Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i Artists Magazine

Prayer flags and banners frequently adorn monasteries, connecting one structure to another, as seen in my painting at left. They’re believed to allow the sacred energy of the Buddha to flow from its statue to the worshippers. These multicolored beacons may also fly from high peaks, marking the sacred setting of a monastery, as seen in my sketch below.…

1 I look through my DIY viewfinder to determine my composition, holding it close to my eyes for a broad view and at arm’s length for a more cropped view. I use the guidelines to help me place elements in the scene. I determine what’s in the very center and how that relates to my eye level. 2 While on-site, I create a thumbnail sketch that uses the same proportions, dividing it into four quadrants as seen through the viewfinder. 3 Because my viewfinder has guidelines that demark four quadrants, I can easily determine where the major elements in the scene sit in my composition. I always do a thumbnail sketch. Once I have a sketch I like and think will make a strong composition, I’ve done most of the…

“Gathering at Twilight is one of my favorite paintings. I really wanted to capture a magical time: the twilight; the lighting in the windows; and that feeling of being a little kid and the excitement you had running around the house when it was getting dark, basking in the security of hearing your parents and their friends and other family members laughing and talking. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to stumble across all of the elements that I needed for this painting, so I had to pull together my own vision for it. I relied on some old photos as well as new photo references. “For the house, for example, I wanted to capture the feeling of being at my grandparents’ home, which was probably built in the 1930s…

Artists are aware that modern-day perspective drawing was developed during the Renaissance. What’s not as well known is that countless Renaissance artists practiced a form of approximate perspective in their paintings and drawings. Just like artists of today, many from that historic time were intimidated by the mathematics associated with perspective. When confronted with these challenges, Renaissance artists would guess at and even cheat in their drawings and paintings—but no one could tell. It’s even difficult for today’s historians to determine which Renaissance masters used the mathematical system of perspective and which approximated it in their art. ALBERTI’S INTENTIONS Art historian Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr. tells us in his book The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective (1975) that when Leon Battista Alberti first invented his perspective-drawing formula in 1435, he…

Conversation about the art world often revolves around the art market—or the various art markets. This focus on commercialism beleaguers many art-lovers, but an understanding of the different types of market “real estate” underlines the wisdom of supporting local galleries that do the most for artists. PRIMARY MARKET GALLERIES Galleries that present new works by artists—straight from the studio, as it were—are known as “primary market galleries.” They focus on contemporary art and artists and may offer group or solo exhibitions. Primary galleries at the emergent-artist level introduce artists’ work to collectors, museum curators and critics, and are invested in seeing the artist succeed and move on to a higher-tier gallery. For that reason, they tend to have high turnover as their rising talents head to wider fields. The mid-tier…

we think of modern art as the product of urban centers, but its history is incomplete without the contributions of dozens of provincial outposts. Pontoise, a northwestern suburb of Paris, played a prominent role in the development of Impressionist painting. Although a number of brand names—among them, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Charles-François Daubignylived there or nearby, it’s Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903) whose legacy is most closely associated with Pontoise. He lived there from 1866 to 1883 and painted the environs in dozens of his greatest landscapes. In Pissarro’s early landscapes, one can see an affinity with the Barbizon School, but by the time he moved to Pontoise, the influence of his mentor, Camille Corot, had begun to wane. The separation was due, quite literally, to a…

only in the greatest opera houses can the sights one sees on stage be as spectacular as the sounds one hears. That’s certainly the case at the Metropolitan Opera (Met Opera) in New York City. This mise-en-scène artistry is fully evident in the work of John Macfarlane, an internationally recognized set and costume designer. His work is part of four major 2020 productions at the Met Opera: Handel’s Agrippina, Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), Puccini’s Tosca, and Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda. All of these productions will also be simulcast to a global audience through the Met Opera’s Live in HD series. ENTER, STAGE LEFT Macfarlane—a native of Scotland who currently resides in the countryside of Wales—knew from childhood that his artistic talent would find a home in theater. “I…

“ I love William Merritt Chase’s plein air work from Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. I can feel the salty breezes, hear the ocean and feel the warmth of the sun.” —DEBBIE TAYLOR MEEKINS “Anything by Albert Bierstadt—his mountains, clouds, everything! In New York City, this country girl was feeling a bit homesick. When I rounded a corner at the Met and saw Lander’s Peak, I burst into tears. I realized then that I could survive being away from Wyoming—as long as I could visit Bierstadt from time to time.” —BOBBIE BROWN LIKE US ON FACEBOOK @ARTISTSNETWORK TO ANSWER EACH MONTH’S QUESTION IN “THE ASK.” RESPONSES MAY BE EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY.…

