Last month we spent a couple of weeks with our son, John and his family in New York City.  We had a great visit with them and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were able to see the Winslow Homer exhibit, "Crosscurrents", and an interesting exhibit on Jacques Louis David, how he prepared for his paintings with thumbnails, pen and ink value sketches and color studies.  It was very informative.  We spent a couple of days at the Met and only got part way through.  It probably takes a week or more to see everything I would want to see thoroughly.  Here are some close up images of some paintings we saw.  The first section are from the Homer exhibit, then Jacques Louis David, Jean-Baptiste Corot, Edgar Degas, Jean Fragonard  (this painting showed great brushwork), Vermeer with the hand and pitcher, a boy eating grapes by Leon-Augustin Lhermitte, a Rubens head, and George Romney shows us how to paint a gloved hand and a cape.  Click on the images to start the slideshow.

Beware (of the lack) of Depth and Atmosphere in Your Photos

Photographs are notoriously bad in the area of showing depth and atmosphere. It's important to create depth and layers of depth using value, color temperature and saturated and desaturated color.  Photos tend to push the subject back and spread it out, so don’t hesitate to zoom into your subject more to get rid of unnecessary space and objects. I’ve attached some paintings, along with photos of the site I where I painted.  You can see the flatness of the photo or too much detail in the backgrounds that would ruin the depth in the paintings. One word -- Simplify.

As a member of Plein Air Painters of America, I've been asked to teach a workshop at the Booth Museum in Cartersville, GA. The Booth Museum is a wonderful Western Art Museum, displaying the work of many well-known western artists.  Here is the link for more information about the workshop: https://boothmuseum.org/boothartacademy/.

When you go to the link, scroll down the page until you see the Plein Air Painters of America entry for October 23 - 28.  Click the Register button to sign up.