Category Archives: Uncategorized

No, I don’t mean Peoria and despite what it sounds like, Pieria is not a disease.  It is an area of Greece that has been described as ‘watered by the springs flowing from Olympus’. It’s reported to be the birthplace … Continue reading →

Light and substance—it’s another way to describe chiaroscuro, the painting technique developed in the Renaissance that we worked on last week.  Think about those two words together—light, a perennial quest for painters, exemplified by Monet and the Impressionists, and applauded … Continue reading →

Chiaroscuro in art is “an Italian term which literally means ‘light-dark’. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modeling of the subjects depicted.” Wikipedia[1] Tonal contrasts are about the … Continue reading →

Notes on the formal elements of my process that I demonstrated this last week are below.  It could be expanded, to be sure.  But these checkpoints are things you might question when you are struggling with a piece.  While I’m painting they are … Continue reading →

If you are prone to watching movies that involve soulful, struggling writers who can’t seem to catch a break, you have probably heard them counseled by a wise advisor—“write what you know”. Oddly, in the last week I’ve heard two … Continue reading →

Not being much of an “understander” of performance art and one who has little patience for what feels like exhibitionism, I was surprised at how affected I was by the HOB documentary about Maria Abromovic—“The Artist is Present”.  I want … Continue reading →

What is a painting?  A question we ask ourselves over and over as we ponder “Is it done?” The answers are many, but the simplest definition involves a collection of marks and shapes made in paint on a 2-dimensional surface.  The logical … Continue reading →

Image-making, visual communication and understanding, creativity, reflection, self-discovery, expression and more—at some level painting is about is about all of these.  And when it resonates for the viewer or the maker it is felt somewhere in the region of the … Continue reading →

New publications being discussed currently on many talk shows, (mostly on OPB and Comedy Central), are abuzz with dialogue about curiosity, creativity, psychology, science and art. From many different angles experts are exploring how the brain works, what sparks creativity … Continue reading →

Anyone who really wants to paint usually has something to say worth saying using this visual language. Our task is to figure out the tangle of possibility that leads to speaking the truth. At some level it concerns the rudimentary— how to make a cylinder … Continue reading →