frederick Brosen, 2006, watercolor over graphite, 28¾ x 51¾. Courtesy Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, New
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  • Watercolor: Sargent's "Venetian Canal"
    James Toogood comments on John Singer Sargent’s watercolor painting Venetian Canal. by James Toogood Venetian Canal by John Singer Sargent, 1913, watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, 15¾ x 21. Collection The Metropolitan Museum
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  • Watercolor: Cassatt's "Self-Portrait"
    James Toogood comments on Mary Cassatt’s watermedia painting Self-Portrait. by James Toogood Self-Portrait by Mary Cassatt, watercolor on ivory wove paper, 33 x 24. Collection National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. Mary Cassatt was not known
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  • Oil Painting Techniques: C.W. Mundy: Painting From Upside-Down Photographs
    C.W. Mundy teaches his students to paint effective portraits. Here, we look more closely at his innovative technique for painting portraits from upside-down photographs in this step-by-step demonstration of Bourbon Street Chef, New Orleans. Step 1 Mundy
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  • Oil Painting: Dan Young's Harmony and Depth in Landscapes
    In the Fall 2008 issue of Workshop magazine,we discussed how Dan Young helped both beginners and experienced painters develop their skills by showing them how to simplify forms, increase the sense of light, push background shapes into the distance, and
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  • Oil Painting: Richard Estes at New York City's Marlborough Gallery
    Renowned photorealist painter Richard Estes will be showing more than 20 new paintings during this exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery, in New York City. Richard Estes October 14 through November 15 Marlborough Gallery New York, New York (212) 541-4900
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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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  • 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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  • Oil Painting: Frank Serrano's "Oak Study"
    In the summer 2008 issue of Workshop magazine, Frank Serrano discussed his approach as an artist and his methods as a teacher. Here we present his step-by-step demonstration Oak Study . Step 1 During his weekly landscape-painting workshop in Southern
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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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  • Oil Painting: Step by Step: Alan Flattmann's "The Abita River"
    In the winter 2007 issue of Workshop magazine, Alan Flattmann showed two methods of painting the landscape. Here we present a step by step demonstration of his painting The Abita River. Step 1 Flattmann toned the canvas with a thin wash of burnt-umber
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  • Technique: Mosaic Art: The Tile Creations of Carl and Sandra Bryant
    Artists Carl and Sandra Bryant use tiny pieces of glass to create intricate mosaic works of art. by Stephanie Kaplan Autumn Landscape by Sandra Bryant, 2006, glass mosaic, 24 x 32. Collection the artist. Mosaic Landscape by Sandra Bryant, 2005, glass
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  • Technique: Lana Grow: Going With the Flow and Exploring Abstraction
    As an experimental artist, Minnesotan Lana Grow has no rules. She begins her paintings in different ways and lets them evolve. Like what you read? Become a Watercolor subscriber today! by Linda S. Price Simply Flora 2006, watermedia, 22 x 22. Collection
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  • Artist of the Month: Benjamin McVey: Painting Objects Lost and Found
    This New York City artist paints landscapes, still lifes, and portraits that highlight the relationships between seemingly disparate objects. by Naomi Ekperigin This Situation 2006, oil, 20 x 16. All artwork this article collection the artist. Self-Portrait
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  • Artist of the Month: Lisa Goren: A New Meaning of Wet-in-Wet Watercolor
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  • Watercolor: Girtin's "Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire: Evening"
    James Toogood comments on Thomas Girtin’s watercolor painting Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire: Evening. by James Toogood Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire: Evening by Thomas Girtin, ca. 1800, watercolor on laid paper, 12½ x 20½. Collection Victoria
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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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  • Beginner Oil: How to prepare a canvas for an oil painting
    The method for preparing a canvas varies from artist to artist. This is primarily because there are several options to choose from in every phase of preparation. Here, we outline the choices available so that you can confidently begin to work in oil.
