Art Newsletter

In a recent email titled Revisiting a Familiar Subject, I shared two of my paintings featuring the jetty at Kingfisher Bay, Australia. One was done many years ago when I was a beginner, and one was done earlier this month. The biggest difference between the two paintings is in my handling of color. In my … Read more

For your inspiration today is a painting by Russian Post-Impressionist Konstantin Gorbatov, Mediterranean Pergola With View of a Mountain Village.  What luscious colors! You can almost feel the sunlight and fresh air.  It’s a busy painting, with plants, flowers, vases, dappled light, the mountain in the distance, and the patterns created by the sky. There’s … Read more

Here’s a painting fresh off the easel: Kingfisher Bay, Morning Light. I painted this from a photo I took on our last trip to Kingfisher Bay on Fraser Island, Australia. It was 6:24 am on the jetty, with the sun low on the horizon line, and when all the wonderful pastel colors had come out … Read more

Here’s a painting fresh off the easel: Perth Gardens. One of the key challenges of this painting was making the feature plant stand out as a soft focal point, yet also appear woven in with the surrounding landscape. Getting it right involved a lot of back and forth between blending the plant in with the … Read more

For your inspiration today is a painting by a Russian artist named Stanislav Zhukovsky. It’s titled Summer Meadow, Pobojka. It’s a simple and pleasant landscape. (Not every painting needs to make a grand statement. It could just be pretty.) There’s a pleasing temperature contrast between the pink flowers and the surrounding greens and blues. The … Read more