The Store Is Open

Life Lessons from Dinosaurs is now available, and Artist's Guide to Sketching can be preordered here. 

Famous Artist's School Ad

Here's part of an advertisement from the Famous Artist School for their correspondence course.

The lobster shack with its seagulls, pilings, and boats demonstrates a lot of depth and overlapping, skills that beginning artists often lack. But this simple step-by-step sequence makes it look attainable.

Painting Calm Water

  New YouTube video about painting calm water from a chaotic roadside.

Nuit Américaine

 Williams College Chapel, pencil.

You can make a daytime drawing look like night by suppressing detail and softening edges in the darker areas. More on "day-for-night sketching" on Substack.

Every Utopia

 

Every utopia needs a Lee Crabb.

Variety in Fire Hydrants

Fire hydrants have been made in all kinds of shapes, but they all have five-sided valves, typically in the shape of a pentagon. They require a special wrench to prevent unauthorized access and tampering.

Random Parking Lot

It’s just a tiny doodle of a random corner of a random parking lot in Poughkeepsie.

But the world takes on a weird wonky magic when I glimpse it the filter of my gouache "eyeglasses."

Detail of a Dinotopian Parade

In an early concept for a dinosaur parade scene I tried a profile view of a small group of humans and dinosaurs bedecked in colorful costumes. 

There's a horn-drum on an Ankylosaurus to set the tempo. I realized I needed to pull back the view to show the whole parade.

Why Are Art Schools Closing?

American Academy of Art College in Chicago has announced that it will close its doors permanently.

It was founded in 1923 with a curriculum that emphasized painting and drawing and painting from live models.

Graduates include some legendary illustrators and easel painters: Thomas Blackshear, Alex Ross, Richard Schmid, Howard Terpning, Gil Elvgren, and Haddon Sundblom.

The closure of American Academy in Chicago follows the closing of UArts in Philadelphia and the Art Institutes all across the country. Why are some art schools closing? Read more on Substack.

Three Book Recommendations

 

On YouTube: a reader review of three top art instruction books, including our bestseller, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.