Art Blog - What Makes A Painting Work

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

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

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

Tiny paintings that work well may combine great color and value choice with simple forms. They punch you between the eyes from across the room. Other outstanding miniatures are complex and draw you in with detail, luring you to discover their secret heart. "Electric City", which sold last weekend at a local gallery on its first trip out of the studio, mostly falls into the second category. It doesn't punch you between the eyes from across the room, but it does invite you in from 20+ feet away. While the eyes pick up an overall colorful quality, it is the forms created by areas of lighter and darker values that are most noticeable from a distance… Continue reading… 0 comments

This account is in praise of experimenting with art, and stumbling into success As an artist it's a way to stretch, learn, and have fun. If you are a collector you may find some very engaging pieces that developed when the artists took a leap outside their usual media and modes of creation. "Dark Elephant" developed out of an experiment that just kept stretching. I've been doing a fair amount of brush painting on rice paper recently, and I've done a number of pieces on less traditional surfaces such as Bristol paper. I had a piece of handmade rough watercolor paper from India with leaves and stems embedded in it, and I decided to try painting an elephant in sumi-e ink on it… Continue reading… 8 comments

Dirt, rocks, gravel, clay, silt, stone: these words usually call to mind tones of brown and gray but the earth often contains tones of vibrant color. Light them with sun, split them open with nature's own violent disruptions, wash them with water, or polish them, and how they sparkle. I know many water colorists who avoid the earth pigments for more transparent choices, but traditionally the two sources of color were earth and plant dyes, with plants most often ephemeral. Of course there might be the occasional beetle thrown in! Certainly the earth colors: the ochres, umbers, siennas, for example, are ideal on the palette when painting rocks… 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