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  • Artist of the Month: Marilyn Fuerstenberg
    This self-taught artist has found that learning to paint in watercolor is not only fun and challenging, but it also enables her to explore the world around her. Day Job 2007, watercolor, 22 x 12. All artwork this article collection the artist. by Naomi
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  • Artist of the Month: Arturo Samaniego
    This Florida-based artist paints still lifes in oil that hint at a human presence. Trio on Marble Block 2007, oil, 36 x 48. All artwork this article collection the artist unless otherwise indicated. by Naomi Ekperigin For 15 years, Arturo Samaniego’s
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  • Oil Painting; Casey Baugh's "Red Scarf"
    Casey Baugh's step-by-step demonstration Red Scarf . Reference The model who posed for the three-hour demonstration. Step 1 After establishing the scale of the painted head and lightly indicating some of the features, Baugh applied strokes of oil
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  • Oil Painting: Ron Hicks' "Noelle With a Black Dress"
    In the spring 2008 issue of Workshop magazine, Colorado artist Ron Hicks discussed how breaking down his subjects into shapes, and capturing gradations of light in each, allow him to create the moody figurative and interior work he is best known for.
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  • Oil Painting: Mary Anna Goetz's Colorful Landscapes
    In the summer 2008 issue of Workshop magazine, we discussed how Mary Anna Goetz's workshops address the tendencies students have to lose sight of the center of interest and to mix colors that are garishly overstated or inaccurate value assessments
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  • Beginners: Watercolor Pigments
    With the wide range of watercolors available, it is important to know the different formulations to create a palette that best suits your needs. Each side of the table above lists 4 common transparent and opaque pigments. by Naomi Ekperigin Watercolor
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  • Artist of the Month: Steve White: Capturing Nature in Transparent Watercolor
    This artist, who primarily paints landscapes in transparent watercolor, finds the unpredictability of the medium to be its most enjoyable trait. by Naomi Ekperigin Cascade 2004, watercolor, 19 x 28. All artwork this article private collection unless otherwise
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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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  • 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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  • Watercolor: Bonnington's "A Fisherman on the Banks of a River, a Church Tower in the Distance"
    James Toogood comments on Richard Parkes Bonnington’s watercolor painting A Fisherman on the Banks of a River, a Church Tower in the Distance. by James Toogood A Fisherman on the Banks of a River, a Church Tower in the Distance by Richard Parkes
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  • Acrylic: CRITIQUE: "Silver Server With Cups"
    An appropriate background is essential for setting the scene in a still life composition. by Janet Walsh Silver Server With Cups 2002, acrylic, 12 x 24. The artist has done a nice job painting these still life items. However, the artist may want to consider
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  • Oil Painting: 3 Views of the Same Scene
    Three painting friends exchanged photographs and then produced paintings of the same 15 subjects in an experiment designed to teach them about different approaches, challenge them to push beyond their comfort zone, and allow them to work on a common painting
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  • Watercolor: John Sell Cotman's "The Drop-Gate, Duncombe Park"
    James Toogood comments on John Sell Cotman’s watercolor painting The Drop-Gate, Duncombe Park. by James Toogood The Drop-Gate, Ducombe Park by John Sell Cotman, ca. 1806, graphite and watercolor on laid paper, 13 x 9. Collection the British Museum
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  • Oil Painting: Step by Step: Johnnie Liliedahl's "Lady in White"
    In the fall 2007 issue of Watercolor , Johnnie Liliedahl discussed Old Master approaches that help her students understand the basics of oil painting. Here, we present a demonstration for her painting Lady in White. Reference: A photograph of a model
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  • Beginner Oil: Options for Oil Painters
    The vast array of materials and tools available to artists can make it difficult to determine which is best for rendering a certain subject. Even a traditional oil painter has a wealth of options and can choose from alkyds, water-soluble oils, and traditional
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  • Oil Painting: Max Ginsburg's Portraits and New York City Scenes
    In this online exclusive gallery, view more artwork by New York artist Max Ginsburg, one of the artists featured in the summer 2008 issue of Workshop magazine. Fabiana 2007, oil, 12 x 11¾. Collection the artist. Julie 2008, oil, 12 x 9. Collection
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  • Watercolor: Looking at Watercolors: “John Biglin in a Single Scull,” by Thomas Eakins
    James Toogood comments on Thomas Eakins' watercolor painting John Biglin in a Single Scull. by James Toogood John Biglin in a Single Scull by Thomas Eakins, ca. 1873, watercolor (and gouache?), 19 5/16 x 24 7/8. Collection The Metropolitan Museum
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  • Oil Painting: Work by Ralph Albert Blakelock at the National Academy Museum
    The goal of this exhibition at the National Academy Museum, in New York City, is to dispel the image of Ralph Albert Blakelock as a “mad genius,” by demonstrating the value of his work and its influence on modern and contemporary artists.
