Tamara Stephas

Despite the down economy, the Artist Trust 2010 Benefit Auction raised a record-breaking $315,000!  Thank you, local arts supporters and art community!  The proceeds will fund grants to artists, career training like the EDGE program and numerous workshops, and business resources for artists in Washington State.  This is a direct and significant benefit to regional artists.

Thanks to the purchaser of the painting I donated, Dry Farm (posted earlier).  I hope you enjoy living with it.  That’s my great-grandpa on the family farm in the Southwest.

Man, it takes a lot of work to redesign a website from scratch.  But www.stephas.com was looking a little dated, and I wanted to get my new series of paintings up.  Thanks to Michael Jochimsen for the programming.  Last week we tested and proofed, and I confirmed that I don’t like working on a computer all day anymore.  Please check it out: new design, new artworks.

I’ve been reading a few pages at a time of Mitch Albala’s new book, Landscape Painting. Very clear and well written.

His approach is very analytic and his generalizations are illustrated by specifics.  It seems clear enough for beginners, and addresses many basics that apply to any subject.  But it also has plenty of meat for more advanced painters.  There are reminders of many considerations we learned long ago but often forget in the heat of the forge, along with helpful tips on site selection, plein-aire tricks, changing light, simplification, and other issues important to landscapists.  The illustrations alone are worth the price of admission: an extremely varied, thoughtful selection of works by many artists, reproduced beautifully.
I don’t want the feast to end.