Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2022 i Artists Magazine

the relationship between the act of drawing and the creation of a painting in watercolor is one with many facets, and while we could say drawing is the skeleton supporting the organs and tissue of a finished watercolor, this metaphor is presented at the risk of oversimplification. It’s true that sometimes an intricate painting is only possible thanks to the precise line-work armature painstakingly laid out before disappearing under watercolor washes. Other times, the drawing itself takes center stage to revel on its own as the star attraction. On rarer occasions, an artist manages to summon sufficient bravura to dispense with the preliminary drawing altogether. Perhaps the more applicable metaphor is that drawing and painting are like two performers collaborating in a duet or a dance, in which the lead…

I’ve been deeply committed to oil painting for many years, but recently, I felt I needed a break from my intensive work with that medium. I wanted something that was more immediate, that used simple tools and easily manipulated materials and that encouraged new ways of seeing. I often tack painted swatches to my work in order to test a color adjustment without altering the painting. All those leftover swatches led me to collage. This art-making method involves gluing two-dimensional materials—such as paper, newsprint, wallpaper and fabric—onto a backing in order to create an image. I realized my swatches would make excellent collage material, and I started making more of them, using leftover oil paint at the end of a painting session. I decided to use my oil paintings as…

Most people look forward to retirement, usually starting around age 65, but artists often continue to work, sometimes for decades longer, even up until their final hours. Examples abound throughout art history of creatives who were actively evolving—inventing new approaches and exploring new media—in their elder years, even as their health declined. For many people, the act of making art is restorative, providing a font of energy that can be renewed day by day, year after year, enabling them to maintain their productivity as they age. THREE 20TH-CENTURY ARTISTS After undergoing surgery for cancer, Henri Matisse (1869–1954) became wheelchair-bound at the age of 71. Undeterred, he uncovered a source of creative energy by using a new medium—cut-paper collage. His joy in creating something new propelled his art-making for 13 more…

DURING MY FIRST CONVERSATION with New Jersey-based figurative artist Mel Leipzig, he immediately launched into an excited description of a portrait he was painting of a musician he’d recently met—a guitarist, dressed for the painting in a fabulously patterned Nigerian garment. Leipzig’s total immersion in his work was electric. His barely contained energy and enthusiasm for sharing his discoveries drove the interview forward. Finding time to paint isn’t a problem for Leipzig. Since he doesn’t own a TV or a computer, he has few extraneous distractions. His son and daughter attest that their dad makes no separation between making art and living his life. Leipzig’s family members are fully integrated within his work, as are so many other people the artist encounters—and Leipzig isn’t shy about asking people to pose…

ALL ABOUT COLOR Don’t let the title fool you! The Oil Painter’s Color Handbook (Monacelli Studio) is a scrumptiously beautiful and informative book about color, and yes, it’s centered around oil painting—but artists of many media will find plenty to appreciate within its pages. In this guide, artist and author Todd M. Casey takes the long view on color mixing, pigments and palettes, explaining not only current approaches but also how and why they came about. Images abound—from photos, illustrations and diagrams to a generous selection of paintings by both contemporary and historic artists. SETUPS FOR SUCCESS “Whether you have been painting for a while or are just taking the first steps on your art journey, it’s never too early—or too late—to discover how a still life painting practice can…

We tend to think genius is timeless, but rare is the artist whose reputation remains consistently high for more than a few years, let alone several centuries. Frans Hals (ca 1582/83–1666), an artist whose canvases are notable for their virtuosic handling, fell out of fashion for 200 years. It wasn’t until a French art historian began writing about him in the 1850s that Hals was recognized as one of the masters of Dutch Golden Age painting, second only to Rembrandt in the realm of Netherlandish portraiture. Although he was prolific, there’s a vast difference of opinion as to how many of his paintings exist today. One scholar placed the number of authentic canvases at 222, another at 145. That’s the downside of teaching dozens of talented students. Like his art,…

“I love working with oils. The challenges are real but the rewards are, too. The medium is continually teaching me something new. I’m forever the student, which is exciting.” MIA TARDUCCI ARTIST “My favorite medium at the moment is watercolor. It has taken me 17 years to accrue a reasonable level of understanding of its working properties. There’s an innate freedom that delineates watercolor from other media.” MARIO ROBINSON ARTIST “I appreciate the deep resonance of color achieved with oil and respect its flexibility. It can be blended, scumbled, overpainted, or employed as a wash or sketching agent. The artist’s brushmarks can be visible or concealed, and translucent or tinted glazes can be added on the surface to enhance depth.” JAYNE YANTZ INSTRUCTOR OF ART HISTORY, PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE…

WHEN THE NEW JERSEY-BORN modernist painter Lois Dodd was asked about her “practice,” she bristled at the word. “Doctors and lawyers have a ‘practice,’ artists have a life,” she said. This interaction occurred during an online interview and discussion with Dodd and artist Eric Aho, in conjunction with the 2020 exhibition “Figuration Never Died: New York Painterly Painting 1950–1970,” at Vermont’s Brattleboro Museum (see a video of the interview at bit.ly/dodd-brattleboro). It was a rare moment interrupting the usually calm demeanor of the 95-year-old Dodd, who sat patiently answering a myriad of questions from the participating audience members. She was open, thoughtful and engaged, just as she was during her interview for this article, despite the pressure of preparing for her annual summer transition to Maine. THE ARTIST’S LIFE Although…

ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO THROUGH JANUARY 9, 2023 ARTIC.EDU “David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, 2020,” organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, presents the British artist’s most recent work, a series of digital landscapes. Two years ago—at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic—the ever-versatile and inventive Hockney, now 85 years old, traveled to France with the express intention of capturing the emergence of spring. In the bucolic setting of rural Normandy, he used an iPad as his tool of choice to paint a series of landscapes that capture the joy and beauty of the natural world. Hockney began his explorations of digital art in 2011, but for this trip used a customized app, which was adapted to his specific requirements…

WATCH & LEARN View a video of this limited-palette demonstration and learn more about the strategies Maier employs at https://bit.ly/3BHjaUz. DEMONSTRATION: CMYK LANDSCAPE PAINTING REFERENCE PHOTO My drawing is based on a photo by Teslariu Mihai that I found on Unsplash, an online resource for copyright-free photographs. 1 MONOCHROME WASH Using a No. 12 filbert or brush of similar width, establish a quick monochromatic wash of paint thinned with solvent. I used black mixed with a small amount of magenta and yellow to add warmth. The main goal at this stage is to establish a rough drawing, describing the scene in two values: a light tone for the sky and river, and darker tone for the ground. TIP: I repeated cobalt teal on my palette to assist with color mixing,…