Dot Courson Fine Art Blog

I recently taught a workshop on landscapes and wanted to share a few slides with you...   I LOVE teaching! I taught here in Pontotoc in January.The group was great and we had fun. Thank you to all the attendees.  Jackie helped me welcome 14 artists form TN, AL and MS. My next workshop is in Greenville in May with the Delta Art Association. Hope you get to come! Here is a link to details. Here are a few tips straight out of my workshop handbook that I use when I teach. I love to share, but all images are my paintings, and therefore are copyrighted ©2013  Dot Courson Workshops. So feel free to use and share these- I encourage it as a matter of fact! -  but I require you attribute the painting and slide images and painting to me please. : ) Value planes. ©2013 Dot Courson Arial perspective. ©2013 Dot Courson Movement in painting. ©2013Dot Courson Please leave comments below. I love hearing from you!  Happy Painting! ...

Getting ready to go teach a workshop in Greenville with the Delta Arts Association this week. I love teaching! When I paint outside en plein air, I start massing in the values any way I can... with any color. I work fast. I've found that the sun does not stay still and wait for me to get it down, so I admit that I start messy and tighten up as I go.  Another thing that I do: I generally put some warmth into green foliage as it helps show the green up - and to me it just looks better.  Here is the start of a recent plein air painting in my backyard: Progress: Final painting: Another Backyard Plein Air 12x16 Oil: Another Backyard - Plein Air . Oil ©2013 Dot Courson Update:   This painting was judged into the Cumberland Society National Juried Exhibition. The judge was artist Peggy Kroll Roberts. Thrilled and blessed that it won an Honorable Mention- the Omega Frames award of $500 !  Here it is hanging at the show at Richland Fine Art in Nas...

This week I will be traveling to Richmond, VA! Here is the flyer for Plein Air Richmond . I so honored and really looking forward to painting there!     On my trip, I'm taking a painting for Senator Roger Wicker's staff to come down and pick up in Richmond. It will be on loan to hang in the office of Senator Wicker in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC!  I'm honored to have The Natchez Trace there. For almost 3 years it hung on the top floor of the Walter Sillers Building, Governor Haley Barbour's official capital offices in Jackson, MS. Here is a photo of us. On it's last day there he signed it for me at my request- before I picked it up. This is funny now but I was initially mortified because somehow he was mis-directed and signed the front (rather prominently) instead of the back as I had asked - so I had to take his signature off! I hated to do it - I...

Artist Workshops My husband Jackie and I host workshops for artists.  If you are an artist you understand about workshops. If you are not a painter, just think of it as education and continuing education for artists. These workshops are for students, intermediate artists and professionals. Sometimes the students are professional artists studying with another artist that they admire. Sometimes even the professional artist instructors themselves study with the other professional artists that they admire! No artist ever stops learning and we all learn a lot from each other.  I see lots of different styles of painting and work that I admire and their work styles range a lot. We recently invited and hosted a workshop with Anne Blair Brown.  Her work is loose and she has beautiful sense of color relationships within her works. A lot of what I love about here work is the beautiful colorful "grays" she mixes. I also like the way she lays in the ...

Last week in my "Monday Afternoon 3 times a Month Art Class" class was en plein air in a pasture across the road from where I live. My neighbor rehabs old vehicles to make street rods or antique cars. He's getting ready to build his building there and has a couple of interesting ones that I think are ripe for painting. It was fun but was windy and in the 80's and not everyone came - and one person got too hot... and the wind almost took us down! But hey- that'a plein air painting!  Here are all the paintings done on site and one also that a Facebook friend did from photograph: I even had a Facebook friend who painted the picture (below) that I had posted on FAcebook.... Here is her version that was painted from a photo: She calls her paintings "Mater and Sally" form the Cars Movie...  ...and I named mine (above) "Mater's Momma"!  Thanks to everyone who participated!