Dear Artist, Yesterday, Gaye Adams wrote, “I find that doing demos is extremely challenging as I never know quite where a painting is going until I get there. There seems no time to ponder, to try this and that. The…
Dear Artist, Architectural visionary Christopher Alexander has produced a four-volume “essay” that attempts to cure architecture. The Nature of Order: the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe makes some valuable assertions. Apart from being interested in the…
Dear Artist, These days there’s an almost religious enthusiasm for gray palettes. Painters have rediscovered that a neutral gray mixing area helps in sorting tone values as well as determining hue and chroma. Gray palettes don’t dazzle — they may…
Dear Artist, Like a lot of us I get quite a few calls from beginning artists in need of advice. Sometimes it starts off with a technical question that leads to larger, more motivational questions. Yesterday a neighbour lady, Carmen,…
Dear Artist, On Sunday John Pryce dropped by. The itinerant Ontarian was a long way from home and wanted to know if there was anything to paint around here. He wasn’t looking for food, a bath or anything. It didn’t…
Dear Artist, A few minutes ago I was on the telephone with a kid who wanted to know if my daughter Sara and I painted the same things and in the same way. I set him straight. Apart from the…
Dear Artist, On Thursday night my buddy Don Getz dropped in. These days Don is hanging his hat in Louisville, Kentucky, but most of the time he seems to be wandering around doing his travel journals — Canada, Maine, Adirondacks,…
Dear Artist, Yesterday I was being curious again about one of my little habits — a habit that some artists might relate to. I like to start a painting off in a mess and then try to harness and control…
Dear Artist, A few years ago a thief looked in a gallery window and saw what he thought was a painting by a relatively expensive, dead artist. Using an accomplice to distract the dealer, he grabbed it and fled. It…
Dear Artist, On Monday, I was a member of a jury. All of the entries, 777 of them, had been previously juried by slide by a single outsider juror. The selected show of 55 paintings was now hung and five…