Eye Appeal ● Every scene needs a center of interest. Create major emphasis with pure color, high contrast of light and dark, or bright highlights. ● Variety keeps the eye engaged. Grab your viewer’s attention with the unexpected—a vintage car in a scene of rolling hills and lush trees, for example. ● Avoid the bull’s-eye. The center of interest needn’t be in the middle of your surface. Try the compositional rule of thirds: imagine lines that divide your picture plane into thirds horizontally and vertically. Then place areas of interest on or near an intersection. ● Don’t isolate your points of interest. Instead, think of your surface as a map and plot a course from point to point. Let your major forms lead the eye in and around your canvas.…

When I teach perspective, I begin with a chalkboard drawing of a box with a straight-on view (see Chalkboard Diagram A, below). The horizontal lines projecting into a one-point perspective converge at one distinct vanishing point on the horizon/eye-level line. Next to the box I loosely plot another box, which contains a chair that’s oblique to the viewer—two-point perspective (see Chalkboard Diagram B). The horizontal lines of objects in two-point perspective project to two different vanishing points along the horizon line. Those two points may or may not be inside the parameters of the drawing. In fact, they could be a long distance beyond the outer edges of a drawing’s surface. Finding those exact points, however, isn’t essential. I then draw a still life that I’ve set up in the…

I must admit to being a bit of a wimp when it comes to plein air painting. Don’t get me wrong—I love it, but I need a little help out there. It can be intimidating: There’s the weather, the onlookers, the bugs, all that gear and, of course, the 360 degrees of overwhelming visual field. Sometimes it’s enough to send me packing, so I need all the help I can get. The one tool that I absolutely can’t live without is a viewfinder—an apparatus through which to look to compose and frame a scene, whether indoors or outdoors, to help narrow the focus from a whole cone of vision. Over the years, I’ve tried most of the ready-made viewfinders on the market—big ones, small ones, plastic ones, digital ones—all in…

When Luke Allsbrook finds inspiration for a painting, his heart starts to thump. “It’s like reading the first few pages of a great book,” he says. “Everywhere I look, I see a painting. It’s like it’s already finished. I just have to do the work. I can’t just plop down and paint anything, though. I have to be really bowled over.” For Allsbrook, those special places need to have the right combination of “what it is” and “the way it looks.” It’s the subject and the abstract organization of light and colors in a scene that must work together for him. Allsbrook captures the landscape and its mysteries as he sees them in large, evocative oil paintings. He describes himself as a “perceptual painter,” aiming to draw truth from nature…

Step 1 When composing a scene en plein air, I try not to crop it. Instead, I think of the periphery of my vision as corresponding to the edges of the canvas. I make a careful drawing of the major shapes that comprise the observed landscape, avoiding any details. I’m especially attentive to observing how lines flow through the landscape and how the shapes interlock. This establishes a solid abstract structure for the painting. I work the drawing using vine charcoal and then apply acrylic ink to set the drawing. Step 2 I always paint on a toned ground, achieved by adding acrylic color to the last layer of gesso. This allows me to make initial tonal relationships quickly. If the toned ground ends up peeking through the paint marks,…

When one hears the term “American art,” several groups, movements and influential artists may come to mind. Although it’s difficult to pinpoint a decidedly American style of painting, every century had at least one collective of artists who helped define not only what was happening in the art world but also in American culture, economics, society and history. The mid-19th-century Hudson River School painters, for instance, documented the quickly morphing American landscape as our country was being settled. The Golden Age of Illustration in the early 20th century reflected America’s newly empowered print media and the talented draftsmen and painters commissioned to illustrate print publications and products. Individual artists such as Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth made the American lifestyle and landscape iconic through their imagery, while others such as…

My Front Yard, Summer, 1941 by Georgia O’Keeffe 1941; oil on canvas, 20¹/₁ 6 x30⅛ GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM “In this work, Georgia O’Keeffe [American, 1887–1986] reveals her attachment to the open spaces and rugged landscape of northern New Mexico. The vibrant yellow and pink pigments she chose are an accurate representation of the colors of the desert surrounding her home at Ghost Ranch. This 1941 painting, housed at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, in Santa Fe, depicts one of her favorite subjects—Cerro Pedernal. When speaking of the mountain, O’Keeffe once stated, ‘It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.’ And paint it she did, literally hundreds of times.” GRETCHEN GÜRTLER Director of Museums, Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center…