I don’t know how I managed to remain unaware of him before now, but I thank Still Dottie for clueing in me in to the work of Christopher St. Leger. His watercolours are simply stunning, and so I’m just going to sit here for a little while, stunned and admiring. Feel free to join me.

Online College has put together a great batch of links for anyone looking to expand their online art appreciation.  Not only do they feature PaintBlog in the “Medium Specific” category, but they also led me to these great watercolours by Belinda Del Pesco.

Stella Im Hultberg’s approach to her work is varied in both medium and style, though the same mysterious dark haired woman appears quite frequently in her paintings, suggesting a narrative thread that ties these works together. The result is an impressive collection of images that is both beautiful and captivating.

Culling together imagery from many sources, and blending multiple mediums together in a single work can be a dangerous practice in the wrong hands, but in Jenny Scobel’s hands the results are stunning and powerful works of art.

I love these vibrant and detailed paintings by Erin Ann McCarty, who according to her website is in her last year of school. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with after graduation!

Welcome to the first post of 2010!  To be honest, I was having a hard time trying to single one artist out for this first post of the year, so when I received a message about the Cuckoo Collection, a hybrid gallery/art project, I realized my problem had been solved. The Cuckoo Collection is a (mostly) online project featuring works by great artists like Mathew Borrett (see above image), Scott Griffin, Amy Bowles, and Phil Taylor (see images below the fold), so there’s a little something for everyone there.

Thanks Bettina for the link!

Also, thanks to everyone who’s made their picks already, and if you haven’t chosen your favourite featured artist(s) from the archives yet, be sure to do so in the comments here to be entered in PaintBlog’s first ever contest!

The play of light against dark is a well-worn tool of the artist, and Sam Wolfe Connelly uses it well, but surprisingly, he also seems to be applying this method to his sense of mood. I can’t help but feel a sense of lightness in even the darkest of his works.

Be sure to check out his blog as well, he has a lot of great in-process images there.

You could argue that Karla Wozniak is a cultural archivist as much as she is an artist (or is that the same thing?) While I find myself completely drawn in by her paintings, I’m equally repelled by the accuracy of Wozniak’s depictions of urban and suburban landscapes. Or maybe I’m just repelled by how ‘at home’ I feel in the landscapes she has created.  It might be time to get out of the city for a short vacation.

I couldn’t find much biographical information on Minchi’s site, but the incredible art makes up for it.  The paintings are a cross between the hyper-colourful black-light posters of the 60′s and the stylized figures found in Manga comics (o.k. I don’t really know much about Manga, but the scenes Minchi depicts are the kinds of scenes I imagine would be in Manga if I got around to reading some. Also, I wasn’t alive in the 60′s, so I’m kind of winging it on that reference too.) Anyways, enjoy!

Old stone farm houses often feel, to me, infused with their pasts.  I almost want to say “haunted”, but that isn’t right;  it isn’t a sense of the supernatural, but rather a sense of the past living with the present.  Jeremy Browne’s finely rendered portraits of stone farm houses capture that sense beautifully, giving each painted image a sense of history and timelessness.