On a beautiful sunny day I decided to meet my daughter for the most pleasant of days browsing through trees and plants from all over the world in the most glorious of surroundings. Daughter of mine, being of artistic bent travels with pencil and sketchpad and had a ball sketching away at the interesting plant life.

Then at the weekend as fate would have it there was a HUGE Spring Flower Show at the local mall. That was just delightful - the funniest was a dog made of chrysanthemums but the best for me was a huge balancing floral interpretation of “Bold and Distinctive.”

What must have been very difficult and was done in such a masterly fashion was to interpret a painting in flowers! I really enjoyed seeing how this was done as usually we artists interpret nature not the other way round…

All in all now is a great time to do a spot of botanical art work, painting or sketching and South Africa has an abundance of fascinating plant life to inspire anyone from the finest of artists to those who enjoy more chunky palette knife work there is something there for all tastes. Vincent van Gogh summed it up very well with this advice “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to; the feeling for the things themselves - for reality - is more important than the feeling for pictures.”

FLOWER OF THE MONTH

Victorian botanical collectors must have rejoiced when they went to South Africa for they certainly took large amounts of plant material back to Kew Gardens in London, England in the nineteenth century and much of this genetic stock from the flora kingdoms of South Africa has since been hybridized into many varietals to suit every climate around the world producing many of the common garden plants that you will probably see in your country today..

One of these plants, which is the international flower for August, is the Gladiolus, from the Latin word for a sword and part of the Iris family. Gladiolus vary from very small, fragrant spikes to spectacular giant flowers. The South African species were originally pollinated in by-gone eras by long-tongued bees, but nowadays sunbirds, moths and long-tongued flies do the business. The gladiolus also attracts butterflies so not only can an artist get the opportunity to paint a charming flower but also the flitting butterflies.

Chicago is one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. It is a treasure of the Midwest with its gorgeous setting along Lake Michigan. Having visited most comparable cities, I think Chicago’s skyline rivals almost any other in the country, especially because of its reflective position on the water.

A great focus for any tour of Chicago is its architecture. Chicago is known for its artistic design, especially in the modern world. Historic Chicago was largely destroyed by fire in 1871, so most of Chicago’s prominent buildings date after that year. Therefore, one of Chicago’s most notable structures might be its historic water tower along the Magnificent Mile shopping district. It was built in 1869 and was one of the only structures to survive the fire. The Magnificent Mile is otherwise an exciting and extremely modern business district with upscale designer boutiques and world class dining.

Another great architectural reason to tour Chicago is in order to visit the Sears Tower. Is it still the world’s tallest building? You probably know this depends on whom you ask. But for all intents and purposes, the Sears Tower is still the world’s tallest, habitable building. If you must specify further in order to win the pool at work, call it the world’s tallest “office building”.

The James R. Thompson building, which is often called the State Building in Chicago will still further impress your artistic eye. This building not only has a unique rounded design, it is also almost completely glass enclosed even to its glass-paneled ceiling.

The John Hancock Center has won architectural awards for its unique cross-bracing exterior that allows for more office space within. This building also provides one of the most fabulous observatories in the city. It is open air, which means you’re about to discover exactly why they call Chicago the Windy City. It also includes innovative “sound scopes” with chirping birds and cheering crowds that give the viewer the impression of actually being in the attractions at which they are taking a closer view.

If the amazing architecture in Chicago inspires further study into the art of building design, then you won’t want to miss the Frank Lloyd Wright landmark. It includes the home and studio from which he lived and worked for the first twenty years of his prestigious architectural career. Frank Lloyd Wright believed that well-designed buildings make a difference in our lives. Talk about a passion for your profession! From Chicago and beyond in his career, Wright went on to design more than 500 buildings that were completed and approximately 500 more never built.

Chicago, like many cities near the water, offers harbor cruises for its site-seeing tours. And because of its distinctive prominence in the world of design, some of these tours are specifically called architectural cruises. They predominantly navigate the Chicago River with expert guides pointing out the most notable of Chicago’s skyscrapers and structures.

There are several great photo ops in Chicago to commemorate your architectural finds. Either the Sears Tower or the Hancock observatories will of course provide the best bird’s eye views of this amazing city, and a cruise from the water would offer a unique perspective for your tourist’s album. One extremely distinctive photo op, though, is offered on dry land, quite near the ground.

In 1999, artist Anish Kapoor’s sculpture idea was chosen from several designs for a prominent place in Chicago’s Millennium Park. This park holds the famous Jay Pritzker Pavilion with its state-of-the-art outdoor sound system and concert venue. And in this park stands the unique photo opportunity in the amazing sculpture by Kapoor. Often called “the bean”, the stainless steel structure is curved to reflect the Chicago skyline. It’s a unique - although popular - new way to capture this amazing city on film.

Whether you do it from the sky, the water, or the ground, you will want to capture somehow the skyline and beautiful architecture of Chicago, Illinois. Once you’ve seen it up close, the photographs will be a meaningful addition to your collection.

