Dot Courson Fine Art Blog

October is turning out to be my busiest month in awhile. Paintin' the Town- College Park, GA In late September it was great to be a part of an invitational plein air event in Atlanta in the suburb inside the beltway called, Historic College Park. Artist Millie Gosch did a great job putting this together and we all had a blast. I sold three of my paintings to collectors and received another commission. Thank you to all who turned out to volunteer and host. It was great meting up with artist friends as well! Cumberland Society National Juried Competition: Honored! On October 3rd, I was excited to travel to Nashville to the Cumberland Society National Opening and Awards Ceremony at Richland Fine Art where I received an Honorable Mention - a $500 award for my painting, Back-lit Trees, Oil, 12x16 from judge Peggi Kroll Roberts of Here is my winning painting at the Cumberland Society National Exhibition at Richland Fine Art in Nashville, TN  ©2013 Dot...

Art supplies are expensive: oil paints, brushes, canvas and  frames. I look for ways to keep the quality up, and expenses down in order to be able to afford the very best products. I also want to paint like I am rich - uninhibited! - and feel it is better to paint with abandon than to paint uptight and worried about the cost of supplies. Recycling your bad paintings: “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” - Vincent van Gogh Sometimes paintings fail. Recycling panels is easy. I destroy bad paintings by covering them up in order to re-use or "recycle" the canvas. Every painting simply does not work out... and sometimes I wipe the paint off immediately (recommended) and just start over. At other times I set them aside and later decide that the painting is not making me feel good or is not something that I want to keep or offer for sale.   “I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” - Vincent van  Gogh Some ar...

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! ...

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...

Knife Painting Techniques Lately I have gotten interested in palette knife painting. Years ago I used to do some, and I still use a palette knife occasionally but it's mostly done along with brushwork. But nothing is "breaking the rules" in painting as far as I'm concerned. An artist can use anything- even elbows if they want to! I recently saw Barbara Flowers doing her wonderful and inspiring palette knife painting demo in Florida during our Women Painters of the Southeast (WPSE) show and got interested in doing palette knife work again. Here is a beautiful loose painting by Barbara who served as our show judge just in case if you are not familiar with her work: Teaching Pallet Knife Painting... So this past week I brought fresh pears to my painting class and taught palette knife for this weeks lesson. I was not sure what the students would think as I have not even talked about palette knife painting with them. And since I have never taught this - I lo...

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 ...