Art Blog - What Makes A Painting Work

Robins must be one of the best loved birds. They find their way into our folklore, into our songs, and into our hearts. They also find their way into our art. I'm happy enough with the result that I've given some thought to why it works so well. It think the greatest strength in this little watercolor is the way the bird's bright eye provides an exact focal point for the painting. This is a gift from nature, where close observation shows that the eye is surrounded by a thin white edge. The glossy surface of the eye reflects light to provide a white pinpoint in the center of the black eye. Notice that the white flower in the background is muted and is surrounded by a medium value green so that it does not distract from the focal point… Continue reading… 2 comments

Two challenges presented themselves from the outset in painting this view from under the wharf at Santa Cruz, California. Light comes from multiple points, coming round in all directions to pierce the darkness under the wharf. The far side of the wharf admits an almost blinding light as the sun sparkles on the water. Shadows from the supports are cast at many points and from many directions in varying intensity. The second challenge is created by the large number of straight lines which could carry the eye beyond the picture plane and away from the focal points… Continue reading… 0 comments

The current popularity of artist cards may be a part of a culture that is seeing smaller as better after a "super-size me" in everything from foods to cars to houses. Or it may simply be a continuing love of things miniature which goes back to ancient times and perhaps to prehistoric times. Think tiny golden Celtic horses, animals scratched on walls, images on pots, even before the invention of paper. Illuminated manuscripts featured gorgeous miniature scenes surrounding those brilliant letters that lead into a reading. Samuel F. B. Morse is famous in this internet age for his invention of the telegraph, the first worldwide near-instantaneous communication. In his own time he was also known as a painter of miniature portraits. Small works clearly have a past and a continuing appeal… Continue reading… 1 comment

Ordinarily I paint or draw every day. Currently, as I adapt the shape of my life to include spending three days & nights a week in caring for a parent, the pace of creativity has slowed down. On the other hand I have found myself at my keyboard in the late evening on nights at my mom's house, returning to poetry more often than I have at any other time since I first developed a passion for creating visual art. So my creative efforts have been modified in that I paint, draw, or write almost every day (however brief the moments I steal). I've also been giving some thought to the composition of everyone's opus of sorts_how we design our own lives… Continue reading… 0 comments

Sometimes the grand elements of a particular place are so impressive that they are painted by seemingly every artist that passes through. Meanwhile other potential painting ideas may be ignored. For example, California's Pigeon Point Lighthouse is one of the most attractive and painted of the Pacific Coast lighthouses. At a juried show I attended a few months ago, I saw a painting of Pigeon Point that captured only the rocky point below the lighthouse. It was an attractive and powerful portrayal of waves crashing upon the rugged rocks, and it was an award winner. The artist had looked at the famous locale from a slightly different and fresh viewpoint… Continue reading… 0 comments

Painting is about light. Art portraying dusk to the darkest night deals with light in three interesting ways. There are works give us only the natural light of the night, largely dependent on moonlight but even the ambient light of a moonless night has form if few hints of color. It takes a deft handling of color and value to depict that soft world of dusk or of moonglow. Moonless or clouded nights are largely value studies. Two masters of the night who painted in California's central coast region approximately a century ago are Charles Rollo Peters and Gottardo Piazzoni. Artificial light may be the focal point or the theme of the painting. Sometimes this is the glowy cottages of Thomas Kincaid, and the window lights on a Christmas card scene… Continue reading… 3 comments

Landscapes can range from realistic to symbolic or abstract. Color treatment is a factor in the level of realism. There are landscapes which reflect local color, which show an understanding of light in a particular region and season. These paintings can "take you there", bringing to mind the smells and sounds of a familiar locale through the visual signals. The dancing light of the most impressionist of Impressionists such as Monet, asks the viewer to look beyond the obvious and generalized color instead of seeing the color of an object as a solid unchanging block. Fauve painters added a pulsing color beat to their works, intensifying and often entirely changing the natural colors. They invite a passionate response to their scenes… Continue reading… 3 comments

A scant few oak leaves had just begun to color. The oaks grew along the edge of a Sierra trail in a place that would have been awkward to set up to paint. I photographed them for later work in the studio, framing the scene with the camera as I intended to paint it. It was horizontal with a great deal of the dusty greens of late summer/early fall and the yellow leave in the lower left hand area, in a text book example of one of the perfect focal point locations. However, I did not like the first painting effort following that plan. There were large amounts of dark areas, with the eye drawn to the bright leaves and staying there. In the next effort I went to a vertical composition, using only one third of the leafy area I had originally painted… Continue reading… 2 comments