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  • Oil Painting: Barbara Kassel: Interiors and Exteriors
    In the July/August 2008 issue of American Artist, we discussed Barbara Kassel's autobiographical interior paintings. In this online exclusive gallery, we juxtapose her interior and exterior paintings. Jim’s Fish House 2006, oil on Masonite,
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  • Oil Painting: David Koch: Painting With Technology
    View more computer-aided paintings by David Koch, one of the artists featured in the September 2008 issue of American Artist. Breakfast Thoughts 2007, oil on linen, 20 x 16. Collection the artist. This Old Clock Tower 2003, oil on linen, 24 x 18. All
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  • Oil Painting: Kevin Sanders' Plein Air Landscapes
    In this online exclusive gallery, view more examples of plein air landscapes by Kevin Sanders, one of the artist featured in the September 2008 issue of American Artist. Ponte Vecchio 2006, oil, 18 x 24. All artwork this gallery private collection, unless
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  • Lori Woodward Simons' "Cowboy at Heart"
    Watch an audio slideshow demonstration, by Lori Woodward Simons, of a watercolor portrait—one of the step-by-step demonstrations in the summer 2008 issue of Watercolor magazine (3:12). Watercolor Portrait with Simons Posted to Artist Daily by Karyn
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  • Watercolor: Winslow Homer's "Road in Bermuda"
    James Toogood comments on Winslow Homer's watercolor painting Road in Bermuda. by James Toogood Road in Bermuda by Winslow Homer, ca. 1899-1901, watercolor over graphite on cream paper, 14 x 21 1/16. Collection Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, New
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  • Oil Painting: Garth Herrick Portrait Demo: Light on the Ground
    Herrick adjusts the light mass on the ground below the children, and lightens the middle girl's face. I have been adding to the light mass on the ground below the kids. This may be overstated right now, but I can readjust this later. I also keyed
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  • Oil Painting: Garth Herrick Portrait Demo: Lightening the Key
    The artist realizes that he needs to lighten the boy's shirt and face. I need to lighten the boy's face and shirt, and that means everything needs to be keyed up higher in the same way. It is a frustrating but necessary adjustment. About the Artist
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  • Donna Zagotta's "Valencia"
    Watch summer 2008 Watercolor featured artist Donna Zagotta combining watercolor and gouache to play with color and form in the interior painting Valencia (1:27) . Watercolor demo of hotel interior Posted to Artist Daily by Karyn on October 08, 2009 Click
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  • Oil Painting: Garth Herrick Portrait Demo: Copying a Notable Portrait
    The Historical Society of the United States District Court has commissioned Herrick to paint a copy of an original Gilbert Stuart portrait for their collection. Another diversion—I'm in the process of copying an original Gilbert Stuart portrait
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  • Morgan Samuel Price's "Last of the Roses"
    Watch a landscape painting audio slideshow demonstration of Morgan Samuel Price's Last of the Roses (2:08). Price was one of the artists featured in the spring 2008 issue of Workshop magazine. Oil painting garden scene Posted to Artist Daily by Karyn
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  • "American Artist" 2007 Cover Competition
    The winner and semifinalists of our annual cover competition reveal how they created paintings that captured the attention of our judges. Frank J. Strazzulla Jr. Studio Interior 2003, oil, 18 x 14. Private collection “One of the compelling themes
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  • Watercolor: Carla O'Connor: Figures in Watercolor and Gouache
    One of Carla O’Connor’s objectives in a workshop is to persuade students to stop thinking about the tools of watermedia painting—the brushes, paints, and paper—and to focus on expression. To her, focusing on materials is like wondering
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  • Artist of the Month: Christopher Copeland
    Midwestern artist Christopher Copeland paints the landscape that surrounds him, imbuing it with emotion and recording the transient moments that are often difficult to capture. by Naomi Ekperigin Midsummer Evening 2007, oil, 30 x 32. Private collection
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  • Technique: George James: Innovations With Transparent Watercolor
    Known for his innovative method of using transparent watercolor on a nonabsorbent surface, this California artist employs an open-ended approach. Like what you read? Subscribe to Watercolor today! by Lynne Moss Perricelli Sunday Morning Nougat 2003, watercolor
