StartFragmentAs you know, next to actually painting, I love studying about painting, color, design, methods - anything and everything about our favorite subject! Last night I came across a comment that I want to share with you. It's by Gale Bennett (GALE BENNETT (1939-2008), Founder and Director of ArtStudy Giverny in Giverny, France). "If we want to isolate the one single element that makes a painting a masterpiece, it is spatial tension." Raphael: Portrait of "Count Bald

StartFragmentHow to avoid "locking the painting in on all sides". Sometimes when we are painting out of doors, we find ourselves facing a solid wall of trees leading into the part of the landscape that we are really interested in painting. What to do? Obviously, we want to keep the feeling of the place, which seems to require some degree of faithfulness to the reality. Here is an example that I think suggest ways to surmount the problem.The photo below shows the actual s