First a golf course painting will be worth more than a golf course photograph would be. Artists will usually do a Limited Edition print where they only have a certain number of that painting. They also do Artist Proofs which are worth more than the Limited Edition prints because there is an even smaller number Artist Proofs done. Also some artists will sign their paintings also increasing the value of your golf course painting.

Second with paintings you have a lot of different options to choose from as far as your medium goes. You could choose a painting that was done on canvas or you could buy a lithograph painting. You can choose what kind of texture or appearance you like best and buy accordingly. It’s also important to think about whether this will be framed and how you want your art to look. If you are ordering a canvas chances are you will not put glass over the top. But if you bought an Artist Proof painting you would want to have it in a frame with protective glass to help preserve your artwork.

And the third reason you should buy a golf course painting is because it’s the perfect gift for any golf fanatic! Golf course paintings are great for father’s or mother’s day, anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas and any other special occasion. It’s a gift that can be hung on a wall and treasured for years. You can buy an open edition painting quite cheaply too, so you don’t have to break the bank to buy a painting!

Hopefully these 3 reasons will help you when you are making your decision to buy between a golf course painting. In any case you can’t go wrong if you’re buying the golf course painting for a golf fan! Golf fanatics love anything that deals with golf!

When you decide to embark into the world of face painting, you want to be certain that you invest in some good face painting stencils. This will save you tons of time and can allow you to create some great looks easily and quickly as well.

Also, another must have is face painting paint. There are all types of these available to anyone who wishes to take the time to look at their many options. By doing so you can easily choose a great one and you should consider snazaroo face paint, because it’s a great one to use when it comes to face painting.

If you want to improve your cheek face painting skills try some of the methods below:

1. Start with small designs because this is a great way to improve your skills quickly and easily. You can try these and then clean them quickly so this can make it very simple for you to try them and get them perfect.
2. If you’re just doing cheek painting then you can easily do this by looking at some designs and then practicing them on adults or older children. This is a great idea for anyone.
3. You can get some face painting stamps at various locations and this is a great way to aid you in being as simple as possible and getting the best results that you can as well. This can really make your cheek painting job much simpler.

When it comes to face painting, you can really have lots of fun when you have the right supplies because that’s what it requires for you to be successful and make it as fun and accurate as possible. There are some incredible designs to allow you to make some great face painting for your kids.

Cheek face painting is certainly one of the easier ways to face paint because it doesn’t involved doing the entire face, just the cheeks. This can really make it simple to do and you can make some great designs quickly and easily for your kids as a result of doing this. Kids love to have face painting as well as check painting done because it allows them to be unique and show their designs to other kids as well.

There are many resources available to help you choose a home painting color. With today’s technology, it seems there are always new outlets emerging to help in the color selection process. There are numerous online photo galleries of examples of home colors. You can search through the galleries to find a home whose color you like and that you think would work well for your home painting and then use that in your project.

Another interesting technological advance that has recently emerged is home painting software. There are different software programs available that can show you what your home would look like with various different home painting schemes. This is a great way to see what your home would look like with prospective colors before making any actual changes to your home.

There is also always the old fashioned method of choosing a home painting color by driving through your community and neighboring communities to accumulate ideas for potential home painting coloring schemes. You can also consult with your paint contractor on possible colors. A paint contractor can be a great resource when trying to make a decision. You paint contractor can be a great resource because they have extensive experience in this realm and know which colors work well together.

From the earliest cave paintings, which date back to around 13,000 BC, to modern graffiti, the one thing that stands the test of time in these paintings is their ability to appeal to the human sensibility over centuries and nations. The very fact that you smiled at the end of reading the story above indicates that each human being forms a distinct relationship with a painting, whatever his personal reason might be. While the cave paintings might have an aura of mystery and thus appeal to us even today, modern art appeals to us due to its simplicity or the fact that color is given so much prominence.

All the famous painters, from Eyke to Picasso, painted not for money, but as a result of deep emotion, either towards a theme or a medium. Leonardo da Vinci left only 30-odd works complete. He constantly shifted between sculpting, painting and procrastinating. Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide out of frustration that no one understood his work. Picasso dabbled in styles and invested cubism, or the art of painting in geometric shapes. It is these sentiments that eventually reflect in their paintings. And this is why they appeal to us even today.

The problem is that a beginner will always be disappointed with the results from their first painting attempt. They will be equally disappointed by their second painting… and the third painting.

And, by the time they have finished painting number 10 many amateur artists GIVE UP. This is a shame and a sad waste of time. There is an easy way to learn to paint successfully…

The mistake most beginners make is that they have an idea of what they want to paint. It could be that they want to paint wildlife paintings… A Fox, A Deer, A Badger or A Squirrel. Imagine the disappointment when your fluffy tailed squirrel ends up looking like a pig with the tail of a donkey.

