COMPOSE

Art reflects life, one way or another.  The discord we've all felt in recent weeks with the political dissonance in the States remin...

Many artists live in locations where sunny days are rare with not many opportunities to paint outside under a strong light source. We'...

By their styles, do your recognize the artists who did these three portraits? What about these three landscapes?  Can you recogni...

Try this.  Looking at this photo, squint your eyes so that all the details go away, stare and hold it for a few seconds.  Notice ...

Gradation  is a seamless transition between opposites.  Light changes slowly to dark, repeated images continuously become larger or small...

When we are fully immersed in the act of creating, there is a space within us where all that we are and all that we know come together int...

Not long ago, a student asked me how to decide what size to make an image in a painting. For today's composing tip, I want to share wi...

Many emerging painters complain about their values not being “clean” and most are at a loss as to what to do about it.  If you’ve never h...

To modulate is to make a gradual change within whatever is being modulated. In music, a single chord can modulate to another key just by p...

Of all the visual elements we work with, value seems the most challenging, especially when an image is white.  Let's take a look at t...

What causes us to begin a painting or a drawing?  My guess is that our answers will vary, but let's take ourselves to the times when ...

What do a hammer and value contrast have in common?   Answer:  Both are tools that we learn how to use and both can do a single task, b...

Our eyes scan thousands of images every day.  Many of them go unnoticed, some get a momentary glance, but how much do we really  see ?  An...