The Strength of Beauty
What makes a bridge strong? Is it the materials used, or the engineering technology employed in its creation? Is it how much weight it can…
Dept. of Aesthetics Blog
On Mastercopies in Art
Is copying bad in art? In my experience within art education communities, there is a deeply held belief that copying anything in art is harmful….
Name Your Shadow Shapes when Drawing
Naming the shapes within your shapes helps you to draw accurately. Name Those Shapes “Don’t you see? It looks like Minnesota on crack.” This is…
Why Is Red So Hard to Paint?
Red subjects have a bad reputation for being difficult to paint. But if you take time to identify its attributes, you can easily learn how…
It’s OK to Be Afraid of Atelier Training
Are you afraid you might not be good enough to start atelier training? You’re not alone. Atelier Training Can Be Intimidating I constantly field questions…
Community Suppression of Art Knowledge
What happens when an art community suppresses itself? Types of Community Suppression When I was 14, my classmate, who I will call “D” and I…
Does Training Ruin Artists’ Voices?
“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.” –…
Why Not Just Use a Camera?
Cameras are just one way of translating information onto a 2D surface, but not the only way. And definitively not always the best way. There…
Art As a Collective Body of Knowledge
Is atelier training Eurocentric art? When considering mathematical concepts, rarely do people worry if the Pythagorean Theorem came from Ancient Greece, and that the symbols…
Seeing with Your Eyes and Not Assumptions
Artists work hard to lose their assumptions about what they are seeing, and truly observe the scenes before them. This is known as nurturing an…
Everything You Know About Warm and Cool Colors Is Wrong
Red, orange, yellow – warm colors right? Green, blue, purple are cool colors, right? Wrong. The truth is, that every color is both warm AND…
Art & Beauty
When artists abandon beauty and the human figure as worthy subjects, the advertising industry fills the vacuum with glee. This article explores why the creation…