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If DaVinci sketched before painting in 1500 and, if 500 years earlier Fan Kuan of China’s Song Dynasty sketched before painting and, if Van Gogh sketched in 1888 before painting then, let’s conclude that sketching must be a valuable even … Continued
The introduction of dissolving luminous atmosphere as practiced by J.M.W. Turner and luminous 19th century tonalists like Corot or George Inness begins with Claude Lorrain. All of these artists usually practiced the application of atmospheric perspective by dropping an obscuring … Continued
In 1559 Pieter Bruegel the Elder understood a principle now known as “gradient shift” which means: patterns not only get smaller in the size of their parts as they appear to recede but also lose edge acuity, lose complexity, and … Continued
Colors and the patterns that hold them are highly associative. Colors are freighted with meaning from “seeing RED” to “I see a patch of red” can signal a vast range of emotion. The associative power of color can be personal … Continued
Occasionally I find a new seam of gold in a mine in which I have previously dug. With that in mind I now re-examine a familiar design form. When Thomas Cole painted his exhibition version of the The Oxbow in … Continued
Borrowed Patterns and Palettes Ernst Gombrich’s great insight that artists do not learn to paint landscapes by walking in nature but, by looking at other landscape paintings reveals how artists must acquire a vocabulary of models (a Pictionary) just as … Continued