Chroma

Value and hue aren’t the only elements of color. Although 19th-century artists like John Singer Sargeant, Anders Zorn, Mary Cassatt, and others relied mostly on two characteristics of color: hue and value. Chroma is a third characteristic for which it helps to take a closer look. There is an exercise where one stares at a…

Mary Whyte Paintings : an Introduction

My first introduction to the watercolor paintings of artist Mary Whyte came from perusing, awhile ago, her book: “Working South”, a collection of paintings of Southerners in the US , working in jobs of vanishing industries. Then as now, I was impressed with how life-like she portrayed the subjects of her paintings. Her representational style…

Recent Paintings

October 2020 Mugs for sale: $9.50 each, fundraiser for the ACLU Wisconsin to order: leave message in the comment section, payment taken through Paypal.com

Jacob Lawrence:Epic Painter from Harlem

“Here was an art both simple and complex-an art that possessed all of the qualities of the sophisticated community. It had strength without being brutal, sentiment without sentimentality, magic not camouflage, and precision not tightness.”      Jacob Lawrence on African Art Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was born in New Jersey. His father was a railroad cook and also…

Recent Paintings

Artists Honor Black Lives Matter on State Street

When it comes to confronting racism, the words that tell the message are important. Treating African Americans in a sub-human way will not be tolerated . In Madison, Wisconsin, on a street which runs west to east between the state capitol and the renown Bascom Hall of the University of Wisconsin , artists have applied…

Black Lives Matter

Selecting https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Madison-Mayor-community-leaders-call-for-calm-on-violent-night-570902061.html?jwsource=cl The events of this past week and week-end in cities across the nation are not only very sad but tragic. The death of George Floyd at the knee of a police officer is shameful. The Black community in the United States has suffered enough of these kinds of deaths. It is no wonder…

Social Isolation in the Time of Pandemic

In these uncertain times, looking back in history at the Spanish Flu in 1918 or other such disasters , may help in surviving the corona virus pandemic we are experiencing now. Possibly, finding art images and ideas also brings a sense of calm and focused attention. However, sometimes especially with art making, the examples and…

Beth’s Art 2020

Trompe L’Oeil Painting:Claude Ragout Hirst

Claudine R. Hirst (1855-1942) was an artist whose claim to fame is that she was the only woman at the turn of the 20th century to paint in the illusionistic style of trompe l’oeil, which at that time was mostly a gentleman’s art. Her art instruction began in Cincinnati , Ohio, where she was a…