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...

A note from Dot: Robin Roberts was so kind to send this to me... and I want to share it with you... Dot Courson's Guest Blogger....  Robin Roberts .... Scary vs Fun... It went something like this:   one of my ardent painting students requested a class about faces and suggested we use a photo of a pretty lady she noticed in a blog.   It just happened to be my friend Dot Courson of Pontotoc Ms.   The student liked the smiling face and the straw hat.  So I requested a printable photo from Dot that she graciously supplied.   The students who attended are the brave ones willing to learn and tolerate boo boos.   I told them this would NOT be the portrait in a curly gold frame.   The class was intended to let them experiment and play with a face and not worry about having a finished "portrait" . You can see the reference photo of Dot that we used in the top photo .  We talked about the axis tilt of the head, and some basic p...

I got a list... You got a list... All God's Children Gotta list.... Jackie and I are getting ready to host another workshop. Dawn Whitelaw will be here a little over a week and we are communicating with all the artists who are probably packing. I'm thinking of my own list of things I need to do as well as sympathizing with them. All of the artists will drive in. Most will be in hotels. It's a lot of work to get ready to leave home to go to a workshop. You must pretty much pack like you are plein air painting- well, except for the bug spray!  But of course you have to pack clothes, toiletries, etc.. Not counting what was back in the hotel room, nor the equipment I had set up outside that I was using to paint with at the time that this was taken- here is (no kidding!) a photo of the "stuff:  in my van -that the Gadsden Times took while I was painting nearby at the Southeastern Plein Invitational this spring: I finally wrote my own travel art supply...

I love John Pototschnik. If you don't know him you can find a link to his work here . And while you are there sign up for his monthly newsletters. They're wonderful! John is an artist whose values I really admire, and I am proud to call him my friend. He’s made his living as an artist almost- if not all -of his adult life. He's also one of the most respected artists in the United States today, and we had the pleasure of having him and Marsha, his wife, here last year for a workshop that my husband Jackie and I hosted. He will be coming back next year to teach with me-  in April of 2011. While he was here last year I purchased one of his beautiful light filled landscapes. Every day when I look at it, I am aware that there is a reason his painting prices are triple mine! He is an amazing! He's also smart. I get his newsletters and he recently had lots of interesting things to say about “painting movements.” I’m including a small quote from that newsletter and contrasti...

Thursday, October 15, 2009: Thank you for inviting me to Laurel and to the Lauren Roger’s Museum of Art  as a speaker for your Art Talk program at the museum...and for hosting my oil painting workshop!