Carnival Mural
New 2 Mural Project with John Gable. Currently Jack Gable and I are collaborating on a 2 mural project for a venue out of Maine. Here are some detail images of the work-in-progress. Jack and I are splitting the work, literally trading brushes back and forth as needed. After years of working solo, working side […]
Greeting Card Shop
My wife Jen Greta Cart has started an online greeting card shop with her very popular paintings at JenGretaCart.com. Her work is beautiful, a combination of real and fantasy, magic and quietly normal all adding up to a lovely charm. She has been painting for many years and has quite a following of patrons. And […]
Hallowell History Mural
The history mural has begun! I am designing and painting a new history mural for my home town of Hallowell, Maine. This is going to be 38 x 30 feet on an exterior wall at the north entrance to town. Chris Vallee has donated the north wall of his real estate building on 89 Water […]
feet studies
Feet, feet and more feet. Drawing this lower extremity is fun. Feet can be very expressive. We are used to hand gestures in paintings but feet can be story tellers too. I am working on a new dance painting where both, feet and hands, are very important. When you are eager to start a new […]
Street Art Show
Street Art Show, 7.5 x 13 inches, pencil on watercolor paper This morning I was digging through my flat files to find an older watercolor I did (Autumn Cemetery)—couldn’t remember if I had sold it or still had it tucked away somewhere. Anyway, while digging I stumbled over this drawing I had done at a […]
just sketching
Some evenings it is good just to sit and sketch or doodle. I like to just noodle around with a pencil and without trying to plan a new painting. If we get too locked tight, always producing, producing, producing, it is easy to forget to relax and just play. Drawing is just plain fun so […]
reviewing anatomy
While I am not a strict anatomist—I am perfectly happy to distort the human form if it fits my painting idea—I do, however, love the study of the human form. Changing the human form to fit my paintings is important. Nevertheless, it is very useful to go back and draw some muscles and bones. I […]
Art Podcasts with John Dalton
If you are looking for some interesting podcast interviews with artists from around the world you should check out John Dalton’s podcasts called Gently Does It. Kudos to John Dalton for all he does. His focus in on talented figurative painters. There are now over 100 interviews mostly with artists and some curators, the likes […]
Carpet Wall
Just added my new carpet to my studio–to my wall. I have a nine foot square wall built in my studio that I use for painting, as a permanent easel. I use it for large mural projects, well, small paintings too, and just pinning up reference drawings and the like.. My studio has slanted ceilings […]
Venus Exhibit Review
excerpt from article art review in New City: “In one of the most poignant pieces, New England artist Christopher Cart presents a nude woman turning away from her mirror in confusion and dismay—perhaps she just realized that she is no longer nubile. In another engaging piece, Polish artist Anna Wypych shows us a “Venus/Demon” who […]
Composition playground
Composition is one of those aspects of paint learning that will never be complete. You can never sign off and say, “Well, I learned that now on to painting”. Composition possibilities are endless and fascinating. An art friend and I were talking composition a bit ago, specifically joking about JPI–jolts per inch. In truth not […]
Making technique organic to the work
[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]One of my goals lately is to make my technique organic, to the story in the piece, not try to impose one technique or process on the entire composition, but rather to have each bit of the vision speak in its own technical voice. I mean if I decide to paint a scene in […]
The Seelie Story
watercolor, 12 x 16 inches, 1990’s I painted this back in the ’90’s after a night beach walk on Popham. While we were walking along the beach Jen told me a story about a seelie.
A paradox? A paradox?
A paradox? A paradox, A most ingenious paradox! We’ve quips and quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat this paradox! A paradox, a paradox, A most ingenious paradox. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, This paradox. Pirates of Penzance Gilbert and Sullivan Creating art is not your everyday affair. You have to […]
dreams of flying
Sometimes just playing with dark lines on white paper is the best. It feels like magic when you take a blank page and with a few spare lines you tell a full story. …and for now back to the brushes, with color and texture and shadow and ….seeya
less is less in a good way.
In the sketch pad lately I have been paring things down to the barest essentials. Trying to tell my stories with less and less. Merging forms; enveloping them in shadow and bleached out light. Or trimming things to the most essential lines. If it produces something good, well that is a plus but the process […]
judging art
I recently read someone’s comments concerning Jeff Koon’s enormous hyper-polished steel balloon dog sculptures. It got me wondering how we can or should judge art. I saw Koon’s gallery show in New York a while back with rooms of these brightly reflective, highly chromatic balloon animal creations. Now I could have reacted in several […]
Work in Progress
Here is a detail from a work in progress—an oil called At the Villa Paradiso (edit: the painting is finished now, Villa Paradiso). Some paintings slam into me, fully fleshed out and only needing to be “transcribed’ to the canvas, so to speak. Others evolve over time. This one has been evolving for several years. […]
Art Now
Anyone who has studied art in any depth beyond a couple of survey books of great masters knows that there has been tons of crap created in any period.
Portrait of Jenny
Shown and sold at the 2005 Contemporary Realism Show, Center for Living Arts, Mobile, Alabama. The use of wax medium (beeswax melted in turpentine) facilitates the more open treatment, allowing a watercolor like fluidity, while retaining the richness of oil. It is good for a sketch feel while you are working. This is my wife […]
