How to be more stoic as an artist

• You can’t fully control the outcome, but you can control your input (effort you put in, the attention you’re paying to your work).
• You can’t control how people will respond to your work. So make the best work that you can. Make the work that you want to make.
• You can’t control if everyone loves you. But you can control the effort you’re putting into your work and the efforts in sharing your work.

Fay

Study from our new reference pack, Fay.

2022 in art

This is most of the art that I made this past year. There are also hundreds of figure drawings not seen here. There was also a little bit of traditional drawing/painting, but not very much. That’s something I’d like to do more of in 2023. Hold me to that if you don’t see me cranking out oil paintings soon.

Across the Universe

Rosetta

A study of Rosetta from our new reference pack, Figure Drawing: Rosetta. Felt great to be back to painting figures. It had been too long since I did any of these and I was certainly rusty at first. But I think the time away from them taught me a lot.

Thinking about mountains

I’ve been thinking about mountains (as one does). I’ve realized that I want to improve some of my own paintings of mountains by:

• Increasing the sense of form. I, along with most landscape painters, struggle with depicting these forms as more than simple 2d shapes. I think the sheer scale and distance of these things makes it hard for us to get a grasp on just how three dimensional they are.
• Increasing the variety of materials and shapes. I can get very tunnel-visioned with one sort of material or shape language. But a lot of mountains have different layers and materials contributing to their shape. It breaks things up nicely and gives it a natural feel.
• More color variety. I’m definitely guilty of this one. I paint far too many mountains with overly simple color palettes. It’s a bit like painting a figure as the same muted brown-ish color, in different values. It’s not necessarily wrong and it can be done well, but it’s not really observing all of the wonderful variation that nature is providing for us.
• More interesting lighting and cast shadows. I think this goes along with the form, but if we’re thinking about form then we can also consider how mountains might cast shadows on one another. It opens up a lot of opportunities for interesting shapes and compositions.

More landscape studies

Landscape studies begin

I loved studying figures for the past few years. They’ve inspired me to try to do the same/similar things with landscapes. I’d love to go from good to great with my landscapes. So… let’s get going!

Kick

Embracing