I get up super early these days and ride my bicycle to the studio. This time of year it is quite cold and almost dark when I start. There are not too many people up yet and sometimes I feel I shouldn’t be either. The cars that speedily pass me this early are most...

Learning how to balance a painting's composition can be difficult. If you add in too many marks, the piece can become crowded, making it difficult for the viewer to know where to focus. Fortunately, there's a simple solution for this. Watch the video and let me know...

I became somewhat obsessed with this question early on and have been asking myself the same one for my entire life. In my current job of mentoring artists, I now help others find their own answers to this very same question. It is not necessary to even know the full...

I've been working on this painting that's been driving me crazy - I just haven't been able to make any progress on it. Today though, I finally had the breakthrough I've been waiting for! Watch the video and let me know what you think. Have you had any "breakthrough"...

I kind of cringed when I wrote that subject line. I used to think like this. In the past, usually when my art was not going so well, I would look outside of myself for answers. Maybe I hadn’t sold anything or was just feeling kind of unconfident about what I was...

I recently tried something new - I started working on a piece of canvas pinned to a wood panel. What ended up happening was totally unexpected and so cool! Watch the video and let me know what you think - what happened when you brought something new to your practice?...

I just started working on a painting and already it's looking pretty good. The problem with this is that it's too early for this piece to be anywhere near finished. In order to move forward I'm going to have to push the composition and in effect ruin the piece a bit....

I have just one thought this week and it keeps coming up again and again for me. It has to do with one of the primary, worthwhile reasons to make your art. It has nothing to do with what you hope to get out of it. Not monetarily. Not even notoriety. None of that. And...

Art making is so often a process of adding, removing, and then adding again. I do this constantly with lines, which are some of my favorite marks to make. Watch the video and let me know what you think - what are some of your favorite marks? In gratitude, Nicholas

Have you ever noticed that when you are making your art and it is all working out that it is almost as if you are not entirely there? You are driving the bus but it seems like you do not have to try very hard. Almost like it is driving itself. Art making sometimes can...