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Photo of an Australian burl

Turning Australian Burls By Michael Salemi

“Kookaburra sits on an old gum tree...” goes a song from my childhood. Gum is a large family of Australian trees which are locally known as “Mallee.” Burls from Mallee trees are especially beautiful and, when you find them available in the US, are expensive. Because of the expense, I was unwilling to turn Australian burls for several years after…

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Painting of a cow

Paint What You Love by Joan Vandermeer

As an artist I am never at loss for painting ideas. Most of all I love animals. These ideas often come to me as I paint instead of setting out to depict a certain scene. As I paint the colors and images all come together and I change this or that until I can say in my heart I am…

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Colorful quilt with ferns on it by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Wholecloth Painted Art Quilts by Susan Brubaker Knapp

This past summer I’ve focused on making wholecloth painted art quilts. These are not quilts for beds, but textile art to display on the wall. Each piece starts with plain white fabric, which I paint with acrylic textile paint. I then layer the piece with batting and a backing fabric before free-motion machine quilting it. I love both the process…

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Painting of a cat birthday party

My Creative Journey as a Painter by Joan Vandermeer

The first art book I ever bought was Betty Edward’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The book’s premise was that any beginner could learn to draw, and I was a beginner. Although I had zero formal training as an artist, I had a very big urge to create something. I had studied creative writing and had a…

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Art In Quarantine Featured - Blue decorated eggs by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Art In Quarantine

During this time of quarantine, we are most lucky as artists to be able to continue the work of making. It may be that if we are forced to stay with our work, and are less distracted by things beckoning us from the outside world, we might find that we can go deeper than we expected.This may take a variety…

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Painting of flowers by Bernice Koff

An Intuitive Approach to Watermedia Painting by Bernice Koff

Since I began teaching abstract painting and collage a few years ago (through a joint appointment with the Durham Arts Council and OLLI program at Duke) I have looked for ways to both stretch myself and give my students some new ways of starting their paintings. Last year, dealing with the trauma of a flooded and destroyed art studio, I…

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Intuitive Flow by Steevie Jane Parks

One of the ways that I like to paint is to simply allow my hand to create colorful shapes in a seemingly random pattern, until a coherent painting forms and begins to look ‘finished’. This can be done using any 2D or 3D medium. I often listen to music that matches whatever mood I’m in when I start to paint.…

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Pine Island Hunting Lodge

When in Botanical Doubt, Don’t Ask by Nancy Smith

In May, I attended a weekend retreat sponsored by Pine Island Audubon Sanctuary to sketch and paint native plants of the Outer Banks of NC. I was one of a small group of eighteen participants along with 3 experts: a naturalist, a botanist, and a botanical illustrator. We stayed in an historic hunting lodge built in 1913 that was gracious…

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