Dear Artist, Recent studies of young people in the act of choosing music have shed some light on how the art game works. Teenagers in an online study were asked to rate a wide choice of unknown bands and new songs. One…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Doug Swinton wrote, “It seems lately I have lost my will to paint — or, as they say, I have lost my Mojo. Where does one go or what does one do to find one’s Mojo? I’m…
Dear Artist, In the art of parenting we all begin as amateurs. By the time we turn pro, it’s generally too late. Carol and I managed three out of the box: a filmmaker, a musician, and a painter. All are…
Dear Artist, An artist who wishes anonymity asks, “What of artists who get hooked on external validation? What do you think 0f artists who constantly seek some sort of approval from their peers, in clubs, even online?” At the risk of…
Dear Artist, Jim the plumber — a man with a high profession by any standards — travels with a complex kit. He drives afull van. Pipes, pumps, ball-cocks, flapper-valves and roto-rooters fill out a palette for his subterranean artistry. By…
Dear Artist, After several weeks working at the Badg-easel I feel I’m a bit of an expert at horizontal painting, and I’d like to tell you about it. First, to clarify, I’m working with no reference, from the memories of places I’ve…
Dear Artist, Renoir declared, “I’ve been forty years discovering that the queen of all colours is black!” What he meant was that black works as a darkener because its near chromal neutrality does not sully the colour it grays. While…
Dear Artist, Cochineal is a red dyestuff extracted from the blood of a beetle parasite on prickly pear cacti. Formerly used to make carmine and scarlet lakes, it was first imported from Mexico into Europe in 1560. British army uniforms…
Dear Artist, Traditionally, yellow has come from five main sources–mango, gamboge, orpiment, ochre and saffron. In the case of the Indian mango bush, the leaves were force-fed to a certain type of cow. At this point the cow’s bladder would…
Dear Artist, The original Ultramarine blue was made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli. Processes for making the pigment in the West date from the 12th century, but it was being made six centuries earlier in Eastern countries. The name…