Despondency breaks off its course. Anguish breaks off its course. The vulture breaks off its flight. The eager light streams out, Even the ghosts take a draught. And our paintings see daylight. — Tomas Tranströmer Painting is like a walk in the woods. You set out full of hope with only a blank canvas....

Why is it awful for a painter today to create an impressionist painting? It's not because they're painting it badly; it's because they don't have a reason to paint it. — Matthew Ritchie I sometimes hear other artists—more skilled than I—say that they'd like to paint more...

Humble pie is painting from direct observation. — Lennart Anderson In an art class, I've been painting a plaster cast of the nose of Michelangelo’s David. Despite the schnozzola's simplicity, so far it's taken me 24 hours to paint it—and I still have three more hours to go...

  For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. — T.S. Eliot Businesspeople are always citing Voltaire's advice, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." They know you'll never earn a profit, if you do. I wish more painters felt that way. Instead,...

In February, the Newark Arts Alliance will host Cold Comforts, my very first solo show. The paintings in the show will center on the theme of "food as consolation."* I'm delighted the Alliance elected to host Cold Comforts and glad for the boost it will give to...

All you have to do is show up. — Constantine Brancusi My worst enemy is indolence. You could call it my favorite hobby. Writer Ernest Hemingway famously beat indolence by leaving his last sentence unfinished every night. Sculptor Constantine Brancusi beat it by arriving early at his studio in the mornings...

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. — Franklin D. Roosevelt On Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of painting en plein air outside the studio of N.C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, under the guidance of my realism teacher, Randall Graham. The afternoon was warm,...

  The soul grows by subtraction, not addition. — Thoreau The rare exception, I painted Beer Bottle alla prima from a photo yesterday. (I usually paint from observation.) I'm away from my studio, staying, Thoreau-like, in a cabin in Maine, and can't set up my subject easily. While still wet,...

Inspiration is for amateurs. — Chuck Close Old objects and the personal memories associated with them inspire most of my paintings. I'm content to call it nostalgia. Like weight-gain, nostalgia is an affliction of the aged and can rapidly get out of hand. I especially loathe the kind that...

All painting is accident. — Francis Bacon My small oil painting Nutella came about almost by itself and almost instantly—or at least it felt that way, coming on the heels as it did of a much larger painting entitled Yoo Hoo.  Nutella took less than two hours to paint;...