Archive for February, 2009
« Previous Entries“A Walk Through the Canyon” ~ 2/27/09 A Painting a Day Hudson River School Landscapes by Connie Tom
Submitted by A Painting for You!
“A Walk Through The Canyon” was a delight to do. With all the delicious colors, harmonizing the cool colors with the warm colors, I think I understand what Delacroix was talking about when he wrote in his journal, that “Colors are the music of the eyes.” I try to thank [...]
Filling In
Submitted by Gurney Journey
“Filling in” is a 19th century art term that refers to the process of association that a picture induces in a spectator. A picture was said to be capable of filling in when it suggested layers of meaning or awakened long dormant feelings.
A good example of this process comes from the writing [...]
Suffering Is Optional
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
When Andrew Wyeth died recently, it came as a bit of a shock. Even though he was 91 years old, Wyeth remained energetic and amazingly retained most of his eyesight and dexterity to the very end. It was a much different case for Auguste Renoir. Born February 25, 1841, Renoir [...]
Change We Can Believe In
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
In just another of the many signs of the radical changing of the guard with the Presidency of Barack Obama comes news that the First Couple will be decorating their private living space with modern art by masters such as Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns (whose Three Flags, [...]
“The Pathway of Life” ~ 2/26/09 A Painting a Day Hudson River School Landscapes by Connie Tom
Submitted by A Painting for You!
This scene reminded me somewhat of our journey through this life. You can’t see around the next bend. There are fences up sometimes. We’re enclosed by circumstances bigger than ourselves. There are bumps, rocks, and sometimes the way seems tilted. This reminds me that God is ultimately in control and [...]
Tiny Train
Submitted by Gurney Journey
Why do the railroad cars in this painting by George Inness (1825-1894) appear to be size of refrigerator cartons?
1. The top of the engine’s smokestack is even with the man’s nose, which makes the top of the boxcars—and our eye level—about four feet above the ground.
2. The train can’t be any lower [...]
The Art of Death
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
While recently reading Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, which brilliantly covers the entire range of that period’s relationship with death, including the act of killing itself, I was surprised, but shouldn’t have been, to find Winslow Homer’s Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (above, [...]
Flying Start
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
What if Gauguin had never gotten to Tahiti? What if Van Gogh had never traveled to Arles? How many more artists can you think of that enriched their art through travel? How many artists throughout history would have realized their dreams if only they had the means to expand their [...]
“Old Oak Tree on a High Hill II” ~ 2/25/09 A Painting a Day Hudson River School Autumn Tree Landscapes by Connie Tom
Submitted by A Painting for You!
I love old oak trees and of course autumn is my favorite season. I also love wide open spaces. I am hoping this work will evoke feelings of gentleness, peace, freedom and tranquility. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed painted it! ~Connie
Prints of this painting are [...]
Fa Presto
Submitted by Gurney Journey
In Italian, “fa presto” literally means “make quickly.” It became a painting term when the father of Luca Giordano (1634-1705) urged his son to speed up his studies.
The term became a nickname for Giordano, and more broadly, a byword among baroque painters like Tintoretto (self portrait, below) who were seeking a more [...]
Boy Wonder
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
At the tender of age of just 13, Fyodor Vasilyev began taking classes at night to learn how to paint. Born February 22, 1850, Vasilyev felt pressure to support his family after the death of his father and hoped to take the skills he’d learned as a painting restorer and [...]
“Study of a Rim Sitter” ~ 2/24/09 A Painting a Day Hudson River School Mountain Landscapes by Connie Tom
Submitted by A Painting for You!
Rim sitting has been popular throughout the ages for contemplative purposes. To have time to oneself to sit on the world’s most elevated places helps to clear the mind and make problems seem to diminish in the view of such vast and timeless beauty. I hope you enjoy this painting [...]
Garden Party
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
The story of Nils Büttner’s The History of Gardens in Painting is essentially the story of the garden in human history itself—a wish to return to paradise physically, spiritually, or both. Using the usual Abbeville Press style of lavish illustration, Büttner works his way through the beginnings of art history [...]
