Have you ever gone shopping for easels and found the options of fall-apart folding easels vs. expensive hardwood calliopes, and thought “what the heck do artists buy?” The answer might surprise you.  Many painters don’t use easels at all. For my biggest paintings, two 4x4x16” pieces of wood service nicely. They lift a painting off …

I know the rain is dreary, especially when our moods are pulled by pandemic, isolation, news. But the rain has rinsed the pollen from the air, and for that I am thankful. In class on Tuesday, Fran O’Neill shared a few of her favorite landscape paintings. She showed the Van Gogh above, one I haven’t …

Claire Sherman is an American painter currently living and working in New York City. I first learned about her work in a recent Landscapes class with Fran O’Neill. I admired the use of color and form as each brush stroke popped and slid me around the composition. She is a direct painter who, like Sargent, …

Previously I posted four masterwork studies drawn by Fran O’Neill and I challenged you to identify them. I don’t have a good memory for names, but I did recognize the works in a general way, and I was impressed when you named all but one. I admit I didn’t recognize the landscape but the scene …

Yesterday I posted Fran O’Neill’s studies from unidentified masterworks. In no time at all you savvy people identified three out of four. Nice work! Piero Della Francesca, Battle Between Heraclius and Chosroes Nicolas Poussin, The Abduction of the Sabine Women Diego Velázquez, The Spinners Las Hilanderas, translated to “The Spinners,” is a painting by the …

I found some lovely masterwork studies drawn by Fran O’Neill, but she didn’t list the paintings they were drawn from. I figured I’d make a game of it. Be the first to identify the artist and title of one of these masterwork paintings and win $50 towards a class. Fran O’Neill is teaching a landscape …

Instructors at the League are encouraged to take each other’s classes. It is a fun way for us to continue our learning, get new ideas, and stay connected with each other. Shruti Ghatak has been taking all the League classes she can, and evidently she sketches our portraits while we are teaching. Ghatak received her …

I don’t always have the patience to sit down and draw from observation, but whenever I can manage to glue my butt to the chair I am rewarded with an increase in appreciation for the world around me. For me, to see clearly is an active practice of discovery, curiosity, attention, acceptance, problem solving, flexibility, …

Before all those orange artworks, I was posting about Figure in Interior; the most unusual art class I’ve ever been a part of. I talked about Cezanne, and how making small marks distributed around the page (thank you to Fran O’Neill) can be a way to integrate time and change within a drawing. My premise …