Category: Uncategorized

Creating a Narrative with your Photo ReferencesBy Karen Israel Painting from life is the best way to see the delicate subtleties of form, color and value transitions. I spent many years painting from life, and I wouldn’t change a thing. The process was foundational in my growth as an artist and storyteller. It taught me…

What Can You Paint in 10 Minutes?By Karen Margulis Most of us wish we had more time to paint. Life gets busy, and before we know it another week has gone by without picking up a pastel. Then when we finally do find an hour or two, we spend half of it wondering what to…

Pin Hole CameraA Metaphor for the Visual ArtistBy Colette Odya Smith As practicing visual artists, we must all be quite familiar with the language surrounding descriptions of what it is we do and what role we play in society. Most of that language revolves around seeing. The artist is a visionary; they see things through…

The Power of EmotionBy Christine Obers Before beginning a painting, I consider the feeling. What is the emotion I want to convey? For over three decades, my days were spent creating visual art to sell products. Two seconds is all you have in a world full of distractions. My visual had to capture a person’s…

TRANSITIONS One thing is constant in our lives – change.  We make plans, dream and set goals, and for the most part we manage to stay on the path that we’ve laid out for ourselves. But often, as changes and circumstances occur, we are forced to review those plans and dreams and assess whether or…

Creating A Unique Art Instruction BusinessBy Jim Tyler “Heck no!”  That was my standard response for several years when people asked me to teach them pastels.  Being a bit of an introvert, I couldn’t imagine getting any pleasure out of teaching.  But I eventually submitted, and over the last 15 years I’ve realized how much…

Does the Artist have the Final Say?By Laura Mocnik As artists, we try to bring something new into existence…the way we think, the way we feel, what inspires us.  We do this in many different ways, sometimes through medium, sometimes through color, sometimes through subject, whichever way we wish to tell the story.  For me,…

Art and Grief ReflectionsBy Susan Kuznitsky Grief is an unavoidable part of life, a truth I came to understand deeply after the sudden loss of my husband in November 2017. In the immediate aftermath, grief felt overwhelming, an all-consuming presence that seemed impossible to move beyond. Over time, however, I have come to recognize that…

What Abstraction Can Offer the Realistic ArtistBy Debora Stewart For many artists, realism is where we begin. It’s where we learn to see accurately, to understand proportion, light, anatomy, and structure. I spent much of my youth working realistically, building those skills and trusting observation as my primary guide. That foundation has served me well…

What is the purpose of Art – Why Do We Create?By Julie Freeman From the early cave drawings to our current time people have always created whether to tell a story or make a statement, it’s an expression of the inner artistic voice but in a creative way. I don’t think it’s a tangible thing,…