AMERICAN

ARTIST

COVER

Self-Portrait (detail)
by Lea Colie Wight, 2008, oil, 24 x 18.
Collection the artist.

w w w. m y A m e r i c a n A r t i s t . c o m
NOVEMBER 2009

CONTENTS
EASY REFERENCE
Oil: 12, 30, 38, 44, 58, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72
Watercolor: 52
4 Editors Note
6 Letters
6 Whats New at

forums.myAmericanArtist.com

30 Paint What You See at a Glance

BY M. STEPHEN DOHERTY

Lea Colie Wight spent years

learning to paint fleeting images
that captivated her attention.
Im now helping students
understand what took me years to
learnthat painting is about
recording what you see and feel
at a moment in time, she says.

7 Art Mart
8 Quick Sketches

30

Plein Air Painting to Help SpecialNeeds Teens...Artist-In-Residence

Program Accepting Entries...
Brooklyn Museum Launches
Customized Smart Phone Gallery
Tours.
12 The Arrival of French

12

Impressionism in America:
Californias Golden Years
BY JEAN STERN

Around the turn of the 20th

century, Impressionism had
become the style of choice among
most American painters. Turning
from academic modes and styles,
the public slowly embraced these
bright, colorful paintings and
looked to the California artists to
adapt the French-inspired way of
painting light in the landscape.

38 Capturing Atmosphere in Oil

Landscapes
BY M. STEPHEN DOHERTY

Maryland artist Gavin Brooks

instills landscape paintings with
a sense of air, saturated light, time,
and distance. She accomplishes
that by managing the subtlety of
values, establishing hard and soft
edges, controlling the intensity of
color, and creating a layering of
paint qualities.
44 Portrait Sketches That Guide

Artists and Their Clients

BY M. STEPHEN DOHERTY

Brian Neher paints two small oil

sketches of his portrait subjects
to help set a direction for the
finished portrait that satisfies him
and his clients.

Copyright 2009 by Interweave Press, a division of Aspire Media, all rights reserved. Title registered in U.S. Patent Office. The contents of
this publication may not be reproduced either in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. American Artist (ISSN 0002-7375
USPS 494-930 Issue 803) is published monthly except July/August by Interweave Press, 201 E. Fourth St., Loveland, CO 80537. Subscriptions
are $29.95 per year domestic, $39.95 Canada and foreign countries. Group subscription rates on request. American Artist is printed in the U.S.A.
Periodicals postage paid at Loveland, CO, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: American Artist, P.O. Box
469074, Escondido, CA 92046-9074.

52 10 Steps to Determine Values

in Watercolor
BY DAVID R. DANIELS

Although I am known for using vibrant

colors to create what appear to be playful,
spontaneous images in my watercolor
paintings, the key to the success of these
paintings is the value structure of the
compositions. Heres how I teach others to
use studies to plan effective compositions.

38

58 Using Layers to Create a Sense of Place

BY JOHN A. PARKS

John Evans evocative and compelling oil

paintings emerge from a long process of
struggle, overpainting, layering, sanding,
and soul-searching.
66 Exhibitions

Reconfiguring the Body in American Art,

18202009...Gaze: Portraiature After Ingres...
Luis Melndez: Master of the Spanish Still
Life...Czanne and American Modernism...
Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England.
74 Business of Art

52

76 Technical Q+A
78 Bulletin Board
80 Coming in...

66

58

44

Portrait by
Everett Raymond Kinstler

NOVEMBER 2009 VOLUME 73 ISSUE 803

EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

M. Stephen Doherty
MANAGING EDITOR

Bob Bahr
SENIOR EDITORS

Allison Malafronte Brian F. Riley

ART DIRECTOR

James B. Bogner III

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Austin R. Williams (646) 841-0050

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Lynne Bahr Daniel Grant

John A. Parks Linda S. Price
Joseph C. Skrapits Jane Sutherland
PUBLISHING
PUBLISHER

David Pyle
MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

EDITORS NOTE

Jim McIntosh (513)-961-0034

MEDIA SALES MANAGER

Mary McLane (970) 290-6065

ONLINE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Would You Have Chosen That Cover?

Karyn Meyer-Berthel
AD TRAFFICKERS

Teresa Warren Melissa Brown

There are times when picking the cover image for American Artist can be a
challenging assignment. The drawing or painting has to represent the contents
of the issue, it must fit into the rectangular space in such a way that the subject of the artwork is immediately recognizable, the text must be able to float
over the image and appear legible, and the finished cover design must be distinguishable from those of the most recent issues. Sometimes we have three or
four outstanding works of art to choose from that fit all those criteria, and
sometimes we struggle to find just one.
No matter how difficult or easy the selection process might be, we always wonder if we came up with a cover you thought was appealing enough to buy the
issue, subscribe to the publication, or renew your subscription. We dont know the
answers to those questions until six or eight months after the magazine is printed
when all the bookstore and newsstand reports have been finalized and we receive
a comprehensive report from our circulation department in Loveland, Colorado.
All that is about to change, because we are establishing a Reader Advisory
Panel (RAP) of artists who will vote on cover options, article titles, special issue
themes, event locations, and favorite artists. If you want to join this panel,
please go to our website (http://forums.myAmericanArtist.com) and click on
the link to our RAP questionnaire. This questionnaire asks for some basic
information about your preferred art medium and level of experience so that
we can better understand why you might prefer one option over another.
In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would think about your level of
interest in the articles included in this issue. Did you find Jean Sterns article
about the history of California plein air painting to be helpful in understanding
how the great artists of the past helped shape your current work (page 12)? And
was David R. Daniels article on determining values in watercolor relevant to
the challenges you face when painting (page 52)?
Ill look forward to reading your comments on the RAP group surveys, in
the forums section of our website, or in e-mail messages sent to
mail@myAmericanArtist.com.

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR

Bob Kaslik
CIRCULATION MANAGER

Sheila Derrington
WEB BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Tricia Gdowik
MARKETING MANAGER

Annie Hartman Bakken

PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

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FOUNDER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR:

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CEO:

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M. STEPHEN DOHERTY
Editor-in-Chief
mail@myAmericanArtist.com

American Artist

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