✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa! Artist Iain Stewart shares his therapeutic process of recording his days in sketchbooks. “I’ll tell you what,” starts my wife Noelle. “I bet you can’t sketch that view before I finish this glass of wine.” She gives me that mischievous grin of hers as she takes aRead More →

A while ago I put up a post asking questions as to why artists continue to need to draw animals. I have also referred several times to the fact that I believe that many artists need to also be ‘animists’ if they are to make images that connect humans with the rest of the world. So I thought it is perhaps about time to revisit the subject. I have been making a series of images that relate to my boyhood and the fact that for a while I had a Sooty puppet that I definitely in my mind entered into when I needed to communeRead More →

✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa! Adonna Khare’s large-scale mural drawings featuring fanciful animal narratives are one part personal memoir and one part universal parable. This article originally appeared in Artists Magazine. Subscribe now so you don’t miss any great art instruction, inspiration, and articles like this one. For some artists, theRead More →

  Rachael Whiteread: Nissen Hut I sometimes think that all representations are like spectres or ghosts. So what do I mean? There are various overlapping issues here. For instance representations are frozen at the point of their making, whilst the things represented carry on changing and ageing and they eventually die or wear away. Although the representations are also wearing away, they often take longer to fade out of existence than the thing represented, hence they become rather like ghosts of former things. For instance I have photographs of my father and mother, both died some time ago, but their representations, although now faded, areRead More →

✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa! Not sure what drawing paper to buy? Here are the best drawing papers for drawing with graphite or charcoal. Paper is the most common surface for drawing, and it’s often overlooked in its importance. The surface on which you draw has as much, or even greater,Read More →

I’ve decided to use electroplating technology to further my ideas about energy flow and transfer. I often draw three dimensionally with clay and so it makes sense to me to think about how I might bring fired clay into the electroplating process. I have now found out that in order to create a surface on my bisque fired ceramics that can undergo electroplating, it is necessary first to coat them with something that can carry an electric current. Looking at industrial processes this seems quite difficult as you need to submerge your object in a bath of electrolytes which then act as catalysts to enable nickel toRead More →

Cupcake Drawing with Pastels and Pastel Pencils In this extended lesson on drawing with pastels we’ll draw a colorful cupcake. Soft pastels and pastel pencils are applied to PastelMat paper to complete the drawing. This lesson is presented in real-time. The intention for this type of video format is for the student to draw along and create their own drawing. Here’s a look at the completed drawing… Materials Used in This Pastel Drawing You are welcome to use any brand of pastels and pastel pencils as well as any surface that you wish. Keep in mind that your results will vary depending on what surfaceRead More →

✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa! Are you an artist looking to find the best drawing tools? Check out these five picks and figure out which one is your favorite! Drawing takes many, many forms and uses just as many materials. All drawing media, from the humble pencil to specialized inks, haveRead More →

   The autonomic nervous system I have become very interested in how our body’s nervous systems are used to create maps of awareness, which enable us to respond to what is going on in both our outer and inner worlds. I’m trying to use my understanding of these ‘maps of awareness’ as a sort of platform or underlying support for the images I am trying to make as an artist that emerge from a fusion of inner and outer perceptual awareness. My understanding is that animals have for millions of years been attempting to use various nervous systems to map or diagram what seems toRead More →

Painting Limes with Acrylics This extended painting lesson features a still life arrangement of limes. This painting is completed with acrylic paints on gessoed panel. The approach is looser with an emphasis on brushstrokes and bold marks. This real-time lesson is designed so that the student can paint alongside the instruction and create an acrylic painting of their own. Here’s a look at the completed painting… Materials Used in This Acrylic Painting This lesson uses premium art materials, but you are welcome to use any brand of acrylic paints that you wish. In this case, heavy body acrylics by Liquitex are applied to gessoed panelRead More →