By Jim Pence

How do you “splice” two pictures together and make them one?

It’s not as difficult as you might think.

On Tuesday’s blog I chose the two reference photos that I wanted to use to create my new painting. (I’ve decided to do it as a watercolor.) But before I drag out the paints and watercolor paper, I want to play around with the layout a bit. In other words, I want to give some time thinking about my painting’s composition.

By Jim Pence

If you want to use reference photos (your own or someone else’s) as idea material for your paintings, the best place to begin is by realizing that only rarely will a single photo be sufficient for your needs. There are many reasons for this. If you’re working from snapshots you took on vacation, the photos might be cluttered with “unwanted” subject matter (e.g. cars, people walking by, etc.). If you’re working from a copyrighted photo, you won’t want to directly copy it (unless you have permission).

So what do you do?

By Jim Pence

I just came back from a relaxing week of vacation at a cottage on Lake Michigan. And, like most tourists, I took a lot of pictures. Since this was a family reunion, I wasn’t the only one taking photos. Near the end of the week, my brother-in-law began to compile a CD with all of the pictures taken that week so that everyone in the family could share them.

“Would you like to put your pictures on the group CD?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said. “But they aren’t very interesting.”

by Jim Pence

I'm leaving on vacation Friday and I'm really looking forward to getting away.

One reason is that here in North Texas we have been living with 100+ degree temperatures for going on 40 days now. I saw on the news the other day that our average temperature for the month of August has been 107.1.

When I teach an art class, the first rule I give my students is, “You’ve got to have fun!”

I mean that. If art class is not fun, there’s really no point in having it. Art is about expressing yourself. It’s about exploring your creativity. But it’s also about joy.

So how can you make art class fun? Here are some suggestions: