What defines a “master artist”?  What defines a “master” anything? If I can copy a master artist’s painting does that make me a master?   If I can produce master-like work on my own but I only churn out five works over my lifetime does that make me a master?  Did the old masters know…

After making my way into Washington, DC with a classmate and finally finding a place to park (no small task on a Friday morning), we headed to the National Gallery of Art to see the “Andrew Wyeth:  Looking Out, Looking In” exhibit, which focuses on his watercolor paintings of windows.  During his lifetime, the artist produced…

During the past few months I created this blog, bought a MacBook Pro laptop, a wireless printer and a new iPhone.  For my birthday a couple weeks ago my generous and thoughtful boyfriend gave me a new semi-professional DSLR camera, and with a gift certificate from my brother and sister-in-law I bought a new lens. …

“You live in the image you have of the world. Every one of us lives in a different world, with different space and different time.”  ~Alejandro Jodorowsky Flowing with momentum into weeks 8 and 9 of my watercolor class (nature studies), which started as a brief experiment in vulnerability but has now transformed into a…

Glass is fragile.  I have accidentally broken more of it than I can remember.  Jagged pieces discarded and forgotten. Glass distorts and reflects.  It bends reality like dreams bend consciousness with mysterious and sometimes haunting effects. Glass is transparent.  I know it has mass but I can see inside it and through it. Glass is…

  Diving in to project 6, “Monochromatic Still Life Studies,” I wondered why anyone would want to approach painting with such limitation.  As an artist who tends to throw a lot of color around, it seemed counterintuitive to me.  On top of that, I sat in an area of the classroom where the still life…

Four days before class: I grip the X-Acto knife and slice deliberately into a piece of cardboard.  I’m making a viewfinder.  I don’t know what size window to cut so, with a strong need to be prepared, I make two different sizes.  I am mildly aggravated at the lack of clear sizing and color instructions. …

“I also had to learn that losing myself in my work was not dangerous.”   ~from Virginia Valian’s essay ‘Learning to Work’ We jumped into class with our weekly critique.  The task was to post a couple versions of last week’s 10-minute still life studies on the wall, offer quick comments on what we liked…