It's a good idea to take yourself seriously as an artist but don't slide over into the area of pomposity. Art that moves us deeply is a wondrous creation. The world would be emptier without those art pieces that make us cry, that make us want to shout, or that strike us into silent awe. Yet there is also something to be said for the artwork that simply makes us smile-- or occasionally laugh out loud! Of course, everything that applies to creating a "regular" art is equally important in humorous art. Good composition with a nice flow of the eye through the work, color choices that work, a balance of values that helps us make visual sense of the work, etc… Continue reading… 6 comments

When you paint, make me believe. A painting attempts to take a flat plane and make us believe images of a three dimensional world. The artist, like the fiction writer, needs to create a willing suspension of disbelief. For years the wild sunsets often seen in paintings in British and American landscapes from the late 1800s struck me as a fantasy element. I had no problem enjoying the paintings because there was an internal consistency. Under those multihued sunsets and towering cloud formations, deep shadows and rosy or orange hued highlights built beautiful, larger than life landscapes… Continue reading… 2 comments

There are no self taught artists, but there are many lessons beyond the formal walls of the classroom. Museums have long been places where artists can sharpen their skills, and many welcome students with sketchbook in hand. Some paintings within the museums you frequently visit may become old friends that you must spend time with even when you are there to view a special show. At Stockton's Haggin Museum "Sophistication", a 1908 work by Harry Wilson Watrous, is such a work for me. So are the Albert Bierstadt works in the museum's permanent collection. My fascination with "Sophistication" led a young friend to give me the box pictured here from the Haggin's gift shop… Continue reading… 3 comments

Visual impact is the first thing we work toward in a painting, with color, value, and composition forming a triad of essentials. After the sense of sight, we most often appeal to that of touch. We want the viewer to be able to imagine from our visual clues the silken smoothness of a fabric, the rough bark of redwood or oak, the scratch of a kitten's tongue, the heft of a stone. Less often we spark the senses of taste, hearing, and smell. When I developed "Heavenly Aroma", I hoped to visually depict a smell. I was afraid the painting shown here was a little too "local" to make it into the highly competitive juried show currently open at Delicato Winery. Only about 30% of the paintings entered made the cut, and I had better hopes for my other entries… Continue reading… 5 comments

After deciding which slice of the world will make a good landscape composition, a second problem to be worked out is how much detail to show. When I saw these ducks sitting in the sun on a weathered boardwalk bridge rail at Neary Lagoon I was struck by their bright beauty. There was no doubt they were the stars of the scene. They would make a lovely watercolor painting by themselves. Yet I was also struck by patterns which spoke of the rich complexity of the landscape. The weathered wood had a lavender tone where it had been exposed by the peeling paint, and revealed growth patterns in the wood as the paint held to some layers better than to others. The ducks themselves had an array of colors in their feathers although the male's head and wings made them clearly identifiable as mallards… Continue reading… 3 comments

Western Art presents plentiful examples of excellent use of black and white: ink drawings by PIcasso, photos by Ansel Adams, the best of the motion pictures' early decades are but a few examples. It is in Chinese and Japanese Brush painting that the varying shades of black or gray are actually called colors. The classic paintings of China and Japan range from simple bamboo shoots to complex landscapes. What they have in common is the power of color within the blue black or brown black that is used. We see this also in modern masters such as Xu Beihong whose horses I particularly admire http://www.xubeihong.org/ In working with the ink I love the subtle shades made possible depending on the amount of water in the ink and in the brush… Continue reading… 4 comments

Primary colors attract us from the nursery on up. They are not boring. I read some time back of a gallery owner who said that paintings with each of the three primary colors in them were most likely to sell. I don't know how wide spread this experiences. Perhaps the big three in the world of color used together give the viewer a sense of wholeness, of balance and harmony in the universe. Perhaps they are just bright and jolly and make us want to smile and kick like that infant in the nursery. Used as all or the major part of a painting strong primaries are exciting. If your painting has been feeling a bit tired, doing a few works strictly in a palette of primaries may be just what you need to shake your art up a bit. Even a small work in primary colors can shout yoo-hoo! across a room… Continue reading… 5 comments