أغسطس 2020

When I was in art school I stayed sane by drawing my professors while they gave critiques. I also wrote down exactly what they said.  This i...

Scientists have scanned the visual brain while a person is looking at something to figure out if there were recognizable patterns in the br...

( Link to YouTube ) Thanks to Jess Karp for shouting out a recommendation for  Color and Light: A Guide for Realist Painters  and  Imaginati...

Insect flight involves coordination and effort that can only be appreciated by slowing time. Taking off often requires precise movements of ...

Flame Boy asks: "I paint in gouache and I don’t have either acryla gouache or casein to prime with and a very limited budget. I have wa...

Animator Walter Lantz produced this behind-the-scenes documentary in 1936 about the making of one of his black-and-white cartoons.

Emanuele Sangregorio   asks: " I must ask what is the meaning in English of 'overmodeling.' I found it also in some Andrew Loom...

What is the history and future of the USPS delivery trucks? I do the job of sketch-reporter to find out. ( Link to YouTube view ) This truc...

The Japanese language has a word for light streaming through a forest:  komorebi.  Photo of komorebi by James Gurney The word refers to sunb...

Wikipedia says: "Verhas was inspired by his experiences during his lengthy stays at the Belgian coast. Here he not only observed the t...

This brief documentary from 1947 shows how Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) produces a mural. ( Link to YouTube video ) He starts with thumbna...

Jan Verhas (1834-1896) The Lion In a painting, you've just got just one image to tell the story. But you can design it so that the viewe...

This new YouTube video by "Captain Disillusion" ( Link to YouTube ) explains a lot of important points about color: how we perceiv...

Arthur Parton, Lake Scene, 1876 Several artists have accomplished this effect of a big gradation around the sun, which influences everything...

We take it for granted that we see by means of light entering our eyes. The chain of effects begins when a source emanates light energy, whi...

Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla was a great admirer of Adolph Menzel and Jules Bastien-Lepage, not only for their virtuosic technique, but al...

Deep in the Forest by  Nicholai Kornilovich Bodarevsky  (1850-1921)  A little girl is lost in the forest while gathering mushrooms. The pain...

After looking at yesterdays' video about painting a dog from life,  Ellen Edgerton  said, "Unfortunately for me when I keep an idea...

Dogs don't pose for their portraits, and Smooth is no exception, as I demonstrate in this new video (Link to video on  YouTube ).  I sta...

Here's a new interview with Ânia Marcos of Etchrlab.  Link to Etchrlab website . Watch on  Youtube

Let's wrap our five-part interview with toy collector Mel Birnkrant with this question: Did the sensibility behind the Hays Code for mov...

Continuing the series on the popular culture of the 1930s, I asked toy collector and inventor  Mel Birnkrant :  Frankenstein and Bride of Fr...

Continuing the series on Toys of the 1930s, I asked toy collector and inventor  Mel Birnkrant :  For all the lean times and economic challen...

I asked toy collector Mel Birnkrant :  As you get into the 1930s, was there a difference in the imagery, the sorts of characters, and the ...

Building windows to forgotten worlds. Thanks to  Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine  for profiling me and the field of imaginative realism.

How did toys and comics change during the Great Depression? I interviewed toy collector and inventor Mel Birnkrant. Over the next few days,...