Écorché
Submitted by Gurney Journey
In the late 1870s, Thomas Eakins and his colleague Dr. Keen at the Pennsylvania Academy realized to their dismay that their dissected cadavers were getting a little past their prime.
So they had them cast in plaster. Eakins cast his own hand, too. Later on the plaster casts were converted to bronze.
The tradition [...]
“Aspens” ~ 3/23/09 A Painting a Day Hudson River School Western Oil Landscape Paintings by Connie Tom
Submitted by A Painting for You!
I love aspens. I love trees period. I once did a series of paintings entitled “The Language of the Trees”. I may do some more in this series. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed painting it. Connie
“Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou [...]
What Does it Take to be “Talented”?
Submitted by Ancient Artist: Developing an art career after 50
What does it take to be talented?
We’ve all heard that quote, “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” One of the most damning criticisms of Modernism is that for most of the past half century, artists were not admired for their skill, but for a demonstrated lack of [...]
Wig Shop Divas, 01609 mannequins with wigs
Submitted by CAROL NELSON FINE ART BLOG
This painting was done from a photograph provided on the blog Different Strokes From Different Folks, where artists are encouraged to paint or draw their own interpretations. This is my first entry of a painting on DSFDF. The blog is hosted by Karin Jurick (www.karinjurick.com) and I must say [...]
Nordic Landscape Painters
Submitted by Gurney Journey
Yesterday, in the comments about P.S. Krøyer, blog readers Jeff Freedner and C.Gertz Bech, brought up the names of some other great Nordic painters, including Anders Zorn and Peder Mønsted (GJ post on Mønsted here).
I didn’t want to let the moment pass without mentioning a few other Nordic landscape painters who captured [...]
Textured Tree Painting
Submitted by Bonnie Hurst Paintings
24×48 Acrylic
This one is almost finished. I cannot tell you how may times I have changed the colors. I will be adding some more depth with black and I will post it when I am satisfied it is finished! I posted about this idea when I was struck with it [...]
Native Intelligence
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
Growing up in California, Grace Carpenter Hudson watched her mother teach the local Pomo Indian children, one of the first whites to bring school education to that tribe. Born February 21, 1865, Hudson developed an early fascination with the customs of the Pomo as much as with the Pomo people [...]
Textured Tree Painting
Submitted by Bonnie Hurst Paintings
24×48 Acrylic
This one is almost finished. I cannot tell you how may times I have changed the colors. I will be adding some more depth with black and I will post it when I am satisfied it is finished! I posted about this idea when I was struck with it [...]
Sympathy and Range
Submitted by Gurney Journey
Technical matters aside, a measure of the greatness of a painter of people is the ability to convey humanity in all its forms.
In this painting of the interior of a tavern, Norwegian-Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer (1851-1909) portrays a couple of groups of hard-working men, probably fishermen from the village of Skagen.
Krøyer [...]
Translucent sketch paper
Submitted by Gurney Journey
When you’re developing a preliminary drawing for a composition, it often helps to refine it with layers of semi-transparent tracing paper. Architects use a cheap, pulp-based sketch paper that comes on a roll, available in white or canary.
It has been affectionately called “bumwad,” “fodder,” “tissue,” “trash,” “onion skin,” “flimsy,” and “pattern paper.”
For [...]
Forever Young
Submitted by Art Blog By Bob
“Cezanne has never looked younger!” beamed PMA curator Michael Taylor at today’s press preview for the blockbuster exhibition Cezanne and Beyond. The culmination of 13 years of work since the 1996 Cezanne exhibition at the PMA, Cezanne and Beyond stunningly portrays the power of Cezanne’s influence on a wide range [...]
“O’ Give Me a Home, Where the Buffalo Roam” ~ 2/21/09 A Painting a Day Hudson River School Luminous Landscapes by Connie Tom
Submitted by A Painting for You!
This was a hard piece, but I still liked working on it. This was my entry which sold at the Richard Schmid Fine Art Auction. I love intricate cloud formations and skies and dramatic lighting. The clouds and sky definitely sets the mood and atmosphere of the painting. Plus I [...]
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