Look! Up in the Sky!

I’d love to hear from oil painters who can give me a bit of advice. How do you create those very fine lines in your paintings? What size brushes do you use? What tricks, tips, or techniques can you share to help me improve?

Painting a Fantasy

In many ways, my Garden Fantasy is my impression of impressionist art. I can see leaves and flowers, and I can imagine many things when I see this painting. I can feel different things, too.

Not Bad for a Barn

Finding this sketch tucked away among my art books brought a smile to my face.

Mary Cassatt’s Good Fight

As a respectable woman in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mary Cassatt faced many restrictions.

Impressionist Styles

Characteristics of an Impressionist painting include distinctive brush strokes, vivid colors, ordinary subject matter, candid poses and compositions and most importantly, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities and unusual visual angles.

Learning to Draw – With Paint

“…some artists like to do detailed drawings to use as reference before they paint, but many don’t. Some artists do drawings directly onto their canvas before they start to paint, but many don’t.”

The Beginnings of Impressionism

Impressionism appeals to us, perhaps, because it allows us to understand art a very personal level. We’re not shown everything but are, instead, given subtle hints.

Bright and Bold

Over the next few weeks, I want to step away from representational painting now and then and just indulge myself in bright, bold colors. I want to splash, splatter, and pour my paints, letting them form their own shapes and designs.

Tools of the Trade

There are lots of artists who don’t like using brushes, or who may use brushes but also reach for many different tools of the artistic trade.

A Wise Old Owl Once Told Me

A good way to improve drawing skills is by drawing upside down.

Five Things

What five things do I consider essential for creating art?

Outside the Lines

Painting outdoors appeals to me in many ways. I love nature, I enjoy hiking, and I’m probably at my happiest when I’m in a woodland setting or at the water’s edge. So, why haven’t I done more plein air painting? Good question.

Just Another Autumn Painting

I have to admit, I didn’t have a strong, specific intention for this painting. It was simply another autumn painting, another opportunity to work with a palette of warm colors, another chance to practice painting a familiar wooded scene.

Rockin’ It This Mornin’

I’m excited now to paint more rocks… big rocks, little rocks…

How Many Times Can One Canvas Be Painted?

This painting isn’t one I take too seriously, and I have to smile each time I look at it. This particular canvas, you see, has had quite an interesting history.

Practice Makes…Progress

As I’ve been working my way through lots of ups and downs with my oil painting, I’ve been going back and fixing up a few paintings.

Way Out of My Comfort Zone

It’s taken me two years to get brave enough to try this first “people painting.”

Right Brain, Left Brain

The philosopher Pythagorus used “cosmos” to describe the universe, seeing within it a purposeful order.

Getting Carried Away Again

Sometimes maybe we deliberately need to make bad art.

Going Deeper

This woodland scene — still unfinished — represents the feelings I had as I painted, feelings that I’m following a path that’s leading me deeper into impressionism, leading me toward a deeper understanding of what art is to me, giving me a deeper awareness of my own creative spirit.