Art Instruction Blog

Drawing for the Ages

Drawing for the ages Ridge came to my studio for a quick sketch this morning.  He was a delightful model and his mom really liked the drawing.  Ridge was a very patient model for a 5 year old! I really enjoy sketching from life and as I always tell my students, life...

No More Smooshing Paint Around

Getting it Right the First Time Rather than getting the wrong value on your brush and then working it into the painting, try getting the right value on your palette and painting directly onto the canvas, without apology.  Smooshing the paint around only weakens the...

Fold in the Light

This is from an art lesson yesterday in class. Want to express folds in drapery or in skin? You must understand how forms behave in the light. Here is a fold depicted in light, side view and top view.  There is a hard cast shadow on the left side.  And there is a soft...

Aspire to Happiness

This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing not being but becoming, not rest, exercise.  We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished but it is going on. This is not...

The God Factor

Most theologies would support that God is more about how things are connected than in how the are separate.    Drawing is a celebration of the connections between forms.   Therefore, these connections might be thought 0f as a celebration of God; the more connections,...

Dear Bully, Yeah You (Me)

Dear Bully, yeah you (me), I can see you don't go around pushing people, insulting them, sticking their hair in inkwells, that sort of thing. But you do single people out.  You find something you don't like about them.  You may not even know exactly what it is, but...

Drawing for Smart People

Here's some advice for all you really smart people who want to be able to draw what you see: Dumb it down a bit.  Great painters have more in common with magicians than with detectives.  See less, rather than more. Don't show off your sexy curves.  Curves are where...

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Exhausted but exhila

Exhausted but exhilarated having made a couple paintings during the first ever Charleston Plein Air competition at Mary Martin Gallery. The St Phillips painting was sold on the spot at the gallery as I was turning them in today to this nice couple. Talk about fresh art?! The Pineapple Fountain with City Gallery behind, is a view we don't often see. ...

Last Tango in Wonder

"Last Tango in Wonderland" is another collaboration with Nick C. Cerrato in which I painted what was behind his abstract expressionistic painting, which happened to be We the People of the world, being danced upon by the Epstein class. ...

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Day one of the MMG plein air festival in Charleston. A pretty ambitious painting of St Philip. ...

Evils Place, another

"Evil's Place," another collaboration with my dear friend and great artist, Nick C. Cerrato. ...

Tempus Fugit capture

"Tempus Fugit" captures the instant fire and ice meet, when strange entities are released into the human psyche. Another collaboration between myself and artist Nick C. Cerrato. ...

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