Dear Artist, Yesterday, Tammy Callens of Jackson Hole, Wyoming wrote, “I’m suddenly 47 years old. It began to panic me that I’m too old to have a real career. With husband, children and other obligations, I wondered about all the…
Dear Artist, When winter comes, it’s time to look again at summer. Reinventing the experiences of stellar times, particularly plein air or live model events, can be a rich mine. Second-generation thinking refines images, facilitates better design and draws out…
Dear Artist, I’m in my studio most mornings about five. As far as I can see, it has something to do with the idea that I might be able to fix the thing I was working on the day before.…
Dear Artist, It finally happened. At 10 this morning we heard a truck backing up toward the studio. Two hefty guys put down the tailgate and laid several tons of books at our feet. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining. The Robert…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Susan Truex of Murfreesboro, TN, wrote, “What about using alternate forms of transferring an image to canvas, other than traditional drawing skills? Many of my colleagues and students, fearful of their abilities, use projectors and trace. I…
Dear Artist, We all work in some sort of genre. We paint abstracts, landscapes, florals, or still lifes, for example. Generally speaking, we try to be innovative and give our work a unique spin or style. Perhaps pathetically, many of…
Dear Artist, A demonstration video by subscriber David Jon Kassan shows him frequently looking through a small pair of binoculars at his subject. Working at some distance from his model, he’s making a head and shoulders portrait. By quickly eliminating…
Dear Artist, In the live comments of a recent clickback, I noticed a response by “Another in Anonymity”: “At the peril of upsetting others,” he or she wrote, “I think my main secret was my decision early on not to…
Dear Artist, This morning, Sharon Cory of Winnipeg, Manitoba, wrote, “A woman came into my gallery today, looked around for a bit and asked, ‘What is art?’ It was so direct I was stumped. I rambled on for a bit,…
Dear Artist, You may have noticed the odd times when something is irking you, putting you into a bad mood, and you sit down at your easel and do good work. While it’s not as pleasant as when you’re in…