Letter to a young art student
Dear Artist, A young friend, who has this fall begun an art degree, received a…
Browsing: painting
Beyond ‘so what?’
Dear Artist, Last night, Catherine Stock of Rignac, France wrote, “I wonder if you could…
Place of refuge
Near Zion National Park, in the lower left hand corner of Utah is the Kolob reservoir, where at this time of year, an artist can sit at the water’s edge and paint the turning, trembling aspens and the boulders that tumbled there a million years ago. A friend and I had recently decided that while much of what the world is experiencing is toxic right now, one can still nourish oneself on the wind, a paddle and a steep climb.
Personal coach
Dear Artist, My friend Ralph, who doesn’t mind my talking about this, is way out…
The distraction technique
Dear Artist, Last Sunday at 2 p.m. my friend Murray came to the studio. He…
Continuous Partial Attention
Dear Artist, The other day I was looking into the eyes of a painter as…
An instrument of power
Dear Artist, When the invention of photography transformed portraiture from luxury art item to affordable…
How to beat painter’s block
Dear Artist, A lot of stuff has been written about writer’s block, mainly because writers…
How to improvise
“For an artist, greatness happens when you can take something organized and make it feel like it was improvised,” says dance teacher Helena St. Rogers in the drama series, Pose. In painting, you may wonder how to do this without ending up with an aimless jumble. Improvisation, the act of composing without a plan, unfurls in real time but rests on an armature of known structures and experiences, with the goal of getting to a breakthrough. Just as a jazz musician takes a solo over a grid of eight or twelve bars, your improvisation should have a beginning, middle and end.