Painting Atmosphere

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

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Foggy Pond 9 x 12” Oil J. Hulsey

Our painting and teaching practices have always been centered around working from life, as that is the best way, we believe, to learn how to see and describe the world. Photos are useful for details, of course, but the camera creates a mechanical wall between nature and live experience which distorts reality in specific and often artistically undesirable ways. The great advantage of photos is the ability to freeze a moment in time and use that luxury of time to learn about composition, drawing, color mixing and brushwork. Those fundamental tools can often get trampled under the rush to keep up with the swift changing of light in plein air or studio.

When the need for social distancing erupted overnight, we were challenged to figure out how we could teach students remotely and interactively, using only photographic reference for our subjects and exercises. The reference photograph now became a very i…