art blogs

5 Of My Favorite Art Blogs And A New Painting Start

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Takhi/Przewalsky's horses at Takhiin Tal, 2013
Takhi/Przewalsky’s horses at Takhiin Tal, 2013; this is the brush drawing

Working away on my paintings for a couple of juried shows and the WildArt Mongolia Expedition 2013 group art exhibition which will be held from June 3-13 at the National Museum of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar. Hope to start sharing finished pieces in the next week or so, but, in the meantime, here’s the start of one from reference shot at Takhiin Tal, a takhi stallion moving his harem along.

Today, I’d like to share the links to some of my favorite art blogs.

1. Gurney Journey– James Gurney, the celebrated author of the Dinotopia series, also has one of the best and most interesting art blogs around. He posts every day on a wide range of topics, from great artists of the past, to practical how-tos, to the science of perception.

2. Pencil Shavings– Fine drawing doesn’t really get the respect (or prices) it deserves. My friend and colleague Terry Miller is a master of the medium and was chosen last year to receive the Master Wildlife Artist Award by the Lee Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin.

3. Underpaintings– Mathew D. Innis’ blog is a great one-stop source of current and upcoming art exhibitions with lots of art to look at and drool over.

4. Jim McVicker Paintings– Jim and his wife, also an excellent painter, have been friends of mine for years. Jim’s dedication and the consistent high quality of his work is an inspiration for me. He lives and works here in Humboldt County, which is his main subject matter. He is outdoors painting all year around. And he will be one of the instructors at the big Plein Air Convention coming up in April in Monterey.

5. Making A Mark– Based in the UK, this one is a good source of general and interesting art-related topics of all kinds, including marketing, current exhibitions, the art market and artist materials.

3 Great Art Blogs

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Here are the links to three art blogs I really like. There are a lot of them out there, but unfortunately too many artists don’t post regularly or don’t do much other than occasionally post images of their work.

These three stand out for quality of content and regular postings.

1. Gurney Journey is one of the top-rated art blogs. James Gurney is the author of the Dinotopia books, has written two books about art technique and craft and posts to his blog every day on everything from how the human eye tracks through a painting to short profiles of famous artists to how he creates his own marvelous works.

2. COLOR AND LIGHT is the blog of nationally known artist Adele Earnshaw. She started as a watercolorist, but switched to oils a few years ago and the story of why and how she did that makes very interesting reading. Recently she’s been doing what she calls 75 For 75. A painting a day for 75 days that she offered for sale as she finished them for $75. I managed to snag one a few months ago, but I had to be quick because most sell within minutes.

3. Cathy Johnson Fine Art Galleries is where you can find all kinds of great art instruction materials, along with images of Cathy’s art. I remember reading her column in Artist’s magazine many years ago and was tickled to find her on Facebook and see that she is still at it and then some. She offers CD courses, mini-classes and also information about various art media like her favorite drawing pen. Her instruction is real, not that rote “Here is how you paint a tree with my special brush and paint” stuff.