The Original Van Gogh Tea Towels
Thursday August 30, 2007
What do these two paintings -- The Large Plane Trees (in the Cleveland Museum of Art, USA) and Wheatfields in a Mountainous Landscape (in the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands) -- ... Read More
Vettriano's Choice of Name a "Marketing Ploy"
Thursday August 30, 2007
Whether you hate or love his paintings, believe he'll disappear into obscurity after his death or be hailed as a successful figurative painter who was unappreciated by the establishment in ... Read More
30 Years Restoring Raphael's Frescoes
Wednesday August 29, 2007
It's taken longer to restore it than it took him to paint -- nearly 30 years later, the restoration of the frescoes painted by Raphael in the Vatican "is approaching ... Read More
Painting Shadows: Cast & Form Shadows
Tuesday August 28, 2007
Not all shadows are equal. There are in fact two very different kinds of shadows that occur in any subject – cast shadows and form shadows. Identifying these and approaching ... Read More
On Art Agents & Emailing Art Galleries
Tuesday August 28, 2007
Over the years I've had various emails asking me for advice on finding an agent and gallery representation, even some wanting to know how to find a rich patron. (If ... Read More
New Fruit Still Life Paintings
Monday August 27, 2007
The latest additions to this month's painting project gallery sound like a recipe for fruit pie: "Take some apples and blackberries... add the zest of lemon and grapefruit..." But these ... Read More
"Coffee Shop Friends" Tryptich
Sunday August 26, 2007
You can never predict where inspiration might come from! A passing comment about heading out for a coffee in a Forum Discussion on selling paintings has led to three forum ... Read More
Approaches to Covering a Canvas
Saturday August 25, 2007
There are a variety of ways in which to approach creating a painting, none of which is better or more correct than another. Which approach you take or prefer is ... Read More
Van Gogh Painting with Words
Thursday August 23, 2007
Here's something for all Vincent van Gogh fans: a new exhibition and book on his correspondence with the painter Émile Bernard. The exhibition, "Painted with Words", will be at the ... Read More
Four Steps in Dealing with Criticism of Your Art
Wednesday August 22, 2007
There's a line between constructive criticism and destructive criticism, but unfortunately people don't always know this, or know where the line is. Artist Cynthia Lee says "Destructive criticism is not ... Read More
Solutions Sought for Oil Paint Not Sticking
Wednesday August 22, 2007
If you're following the fat over lean oil painting rule, is there any reason for oil paint not sticking? This is the problem Terpentijn has raised on the Painting Forum ... Read More
Handcrafted Christmas Ornament Exchange
Tuesday August 21, 2007
I know, I know, it's only August and I'm mentioning the C-word... but if you're going to make things for Christmas it is time to start thinking about it, if ... Read More
The Girl With the Gallery
Tuesday August 21, 2007
I'm already a keen reader of artist biographies, but I've now added one about a gallery owner to my reading list after seeing it mentioned on Edward Winkleman's blog. The ... Read More
New Still Life with Fruit Paintings
Monday August 20, 2007
Among the various new paintings added to this month's Painting Project Gallery is the still life with mango and papaya by Tina Jones. Tina says: "I really struggled with this ... Read More
Paintings Take to London's Streets
Sunday August 19, 2007
If you've been in the West End of London recently you might have been surprised to encounter reproductions of paintings from the National Gallery hanging up on buildings. It's part ... Read More
Discussion: Abstraction in Negative Space
Sunday August 19, 2007
A "great part of what makes a figurative painting great is ... the manipulation of 'negative space', and that part of the work is pure abstraction. There simply is no ... Read More
Critiquing Paintings, Your Own & Other People's
Saturday August 18, 2007
Is it polite to ask for comments on your own paintings but never critique other people's paintings? Should a critique be brutally blunt or focus on what is working instead? ... Read More
Hopper Landscape Threatened by Mansion
Thursday August 16, 2007
Plans are afoot to build a "6,500-square-foot mansion" in the middle of the "Hopper landscape" reports the Boston Globe. (Note: the Boston Globe requires registration in order to read its ... Read More
Painting Video: Sumi-e Sunflower
Thursday August 16, 2007
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Watch as the artist paints a sunflower in this Sumi-e painting video. This Asian painting style differs quite a bit from Western easel painting. ... Read More
Please Use Your Cell Phone in the Museum
Thursday August 16, 2007
I confess, I hate the audio commentaries that you can hire (usually for quite a fee) at art gallery and museum special exhibitions. You're generally stuck looking at the paintings ... Read More
The Project Gallery's Becoming a Fruit Market!
Wednesday August 15, 2007
As promised, I've been working away at adding your submitted paintings to this month's Project Gallery, and it's really looking like a glorious fruit market! The latest additions are:
Farmer's Market ... Read More
Painting Murals in Baghdad
Tuesday August 14, 2007
Earning US$15 a day, a group of artists in Baghdad, Iraq, are painting murals on the concrete walls erected to deter suicide bombers. The New York Times article about the ... Read More
Changing Your World With Every Painting
Tuesday August 14, 2007
"In making a piece of art, both the artist and the artist's world are changed ... facing the next blank canvas ... will always yield a different answer..."
-- Art and ... Read More
A Perspective Problem
Monday August 13, 2007
Usha sent in a painting for the Still Life with Fruit Painting Project Gallery, saying: "I know that something is wrong, I think it is the composition, or the viewpoint." ... Read More
Forget About the Hairdryer
Sunday August 12, 2007
In response to my thoughts about using a hairdryer to speed up the drying time of a watercolor (see this painting problem solver), Sheila L. emailed a tip that's more ... Read More
New Still Life with Fruit Paintings
Friday August 10, 2007
If you've been waiting (patiently or otherwise) for a painting you've submitted for the August Painting Project to appear in the project gallery, be assured that I am working on ... Read More
Painting the Unfamiliar by Using the Familiar
Thursday August 9, 2007
If you're having trouble figuring out how to paint a particular subject, try approaching it by using comparisons to things you've already successfully painted. Take, for instance, the sea. On ... Read More
Mixing Green on the Canvas Rather than on a Palette
Wednesday August 8, 2007
There's no painting rule that says you have to mix your colors on a palette before you apply them to a canvas. You can mix your colors on the canvas ... Read More
Using a Hair Dryer to Rapidly Dry a Watercolor
Tuesday August 7, 2007
Is it okay to use a hair dryer to speed up the rate at which a watercolor painting dries, or a sheet of watercolor paper that you've just stretched? Won't ... Read More
How to Make a Japanese Woodblock Print
Monday August 6, 2007
Discover step by step how a traditional Japanese woodblockprint is made in this painting demonstration put together by the Fitzwilliam Museum. It's "interactive" in that you need to click to ... Read More
A Decision on My Problematic Sea Painting
Sunday August 5, 2007
It's been fascinating reading people's comments and suggestions on my troublesome seascape (the one with the problems arising from a lack of planning). These have ranged from adding more cliff ... Read More
Size of Paper vs Paper Size
Saturday August 4, 2007
I noticed that someone's been searching for information on "watercolor size", which lead me to wondering just which definition of size they were interested in. For starters, there's size meaning ... Read More
Painting with Liquid Pencil
Thursday August 2, 2007
Yes, you read that correctly, it does say "liquid pencil" and it's not an oxymoron. Liquid Pencil is a new product from Australian paint company Matisse Derivan that'll be on ... Read More
August's Painting Project: Still Life with Fruit
Wednesday August 1, 2007
The challenge of August's Painting Project is to elevate fruit from something to snack on or make a pie from, to the centerpiece of a painting. Whether you place only ... Read More