Bad easel
I listened to songs by PJ Harvey during this morning’s painting session (actually drawing session). Her songs are filled with the kind of poetry that tears you up–just what I…
Spring? You bet!
Those aren’t whitecaps on Lake Erie but ice flows loosened from the thawing ice–but I’ll take it! We knew spring was finally arriving when we were able to keep the…
About yesterday’s rant
Yesterday’s rant started as the preamble to a much longer post about painting techniques and the craft of painting. The soon-to-be-published post is already too long so I removed the…
Rant
I was taught nothing of practical use about painting when I was a student. Worse than the daily dose of esoteric BS was the relentless, sneering attack on the subjects…
van Gogh Repetitions
I plan on visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art’s exhibition van Gogh Repetitions later today. It will be my third visit to see it. The show has a number of first rate…
In praise of cerulean blue
Cerulean blues is an extremely important color. Besides being a core blue (it should be on every palette), it forms complementary tones with most orange-brown colors, such as burnt sienna (another…
Complementary neutral tones
The eye loves complementary neutrals. The eye will accept the ‘truth’ of a well placed neutral faster than it will a piece of carefully crafted modeling. Nature abounds with complementary…
In the studio 3/23/2014
Here is my usual weekly post about what’s cookin’. The top painting is ‘Deb.’ The lower painting isn’t very far advanced but I think you can get a sense of…