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  • Watercolor: Shanna Kunz: Tonalism and Contemporary Design in Watercolor
    An elegant combination of traditional tonalism and contemporary design allows Utah artist Shanna Kunz to speak to her viewers in a gently alluring voice. by Jennifer King Christmas Meadows 2003, watercolor, 20 x 24. Private collection. “All of your
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  • Oil Painting: Garth Herrick Portrait Demo: A College President
    The artist takes a break from Of Scions and Sunlight to complete this portrait of a college president. I often have to interrupt one commission to finish another. Recently, I had to put aside Of Scions and Sunlight to complete this portrait of a college
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  • Oil Painting: Garth Herrick Portrait Demo: Working on Other Portraits
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  • Beginners: The Basics of Watercolor Paints, Part II
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  • Oil Painting: Thomas Cordell's Cityscapes
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  • Oil Painting: SPONSORED CONTENT: Artist Behind the Brand: Scott Gellatly
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  • California Art Club Announces Award Winners
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  • Laguna College of Art & Design Exhibition Winners Announced
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  • Oil Painting: SPONSORED CONTENT: Artist Behind the Brand: Robert Gamblin of Gamblin Artist’s Colors
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  • Oil Painting: Plein-Air Painters of America Members: From the Site to the Studio
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  • Pastel: Wende Caporale: The Similarities in Painting Portraits in Oil or Pastel
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  • EXHIBITION: American Impressionism: Paintings From The Phillips Collection
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  • Beginners: Watercolor Materials, the Basics
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  • Oil Painting: Still-Life Portraits: The Book-Filled Art of Ephraim Rubenstein
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of Ephraim Rubenstein's Still-Life Portraits
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  • Drawing Basics: Painterly Effects With Colored Pencil
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  • Masters: 20 Great Watercolor Teachers Offer Their Best Recommendation
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  • Watercolor: Teaching Watercolor Workshops to Beginners: Pitfalls to Avoid
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  • Oil Painting: Rose Frantzen's Figure Painting Tips
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  • EXHIBITION: The Last Ruskinians: Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Herbert Moore, and Their Circle
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of Colin J. Callahan's Oils
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  • Using Egg Tempera & Gold Leaf to Achieve Renaissance Luminocity
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  • Oil Painting: Timothy Barr's "Back Bay"
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  • Oil Painting: Colin J. Callahan: Seeking Energy and Light
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Pauline Roche's Figure Paintings
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  • Masters: Drawing Out Sargent
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  • Andrew Wyeth Picks 20 Great American Watercolorists
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  • Offering Constructive Criticism to Students: Tips for Educators
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  • Watercolor: Into the Heart of The Southwest: 20 Painters Interpret the Forbes Trinchera Ranch
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Marla J. Brenner's Plein Air Oils
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  • Watercolor: GALLERY: The Forbes Trinchera Ranch
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: David Ahlsted's Colorful and Geometric Paintings
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  • Oil Painting: Warren Chang: Bringing the Past to the Present
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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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  • EXHIBITION: Poetry in Design: The Art of Harry Leith-Ross
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Ned Mueller's Landscapes and Portraits
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  • Oil Painting: Painting the Figure in the Landscape: The Basics
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  • Oil Painting: Ruth L. Beeve: Responding to Chance and Planning Ahead With Water-Soluable Paint
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  • Masters: Sweden's Sargent
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  • Oil Painting: Josh Elliott's Tips for Painting Snow
