Happy New Year

 

One of my last paintings for 2014. 

"Dance into the New Year"

 

(It might sound a little corny, but I think there is a song with a message like this and I always thought it was good advice. 

 

 

 

Daily Paintworks

 



Since my goal for every year is always to improve my paintings, this "Keys to Improvement" caught my attention.  I read it on a blog and wrote down the three points, but forgot to write down the address of the blog.   Thank you to this blogger for putting this together. 

KEYS TO IMPROVEMENT

1.  Practice the parts that make up the whole. 
2.  Purposeful practice makes perfect.
3.  Find a mentor.

My mentors don't even know they are mentors.  I watch and re-watch my DVD's by artists I admire and watch Carol Marine's Tutorials on DPW.  Thank you to Carol Marine for inspiring so many artists.  It was an article that I read by her in Professional Artist magazine several years ago that motivated me to join DPW and participate in a more disciplined way in daily painting.  Before that I was painting almost everyday, but felt stuck and didn't see progress. 

If you didn't get her book for Christmas, order it from Amazon.  Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=carol+marine+daily+painting&sprefix=carol+marine%2Cstripbooks%2C154

30 Day Challenge and Ways to Improve your paintings

September 3, 2013

 

Keeping up with the 30 Day Challenge so far...

 

 

 Listed on Daily Paintworks

 

 

My theme lately has been ways to improve so since it is the beginning of a new school year I thought I would get a few of the Art Tutorials at Daily Paintworks call ARTBytes.  There are so many that are FREE, but the one that got my attention recently was by Carol Marine on Loose Brushwork.  It was a whole new way of looking at edges for me and I wish I had looked at it sooner.  Her approach is to start with the lights first and go from "island to ocean", the small areas surrounded with color or background.  

 

The idea of using stripes was one of the Daily Challenges, another offering to artists. 

 The bottom line is that Daily Paintworks offers many resources.  The ARTBytes are reasonable in price and you can save them and look at them over and over. 

 

Thanks you to Carol Marine and her husband for starting this website for artists. 

Here is a link to the page for Tutorials: http://www.dailypaintworks.com/ArtTutorials/ArtByteStore