Most of you are aware of Milford Zornes’ 100th birthday celebration at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in late January, almost one month before his passing. There at the museum, the artist gave a full sheet, full color watercolor demonstration, and donated the proceeds from the auctioned-off finished painting back to the museum.

According to the National Watercolor Society (NWS) newsletter, Zornes’ last gift to the society was permission to offer a DVD of that demonstration (with proceeds benefiting the NWS Building Fund). The DVD is now available, and it also features many of the artist’s paintings.

If you'd like a copy of the DVD, send a $20 donation payable to: The National Watercolor Society, c/o Chris Van Winkle, 436 Fresno Ave., Morro Bay, CA 93442.

View a gallery paintings from Picasso's blue period (those he painted between 1900 and 1904), tastefully accompanied by Spanish strings. Something about the sky made me think of them this morning and I had a feeling I'd find something appropriate on You Tube. Incidentally, one of Picasso's most famous paintings from this period, Portrait of Suzanne Bloch, went for a little ride last year when it was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art. It was recovered in January of 2008.

One of the seven videos currently offered on ArtistsNetwork.tv—a new site from F+W Media that offers instructional (streaming) videos from today’s leading artists—features beloved artist Stephen Quiller on color theory for watercolorists. Click below to see a preview of the video.




You can also click here for previews of the other six 40-plus minute videos to help you decide if you’d like to subscribe to an individual workshop for a six-month period, or subscribe to all of them for a six-month period. You don’t have to download anything, and you can watch any time of the day as long as you have a high-speed Internet connection.

Take note that more artists’ workshops are on the production lineup, including ones from watermedia artists Mark Willenbrink and Jean Grastorf, so visit often, and sign up to receive the e-mail newsletter for advance notice on new workshops.

While strolling around the web today, I noticed that Nita Leland is blogging. In addition to authoring several popular art-instruction books for North Light, she's also contributed a number of articles to the magazine. In fact, we debuted our Creativity Workshop column with an exerpt from Leland's The New Creative Artist: A Guide to Developing Your Creative Spirit. With the recent success of the column (the entries for the June installment of the column positively flooded our inbox), it strikes me as fitting to take a look back at the column's genesis. So, let's take a look at what Leland is doing these days: She's got a new book in the works (check out her pre-pub offer) and she's taking a look at what her readers are doing with her Photoshopping tips. Visit her archives for some insightful ramblings on gouache.

As a writer, and a former college professor, I've often found myself in debates--many of them heated--about the role of politics in art. I've always been uncomfortable with art that tips political themes into the realm of propaganda, but I also find the argument that almost all art is (in some sense) political very compelling.

I'm not sure what to think of watercolor artist Tim Hinton's "Obama paintings." Over the weekend, we recieved a press release about the artist's most recent work, which depicts the presidential candidate before the backdrop of the American flag, and I've been thinking about them all morning. They're striking paintings and they most certainly have artistic merit, but I wonder what the presence of a political message does to their meaning and value as works of art.

From the press release: "Love or hate the politics of Barack Obama, the man has enraptured the American people and moved the world to closely watch as America is precipitously poised on the eve of history. Only Tim Hinton has captured the soul of the man, the presence of the man, the heart of all America stands for: unyielding faith in the face of unrelenting circumstances."

Loving or hating a painting's subject seems (to me) somewhat besides the point as a viewer. And I'd hate to think of my favorite paintings becoming subject to similar standards of evaluation. Imagine how polarized and stratified our galleries and museums would become if collections were determined entirely by the meaning of the subjects in the curators' lives.

Incidentally, I hunted for "McCain paintings" in the interest of affecting the appearance of political balance on the blog, but the closest thing I could find was a handcrafted model of the fighter jet he flew in the war. Feel free to send links to portraits of the republican candidate our way if you have any.

(Note on the images: I was unable to pull images of Hinton's paintings from his site, nor were any included in the press release; for that reason, I've included an image of the flag, an image of the artist and an image of Obama from the web.)