“If you want to learn to paint any subject… First you must learn to paint”

Ignore the temptation of figurative painting. Resist landscape painting. Avoid portrait painting. Learn to enjoy finding out what the paint does… it can be great fun. Remember, it isn’t you doing the painting but the paint allowing you to mold a picture using a brush or palette knife…

“All an artist does is to guide the paint to the places where the picture needs it”

All you need to do to become a great artist is discover the secrets of placing color exactly where you want it. Take the genius artist Vincent Van Gogh’s lead…

He never thought about what he was doing when he painted his masterpiece Sunflower paintings… because he knew exactly what the paint was going to do with each brush stroke and brush mark. The paint gave him a perfect result every time.

It is like riding a horse. Understand what the horse wants and what the horse does and he’ll take you wherever you want to go.

The word landscape originates from the Dutch word “landschap” denoting areas of arable lands. Depicting natural sceneries in a medley of lines, colors and tones was the outcome of the natural inclinations of human beings to reflect what they mostly found around them. The early civilizations with less industrialization and urbanization presented nature in its complete bounties. Artists and poets admired them in their creations. Life was not at all complex and it was only nature and its diverse facets that formed the central theme of the paintings.

Landscape painting in its antiquated form can be observed in the pastoral sceneries of the Roman times. The paintings gained prominence with the emergence of Renaissance Art. Nature was romanticized and portrayed as philosophical and spiritual elements. Various religious and mythological events were represented via nature. Though the spiritual tones were absent in the Reformation times the paintings became more uniform and realistic in this era. The seventeenth and eighteenth century led to the flourish of the paintings with some master artists like Watteau, Gainsborough and Thoams Girtin. The breathtaking creations reached their acme in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Various movements of arts like abstract expressionism, impressionism and surrealism influenced the painting and brought in some new styles and techniques. Nature was observed scientifically and more importance was given to its hostile aspects. In the modern and postmodern landscapes nature is synchronized with human psychologies and complexities of life. The various facets of nature resemble the moods of human beings in manifolds.

Landscape paintings have several classifications. The skyscape paintings depict clouds, skies and weather conditions. Moon is aesthetically represented in moonscape paintings. The rivers and seas find visible expression in seascapes and riverscapes. The images of urban landscapes, industrialized cities, towns and streets are carved in cityscapes and hardscapes. The aerial landscapes offer an aerial view of the objects in the ground. Inscapes are visual images of the psychoanalytical mind as a three-dimensional space. Roberto Matta, Ajmes Gleeson and Jane Farnk are the specialists in inscape paintings. Various innovations and experiments with the landscape paintings are still going on. The paintings with all their connotations and aestheticisms are a connoisseur’s delight and a prized legacy of art.

Landscape art refers to the portrayal of scenic beauty of nature, with the sky and weather conditions taking a considerable area of the canvas. The word ‘landscape’ is of Dutch origin (’landschap’ meaning a sheaf or patch of cultivated ground). The word was finally included in the English vocabulary in the 17th century. The 15th century witnessed landscape painting gaining recognition as a major artistic genre in Europe. The themes used in these paintings chiefly drew from religious subjects, as can be found in Rest on the Flight into Egypt, the Journey of the Magi, or Saint Jerome in the Desert.

Historians often trace the origin of landscape painting to China. However, it was not before the Middle Ages that this genre earned recognition. The Italian painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti is credited with making the first painting devoted to landscape in around 1335. The development of this painting gradually initiated with travelers exploring their surroundings. In Rome, the ‘classical landscape’ flourished through the contribution of Paul Bril and Adam Elsheimer and the Italian painters, Annibale Carracci and Domenichino. The French artist, Claude Lorrain, reproduced some of the best instances of ‘classical landscape’. Set amidst classical subjects, his paintings gave over to vast landscapes with areas of light and space.

The 17th century saw landscape paintings embracing domestic and familiar settings especially in the works of the Dutch School- Van Goyen, Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Hobbema, Koninck, Cuyp, and others.The 19th century witnessed English painters taking cue from the Dutch and reproducing exuberant paintings in oil and watercolors. Wilson, Crone, Constable, Turner, Cotman, and Bonington are some of the notable names of the time.

Post Constable and Turner, the development of landscape painting occurred in France. The Impressionistic Movement cast a profound influence on this genre of art. The invention of oil paint in a tube changed the style of art. Since then, artists could go out and paint directly from the landscape. Vincent van Gogh carried this tradition forward, where he depicted personal emotions through his paintings. The blend of Romanticism and new Surrealism can be found in the early twentieth century, especially in the painted landscapes of Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland.

With the dawn of the modernism, landscape painting found itself projecting some gritty realism, paralleling the work of the ‘kitchen sink’ school in literature. However, landscape paintings are now showcasing a poetic approach as well; the works of Roger de Gray are an instance.

Thomas Cole took the landscape painting in the US to new heights with the foundation of the Hudson River School. As times keep on changing, the trends observed in every genre of art keep changing as well. New explorations, new movements, new innovations have always taken art to new heights, and so has landscape painting been influenced by these trends. Original paintings by the renowned landscape artists are treasured and will be treasured by the generations to come.