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  • Oil Painting: Student Work From Ned Mueller's Workshop
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  • Watercolor: Steve Rogers: Inspiration at Higher Levels
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Judith Pond Kudlow's Oil Paintings
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Rick Hansen's Landscapes and Still Lifes
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Josh Elliott's Tone Poems
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  • Oil Painting: Josh Elliott: Tapestries in Oil
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of James Woodside's Remote Landscapes
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  • Watercolor: Gayle Garner Roski: Traveling With Watercolors
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  • Pastels: Teaching Values
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  • Oil Painting: Timothy Barr: Online Exclusive Painting
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  • Oil Painting: Sean Cheetham: Using a "Mud Palette" to Achieve Harmony
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  • Technique: Jack Beal Unveils Companion Mural in New York City Subway
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  • Watercolor: SPONSORED CONTENT: The Artist Behind the Brand: Joe Miller
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  • Watercolor: GALLERY: More Paintings From Our 20 Emerging Watercolor Artists
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  • Watercolor: Essay: A Visit With Andrew Wyeth, March 9, 2006
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of Katherine Ann Hartley's Still Lifes
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  • Oil Painting: Travis Schlaht: Following Inspiration
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  • Oil Painting: Timothy R. Thies' Color Charts
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Sean Cheetham's Figure Paintings
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  • Oil Painting: Randall C. Sexton: Questions to Ask Yourself
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  • Oil Painting: Sean Cheetham: Common Weaknesses in Figure Paintings
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  • Oil Painting: Thomas Van Stein: Moonlight Reminders
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  • Oil Painting: Randall C. Sexton's Painting Tips
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  • Oil Painting: SPONSORED CONTENT: The Artist Behind the Brand: Joseph Gyurcsak
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  • Oil Painting: Lynn Gertenbach's Handy Tips for Painting Water
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  • Oil Painting: A Study of Velázquez Results in Portrait Colors
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  • Oil Painting: Thomas Van Stein: A Nocturne Painter’s Palette
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  • Oil Painting: Chris McHenry’s Palette
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  • EXHIBITION: Paul Caranicas: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
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  • Oil Painting: James Gurney's Books of Inspiration
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  • Oil Painting: Sarah Lamb's Technique & Materials
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  • Drawing Basics: Lisa Dinhofer's Playful Oil Paintings
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  • Watercolor: Sondra Freckelton: Planning for Expression
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  • Watercolor: Jamie Wyeth: Combining Water-Soluable Paints
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  • Watercolor: Lee Boynton: Painting the Same Subject to Learn More About Light & Color
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  • Oil Painting: Milt Kobayashi: Paint What You Want to See
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  • Drawing Basics: Just Imagine--Drawings by Lisa Dinhofer
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  • Drawing Basics: The Emergence of Tonal Drawing
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  • Watercolor: 10 Tools for Better Watercolors
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  • Watercolor: Painting Loose and Free
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  • Exhibition: The Grand Scale: New Watercolors by Alexander Creswell
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  • Oil Painting: Tim Kennedy's Painting Process
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of Ken Auster's Oil Paintings
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  • Oil Painting: Gene McInerney: The Delicate Engineer
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: Landscape Paintings from Joseph Gyurcsak
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  • Oil Painting: Painting Interior Light
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  • Oil Painting: GALLERY: More Figurative Paintings From Tim Kennedy
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