Solace

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oil by Lawren Harris


A beautiful painting cannot banish sadness, but it is a light to put next to one's sorrow.

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Edward Hopper v.s. Thomas Kinkade- Who's The Painter of Light ?

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Edward Hopper, Rooms for Tourists, oil, 1945 An oil painting by Thomas Kinkade One of the best reasons to look at art is it teaches us how to enjoy our eyes. Paintings are always lessons in seeing. Really good paintings simply help you have a lot more fun.  Thomas Kinkade, probably one of the best known American artists and certainly one of the best marketed, passed away in the spring of 2012. Kinkade called himself "The Painter of Light", a slogan that had a certain ring to it. Kinkade's ubiquitous images are likely some of the first paintings most Americans were likely to have stumbled across. But if one keeps looking, there are probably other artists who have a great deal more to say to us about painting light with real authenticity. Longtime readers of this blog won't be surprised if I offer Edward Hopper as an alternative. Comparing the two landscapes above is revealing of some of the deeper essentials of painting.  If painting is primaril...
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Ever Wonder What's in the Next Room in Hopper's Rooms by the Sea?

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Edward Hopper, Rooms by the Sea , oil on canvas, 1951, Yale University Art Gallery One of Edward Hopper's best known paintings is Rooms by the Sea that was based on his studio in Truro, MA. Its mysterious doorway leading to the ocean captivates our eye.  Did you ever wonder what the room through the painting's other doorway looked like? Last week a collector asked to see some of the drawings I made during my residencies in the historic studio so I photographed this drawing. Philip Koch,  Edward Hopper's Truro Bedroom: Afternoon  Sunlight , vine charcoal, 9 x 12 inches, 2012. To make the drawing I set up my French easel in the bedroom Hopper shared with his wife Jo for the three decades they lived in the studio. One of the room's two small closets centers the drawing. At the right is the doorway leading into Hopper's big painting room with his studio easel in the distance.  What inspired me to make the drawing were the intense patterns the afternoon sunlight made ove...
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How Did Edward Hopper Make a Watercolor? (Updated)

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I was staying and working in the studio Edward Hopper designed and had built on Cape Cod in Truro, MA for my15th residency a week and a half ago. Above you can see Hopper's easel where for 30 years he produced many of his most famous paintings. The three windows look out from a great height over Cape Cod Bay. In a word: inspiring. Hopper first gained wide acclaim through his watercolors. Most of them were done at a fairly large scale on cold press 140 lbs. watercolor paper (that's a medium weight subtly textured paper). To keep his watercolor paper from buckling as it became wet as he painted on it, Hopper would prepare the paper ahead of time by stretching. On the easel in the photo above is a piece of watercolor paper stretched by Hopper that is patiently waiting for him to return and paint on it.   Here's a close up of the front side of the prepared paper. Over the years it has sagged a little from its original smooth completely flat state. Hopper ...
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