Backyard Magic

Backyard Magic Oil 8 x 6
Sold

I've spent a lot of time this year painting in different parts of the country. Its one of the many blessings of being a landscape painter. These were all beautiful spots- oceans, mountains, deserts, you name it. The 19th century English landscape painter John Constable (one of the fathers of plein air painting) said "I should paint my own places best, for they made me a painter." So, that's what I did today.

Backyard Magic

Backyard Magic
12 x 10
Sold

When we first moved here three years ago, the first thing I noticed was the light in the late afternoon and evening on our west property line. Every day was a changing show of light and color. After having had huge views of gorgeous mesas and mountains from our home in New Mexico, I was astonished that such a simple row of trees, a little hill and a field could produce such wondrous results. I still am. Every day.

Backyard Magic #4

Backyard Magic #4 Oil 4 x 8
$100 + $10 shipping

This is how the sunset looked one day in late August. Really- I'm not kidding. It looked like there had been a fiery volcanic eruption over the hill on our neighbor's ranch and the sky was bathed in hot lava. Of course, nothing like that happened. It was just a sunset. In a few minutes, it was over and everything went back to normal. More or less.

Backyard Magic
36 x 30
Private Collection

I am happy to say this painting found a new home in Ft. Worth last week. Although this "view" is only a few hundred yards from the door of my studio, I painted it from memory late last fall or early winter. I have talked a bit about that process in these posts.

The online class Painting Water is in full swing and it is a lively bunch! Some bloggers you might know are in the class (Brian McGurgan, Loriann Signori, Caroline Simmill, just to name a few) and we have Scotland, Germany, and all over the US from coast to coast represented as well. Next month, one of my most popular online classes- Drawing and Painting Trees- returns! There are a few spots left. You can click here for information and here to register.

Backyard Magic II
12 x 10
Available at Huff Harrington Fine Art, Atlanta

This is the second piece of a pair of small paintings which will be framed in elegant little tabernacle frames, and available soon at Huff Harrington Fine Art in Atlanta.

More Backyard Magic
36 x 30
Available at Galerie Kornye West, Ft. Worth, TX

I'm happy to say I've just published a book called Studio & Business Practices for Successful Artists. It's 76 pages chock full of no nonsense information about building a career as an artist.

Success can mean many different things- so this book is designed to help both professional artists as well as those who don’t want or need to make a living from their art, but do want to be better artists, sell more work and achieve more recognition. I share what has worked for me- and what didn’t, and why- over the last fifteen years of building a career in art.

You can read more about it (and order) here.

The Landscape Atelier

Backyard Magic

36 x 30

Private Collection

As my regular readers know, I teach a series of online drawing and painting classes. I started doing this almost five years ago and the number of courses and students has steadily increased. In addition to a number of painting courses, I have added classes in drawing, field sketching, color and most recently, art history. During this time, I have become interested in creating a course of study for landscape painters which would provide the same sort of focused training and commitment to core skills that we see in the classical ateliers springing up today. So, the idea of The Landscape Atelier was born.

This year my spring workshop was run along these lines and later this year we committed to leasing a space on the square of our little town which could serve as a home for The Landscape Atelier. Because the backbone of my teaching takes place online, I knew I wanted to incorporate both online and in person teaching in this course.

I am happy to say that I will be kicking off the Atelier program next year offering focused, intensive training in landscape painting. This program will have both a full time and part time track and consist of online group study, individual mentoring and critiques, more in depth and intensive content, and a one month residency (which can be broken up into shorter stays). The full time program can be finished within three to four trimesters and the part time program over a longer period of time. Because I will not be handing the Atelier students off to assistants, I can only accommodate a few students in this program, and each student's program will be individualized. Students can start the program at the beginning of any trimester. The first trimester will start in January 2014.

There is more information about this here .