Artandicon's Blog

  • Two Types of Color Wheels

    Two lessons using the color wheel: the first is to mix the colors around the wheel. The students who’ve done this exercise before get to mix the same colors, but create an image from their own imagination.

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  • Intuitive Color Wheels

    The great and wonderful part of art is exercising imagination and discovering new ways to solve problems. One of my favorite memories in art school was the day our professor came to class with a single red clay brick. Our first thought was this is going to be the most boring drawing class ever, but…

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  • Music of the Spheres

    One of my favorite hymns growing up in the church was “This Is My Father’s World,” by Maltbie D. Babcock, a Presbyterian minister. Written in 1901, to the tune Terra Beata, or Blessed Earth, the song was originally a traditional English folk tune, but composer Franklin L. Sheppard arranged a variation specifically for this text.…

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  • Introducing Watercolor Painting

    Our art class has worked in acrylic paint for several years, but toward the end of last year, they expressed an interest in learning about watercolors. I said, “Sure, we’ll do that. It’ll build on the color theory you already know, but you’re going to have to learn to plan ahead and learn not to…

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  • Pears and Apples

    Aristotle said in his Poetics, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.” He spoke mainly about poetry, which was the highest art of his age, but his words also apply to the fine…

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  • Year End Art Class Notes

    While some are counting the days until Christmas, some of us are are counting the remaining days left in the old year of 2022. Somehow I always get a cleaning burst of energy around the end of the year. Maybe I hear my mother’s voice urging me, “Let’s get the house straightened up, so Santa…

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  • Color Theory Paintings

    Cezanne once said, “We live in a rainbow of chaos.” Perhaps he meant we’re surrounded by colors, in various and sundry shades, and through art, we try to find some order to this chaos, even if our resulting work seems outwardly disorderly. In his own lifetime, Cezanne was accused of being a madman, “afflicted while…

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