Still Life with Vans

Choos, oil on canvas, 2005 by Sarah Atlee. Some rights reserved.

In all my years of art school, nobody told me that mixing brown and white would make blue. Cool.

This still life painting is of one of my beloved pairs of Vans Sk8-Hi Tops. The details are scratched out using an X-Acto knife.

Painted under the instruction of Robert Heischman at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Back to the Figure Drawing Board

Mary (Figure Study), ink on paper, July 2009. Some rights reserved.

I just signed up for Glen Thomas' Figure Drawing class at City Arts Center, which starts in late July. I'm so excited.

I've been a regular and loving attendee of Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School over the last several years. Lately I've wanted to temper that experience with some traditional figure drawing, which I haven't done since I finished school in 2006. Last year I had a wonderful time in Bert Seabourn's acrylic painting class at CAC. I got reacquainted with some basic techniques and experimented outside my normal painting style. I'm eager to take this approach to learning and re-learning the figure.

City Arts Center, located on the Oklahoma State Fair Grounds in OKC, offers a wide variety of art classes for kids and for adults. Visit their website to read about course offerings and enroll. I guarantee you'll enjoy it.

My Rock - My Mom

Sarah Drawing a Picture, ink on paper by Emmy Ezzell, circa 1984. Click here to see more drawings from this session.

My Mom was the first person who knew I was an artist, and who never ever told me I couldn't be one.

There are thousands of things she has done along the way to make sure I followed my dreams - too many to list here. The most important thing she does, by far, is love me.

Thank you, Mom. You make it possible.

5 Reasons to Love James Jean Online

Waiting. Acrylic and Pastel on Cradled Wood Panels, 34 x 34", 2010 by James Jean. Click image to view source.

You've probably seen James Jean's work around the Internets. Maybe you love it like I do. He seems to draw and paint the other people breathe. It's delicious, mysterious, pleasing and disturbing at once.

I've never seen Jean's work in person. It occurred to me to ask myself why, other than the quality of the work itself, do I enjoy looking at it online?

Because James Jean has an excellent website.

Coco Chanel famously said that when a woman dresses shabbily, people notice her dress, but when she dresses well, people notice the woman. I looked at Jean's drawings and paintings for several years before I noticed how well he presents it online. Here are some reasons why:

Less is more. It's a cliche that independent artists often combat, but Jean lets his work speak for itself. His site design is absolutely spotless. No explanations, no exclamations. Just the art, loud and clear.

Big, beautiful photos He doesn't make us squint to see the work. The photos aren't fuzzy, washed-out, or imbalanced. The Reclamare scarf is a good example.

Up close and personal If we can't see the work in person, we can at least pretend. I wish more artists offered close-up details of their work like this.

Figure studies Because artists never stop learning or practicing, especially when it comes to the figure.

Sketchbooks Two of my favorites: Ottoman, Mole D-2

I'd like to thank the artist for putting all this work where we can see it. Keep it up.

Flat Stanley, Cheap Markers

Clement Gets Abstract, ink on paper, 2008 by Sarah Atlee. Some rights reserved.

In which I discover that cheap markers are just as useful as the expensive ones.

A poor carpenter blames his tools, right? I often draw with Prismacolor markers, known for their vast chromatic range and luscious blendability. And I've been known to paint with a W&N Series 7. But I also love tools and supplies I find for cheap or free. It's all in how you use them.

In 2008, on a whim, I picked up a 36-pack of thin markers from the kids' aisle at Hobby Lobby. They turned out to be some of the best pens I've ever used. These off-brand beauties had soft tips, a variety of colors (that tended toward the magenta end of the spectrum), and showed surprising versatility. Not long after I began using them, they dried out and began acting more like colored pencils. Suddenly I could layer, layer, layer. Just like using washes of acrylic paint.

Alas, Hobby Lobby changed their off-brand-brand of cheap markers (the newer ones have chiseled tips that don't play well) and I haven't found another set of these since then.

Clement Gets Abstract was created in July 2008 as part of a community journal project about Flat Stanley.