Winter is my favorite time to paint nature in Florida when shadows are long and atmospheric effects abound. Cold days keep the chiggers and ticks down, snakes are sluggish and mosquitoes are silent. It’s a lot easier to concentrate on painting when you’re not constantly slapping the back of your head with a loaded paint brush in one hand and scratching your groin with the other.

If you’re a studio painter winter is a great time to get outdoors and experience beautiful Florida days. And when it’s cold and rainy outside, instead of hanging at Starbucks, you plein air painters can work inside on the thinking part of painting. Here are 8 reasons why you should switch things up this year.

Studio Painters

If you’re a studio painter I encourage you get outside and paint plein air. It will help you:

1. Improve your color memory
2. See new color combinations
3. Enhance your grays
4. Edit superfluous details and paint the most important elements

Plein Air Artists

If your already painting plein air, investing time indoors at the easel will pay great dividends. You can:

5. Practice your drawing skills
6. Make stronger compositions
7. Create beautiful color harmonies
8. Experiment with techniques that require paint layers to dry

I’ll expand more on these thoughts in later posts,  but for now make it a goal this year to work on different areas of your art. If you have specific areas of your painting you want to talk about please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.

The permits have been secured and work is beginning on the new school studio. Above is a photo showing the painted walls and ceiling.

I love the high ceiling!

Find it.

Each session is for 6 weeks, 10:00 a.m – 12:30 p.m. Choose either the Monday or Friday class. Tuition $225.

For more information or to reserve your place, call 386-252-1293 ext 119, or email: inquiries@floridapaintingschool.com

Class sizes are very small with only 3 students per class. First come first served.

To be a great representational artist, specifically a great landscape painter,  requires an understanding of these 7 things:

• Seeing
• Drawing
• Values
• Perspective and Scale
• Understand Color Behavior and Properties
• Composition and Design
• Concept and Idea

I will cover these in detail in the next series of posts.

John Bunyan Bristol, Sunset, St. Augustine

From idyllic beach scenes to lush green jungles, “Reflections” highlights a total of 69 paintings depicting the natural beauty of the state before the great post-World War II building boom.

“Together, Cici and Hyatt Brown have assembled a collection that is not only historical in nature but also incredible in its beauty and represents the very best of Florida art,” notes MOAS Executive Director, Wayne D. Atherholt. “We are honored that they have selected MOAS for the collection’s first-ever public showing.”

Florida Painting School will schedule a class trip to view and discuss this extraordinary collection of Florida Art.

Let me know if you would like to come.

Sunrise is symbolic of new beginnings, the promise of a fresh start, a time to try something new. In our Light and Air class we focus on capturing the constantly changing light and atmospheric effects in nature.

When you become comfortable painting in oils, and proficient in many of the basics, we will begin studying advanced qualities of painting.

You will learn techniques that will give your work that elusive magical quality of Light and Air.

You will learn something new.

I promise.