Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2025 i Artists Magazine

FLOWER POWER The amount of enthusiasm one has for any subject varies greatly from person to person. In the case of flowers, you might be a master gardener who refers to plants by their botanical Latin names or someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy digging in the dirt, but who truly appreciates a walk through a carefully tended rose garden. You might be someone whose excitement for gardening bubbles up every May when even grocery stores set out colorful annuals to tempt shoppers or someone who mainly encounters flowers when picking up a bouquet for a special occasion. Regardless of where you fall on the enthusiasm scale, most of us have emotional connections to flowers and recognize them as a source of beauty in the natural world—a bright and cheerful pick-me-up…

“It helps to take care of yourself. Eat healthy, sleep well and make sure to take time to step outside of the studio and breathe. Whether it’s going on a hike, visiting a winery or listening to live music—so many experiences can fuel and renew creativity. I never know what will spark my next painting idea.” MATTHEW BIRD ARTIST “Building play and experimentation sessions into my creative routine keeps me on my toes, keeps my work fresh and allows space for surprises.” SUHITA SHIRODKAR ARTIST “Once, after listening to Itzhak Perlman perform a Beethoven violin concerto, it was a listener’s response that inspired me to go back to work: ‘How can I complain in life after hearing music played like this by a man who cannot walk, composed by a…

Focusing on every detail may feel like the true artist’s way, but when it comes to painting realistic-looking flowers, take in the details and then simplify them in your mind before placing your brush on a surface. Start Loose • Begin by loosely defining your flower shapes. Put down the color that will act as the base for the background or shadow shapes and then block in the primary flower shape. • Mark out the main highlights early on so you don’t lose sight of them as you progress. • Take note of secondary highlights that might be impacting stems and leaves in your floral arrangement. Simplified Seeing • Study how more complex color combinations might be narrowed down to two or three mixes. • Consider how a variety of…

Living on the edge of Mission Trail Nature Preserve in San Diego, Margaret Larlham finds that her daily walks in its canyons and mesas over the last 30 years have grounded her. “The sandy pathways through chapparal resonate with similar wild spaces I explored in my youth while growing up in the coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa,” she says. “These adventures inspire my thoughts about nature and the special, precious characteristics of the indigenous plants.” Instead of being attracted by the beauty of cultivated rose gardens, for instance, Larlham finds it both inspiring and liberating to experience untamed nature. Scrubby bushes enthrall the artist, encouraging her highly expressive designs and extraordinarily energetic mark-making. “I enjoy going out into nature and responding to the particularities of the day,” she says.…

Richard E. Miller (1875-1943) belonged to the second generation of American Impressionists trained in France. Miller, who was born in St. Louis, Mo., studied for five years at the city’s Washington University School of Fine Arts. After he was awarded the school’s first scholarship, he went to Paris and continued his studies at the Académie Julian. His paintings of landscapes and Parisian social life soon won recognition at the Salon, and several were purchased by the French government. Miller’s definitive style developed a few years later at Giverny, the village in which Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926) lived. When Miller arrived there, around 1905, he joined an art colony that Americans had formed nearly two decades earlier. The second wave of expatriates featured artists who were practicing a technique that would…

“I think it’s one of the best flower paintings I’ve ever made,” says artist Amy Brnger. She’s referring to Audrey’s Wedding Bouquet (opposite), a cheerful, dramatic oil painting of a vase almost top-heavy with deep magenta, orange and yellow blooms. It’s a painting of her daughter’s wedding bouquet that they made together. Her daughter asked her to paint it, and Brnger was able to channel all the joy she felt about that day into the work. “I felt like I understood that bouquet inside and out,” Brnger continues. “What I wouldn’t give as a painter to feel like I could get that experience every single time.” Brnger may not have an intense personal connection to every painting, but her body of work, which includes florals, landscapes and interiors, reflects a…

BOTANICALS IN BLOOM Learn to paint stunning botanical watercolors with the paperback release of The Modern Flower Painter (Search Press; April 25). Award-winning artist Anna Mason’s step-by-step, six-stage technique guides you through six beautiful floral projects, from setting up your workspace and mastering brush techniques to mixing perfect hues and achieving lifelike detail. Each project includes outline drawings, tonal guidance and color swatches to help you match Mason’s expert examples. Her botanical artwork has earned accolades from the Royal Horticultural Society and the prestigious Society of Botanical Artists. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced watercolorist, this book provides everything you need to know to create botanical masterpieces. Getting Started in Oil @ Home Oil paint has been the medium of choice for artists since the 15th century. Treasured for…

The upended bouquet is a theme “I’ve returned to throughout my career. The idea began as a simple impulse to turn the tradition of floral still life on its head. It turned out to be a genuinely interesting structure for a painting. The distortion of the flowers through the glass vase, the petals reflected on the tabletop, the psychedelic swirls of water drops, the stems sticking up to the sky—all convey a drama and vulnerability that continues to compel me. In Paean, painted last year, I was drawn to the chaotic jumble of peony leaves with their bright-red edges disrupting the repetitive geometry of the vase and linear deco design of the background.” ERIC WERT Eric Wert’s artwork has been the subject of more than a dozen solo exhibitions at…