2025 in Oil Paint

Four years after I first picked up a paint brush, I still don’t consider myself to be a real artist. Part of that is that I live with an actual fine artist, but the larger part is because I am a novelist and a photographer. Though I enjoy painting, it is a distant third for…

The Art in Street Photography

In addition to painting versions of my and my wife’s photos, I’ve begun a series wherein I do an interpretation of photographs taken by renowned street photographers. I don’t usually have a predetermined approach to them. I really just start sketching (or painting without a formal sketch) and seeing where they take me. The results…

Chrysalis Stage

I am not a trained artist. I am a photographer and a novelist. Painting is a retirement hobby. I do have, however, an artist “wife coach.” Seeing her paintings develop and seeing mine are two different experiences. Maria’s paintings bloom like flowers in early June. You can tell from the start they’ll be lovely, you…

How to Add Layers into Your Writing

Reprinted with permission from thisblogblank.wordpress.com, 12/19/2018. After watching my wife work on a couple of her oil paintings, I’ve  come to realize that producing a work of fiction is very similar to creating a painting. Too many new writers have unrealistically low expectations about how good a first draft can be due to an overabundance…

100 Days of Art – Day 30: The Art of the Selfie

Surprising though it may be, self-portraits weren’t invented with the creation of the first iPhone. Neither did they become popular when the first hairy-knuckled Reality Star staggered out of the jungle to pose for a little self-adoration. Rather, they’ve been around as long as there have been artists. Prior to the Renaissance, selfies were a…

100 Days of Art – Day 19: Edvard Munch

Below is a gallery of some of my favorite Munch paintings. See the link at the bottom to reach a fuller gallery of his work. “Self-Portrait,” 1881 “The Scream,” 1893 “Albert Kollmann,” 1902 “Anxiety,” 1894 “Death of Marat II,” 1907 “Nude,” 1896 “Paris-Nude,” 1896 Click the link below to view a gallery of Edvard Munch’s…