Why Draw? Often landscape painters don’t think drawing is important. I am always amazed in my workshops and classes at the number of students who do not regularly use a sketchbook or include drawing as part of their art making process. I was fortunate that the first artist I seriously studied with- Ned Jacob- […]
The Three Uses of Value
As we know, when we refer to value we are speaking about how light or dark a shape or form, or part of a shape or form are. Generally when we refer to value we are speaking comparatively, that is, how light or dark something is compared to something else. However, by using a value […]
Sir Alfred East- Advice on Painting Skies
Sir Alfred Edward East (1844- 1913), was a British landscape painter whose work was influenced by the French Barbizon painters as well as the rich tradition of British landscape painting in the 19th century transmitted by the twin giants of the genre, Constable and Turner. Sir Alfred had a successful career, exhibiting at the Royal […]
Why "Paint What You See" Is Not Good Advice
“In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.” Goethe “Paint what you see.” Has anyone ever told you that? The other day I was reading something online and ran across a discussion where several artists were offering advice to another artist about how to […]
Chroma Trumps Value
This month in the Values I class we have concerned ourselves with being able to recognize values in the landscape accurately as well as to understand concepts like Carlson’s Theory of Angles and atmospheric perspective. We often perceive value in Nature inaccurately. For example, warm colors are often judged to be lighter than they actually […]
The Dark Side
One of the most challenging effects to paint are depictions of the night. Nocturnes have particularly fascinated artists since the latter part of the 19th century. Painting the night presents special challenges in “keying” the landscape- that is, selecting a range of values which best depicts the light effect desired. Of course, in the case […]