Just a heads up: We extended the deadline of The Artist's Magazine Annual Art Competition to this Friday, May 8, 2009, so if you were thinking of entering but didn't get around to it last week, there's still time!

Our art director, Dan, recently found this old Polaroid of Jim Borgman at work in his Cincinnati studio. Borgman was a longtime editorial cartoonist at the Cincinnati Enquirer, where he won a Pulitzer for his work, and he still does the comic strip Zits.

If you like cartoons, (I hope) you'll love my feature on modern cartooning that I wrote for the September issue of The Artist's Magazine! It's not out for a while yet (August 11 is the newsstand date), but I'm already excited about it. I talked to Ivan Brunetti, Esther Pearl Watson and Ed Piskor about the new wave of cartooning. To get your fix in the meantime, check out IMPACT Books and (one of my favorite comic publishers) Fantagraphics.

From Bill Tilton, in the January 1994 issue of The Artist's Magazine:

Always start a painting or drawing with big shapes and tools—big brush, big charcoal or large graphite stick—anything that precludes your getting prematurely enmeshed in details. Beginning with something big forces you to see the underlying masses and shapes that tell viewers what the subject is.

Learn more:

• First Steps: Drawing And Painting Animals by Bill Tilton
• Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles to Dramatically Improve Your Painting by Ian Roberts
• A Painter's Guide To Design And Composition by Margot Schulzke

Painter Ross Bleckner traveled to Uganda on an official United Nations mission, where he worked with children who were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army. The New York Times reports:

Using thousands of dollars' worth of paint, brushes and paper shipped from New York Central Art Supply in the East Village, Mr. Bleckner, 59, worked with a group of 25 children — former abductees and ex-soldiers — for more than a week at a Roman Catholic aid center. The children made 200 paintings that will be sold at a benefit at the United Nations headquarters next month at which Mr. Bleckner will be appointed goodwill ambassador.

He said that after several days of teaching them rudimentary painting and drawing skills, many began to open up to him and to create work that powerfully expressed their experiences. ... "What this mission accomplished is what I call microcreativity," Mr. Bleckner wrote in a catalog of the children's work. "It is a personal interaction which gives someone the tools to create something that they can be proud of, and which can help them on the arduous path to restoring their dignity and sense of self-worth."

See a slideshow of the children's work here.

We're sending the July issue of The Artist's Magazine to the press this week, and one of the artists in the issue is George Tooker, an egg tempera painter and Magical Realist. (The issue goes on sale June 6.)

The Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art is showing a retrospective on Tooker starting May 1 through Sept. 6. The CMA also released a mini-documentary about the artist. You can watch the first part below and see the rest on the CMA's YouTube page.

Check out these adventurous plein-air artists based in Minnesota. In the dead of winter, Mike Rada and Scott Lloyd Anderson like to paint and do a little ice fishing simultaneously. All looks well above, but Mike recounts a time when tragedy struck in the frozen tundra. He was trekking across a lake with his painting gear when suddenly he heard a loud crack and plunged through the ice.

Fortunately, his backpack caught on the ice and it stopped him from going totally under. Mike managed to crawl away on his stomach but his clothes were soaked. Determined to paint and still bring home the catch of the day, he shed his wet overalls and hung them out his car window until they were frozen solid. Then he slid the frigid duds over his dry clothes.

The icy overalls served as a top-notch windbreaker. "As long they're frozen, you're warm enough to paint," Mike says. Read more about this intrepid duo and six other plein-air painters in the June issue of Southwest Art magazine.
Learn more:

• Land & Light Workshop: Capturing the Seasons in Oils by Tim Deibler
• The Painterly Approach by Bob Rohm
• Painting Mood and Atmosphere in Oils DVD by Carolyn Lewis
  

From Hilda Neily, in the June 1990 issue of The Artist's Magazine:

When you're just beginning to paint in an impressionistic style in oils, it's useful to exaggerate the color somewhat. On a sunny day, for instance, make the light places brighter than you think they are, then bring the work inside and see whether it looks like a sunny day. If not, exaggerate the color some more.

Learn more:

• See all our articles about landscape painting
  
• Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light & Color by Kevin Macpherson
• Oil Painter's Solution Book: Landscapes, Answers to Your Oil Painting Questions by Elizabeth Tolley