Sometimes it’s nice to just simplify everything down to the essentials: shape, value and color - or lack of color in this painting demonstration. I think it’s harder to distill the painting process down to simply shapes, values and colors than it is too use lots of each and make a piece more complicated. Simplification is difficult, but sometimes necessary.

There is a phrase used by author, military veteran and podcaster Jocko Willink that I think perfectly fits professional artists: Discipline = Freedom. It’s one thing that sets them apart from amateur artists.

As a professional artist and painting instructor I look at lots of paintings. I see them in workshops I teach, in books, in museums, in shows and online. I see lots of paintings that do not have harmonious color - the colors simply don’t fit together, don’t work together. I know that the artist either has no knowledge of color theory or simply discounts it as not important.

A couple of decades ago I was a mid life crisis, I suppose, and bought a couple of motorcycles. I wanted to be safe riding them, so I took a rider safety course. One of the instructors uttered a phrase which has become very important for me ever since: “Look where you’re going, cause you’ll go where you’re looking.”

In this video, I am painting an acrylic abstract painting on a 22x30 sheet of Fabriano Artistico (300 lb) that has been gessoed. This painting, like many I have done recently is an abstract landscape painting. It is not meant to portray a specific place or a specific landscape, but rather the colors and feelings I have of a place ….

n this video, I am painting two 24x24 canvases in my “Nocturne” series. The medium is acrylic paint. I did a few paintings in this series maybe 4 or 5 years ago, and thought it was time to revisit the series again. It’s always interesting for me to revisit a series now and again to see how my handling of the medium and series topic may change (or not change).

I get asked this question on a regular basis, mostly by students, so I will answer the question in this post. There are several reasons that artists may work on several pieces at a time. If you are an oil painter you will work on multiple pieces at once because the paint is so slow to dry. Many abstract painters work in layers, so they always have multiple pieces in different stages of completion.

I have carved out a niche for me and my artwork by “Doing the Opposite” of what most abstract painters do - and I believe the same approach will work for you.

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t often post on social media - either personal posts or art posts. It isn’t that I don’t know how to do it, I do. I have taken social media courses from some of the top names in the US, and I have a good handle on what works best for posts, how to organize them, photograph, post, etc.

I am fortunate to know many great artists, most of them are painters. I have learned many things from them over the years by talking to them, spending time with them and watching carefully what they do and how they do it.