COMPOSE

In the long run, it's best not to work from poor reference material, but on rare occasions, you might want to do a painting or drawing ...

Let's face it. There are times when we must work in the studio using resource material although, I agree, the best reference material i...

Not long after I began this blog about composing, I started receiving e-mails from various artists asking me what I think are the most im...

This is in defense of the tools I keep talking about, those freeing principles that give our paintings an underlying structure just as the s...

Responding to last week's post about rhythm, Diana asked: "Do you think this is something most artists do consciously or unconsci...

What does this mean? "... rhythm and repetition act as agents for creating order out of forces that are otherwise in oppositions. ...

Do I detect an elephant in the room? This week's post will be a bit different, sort of a side bar, because I want to air something that...

When I was a kid our little burg had footpaths. One path led to town, another down to Aunt Alice's house, another through the fields to ...

After my “Isolation” post on August 8, I received a request from one of my students asking about how to use isolation without ending up w...

When I was a kid growing up in rural north Georgia, we made our own see-saws with a long board across a wooden sawhorse. Two kids, one on e...

Balance is equilibrium . We've all been thrown off balance, whether physically, emotionally, spiritually or psychologically. It's ...

It's always fascinated me how some artists have a knack for making paintings that stop you in your tracks. Sometimes it's the natur...

Ultimate unity is a blank canvas according to the would-be clever artists who have exhibited blank canvases as their "art". I ser...

Go here . The painting is "Carriage House" by Marc Hanson , one of the finest landscape painters around. Marc, himself, raised t...

A tangent is bothersome touching. You might call a tangent the painting's harassment because it creates an uneasiness within the viewer...