Shows / Muddy Colors
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- Muddy Colors
Greige Economics
I have been car shopping recently, and I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but cars have gotten boring as hell. Most cars are now not a…
- Muddy Colors
Halloween Gallery
I love Halloween. The weather, the trees, the light, the Moon, the myths, legends, and creepy stories…all of it entices me to celebrate the spirit of the…
- Muddy Colors
You Are More Creative Than You Think
Hello, here is another video on the Big C and Little C (creativity). In this video, we take another look at what creativity really is, the difference between…
- Muddy Colors
SO YOU SAY YOU WANNA BE AN ILLUSTRATOR: Chapter 1
It’s weird out there for sure, and there’s a lot of change going on and major tectonic shifting to be certain. Coming up now as an illustrator is in many ways…
- Muddy Colors
The Lucas Museum
Look, I’m not saying that visiting the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was the only reason I have to visit Los Angeles…but I will admit it was…
- Muddy Colors
Answers Await 250 Miles Up
There was more to the recent Artemis II mission than just rounding the Moon for home. Besides the main objective, to observe and study with human eyes the far…
- Muddy Colors
Learning How to See Part 3: Training Your Eyes to See Past the Obvious
Do you ever wonder where an artist finds inspiration for unusual or fantastical subject matter? I spent a day at Alta Vista Gardens doing studies, slowing down…
- Muddy Colors
Donato Arts Open Studio – Saturday September 26, 2026
DONATO ARTS OPEN STUDIO 2026 Saturday September 26th 11am – 6pm 397 Pacific Street Brooklyn, NY 11217 Details on my website: https://donatoarts.com/news…
- Muddy Colors
Conversations with Artists: The Figure Society
The original feature article that I did on The Figure Society got lost to the web hosting tech gremlins. I did not have a copy of the original article, so I…
- Muddy Colors
Mistake or New Possibility?
I received a nice message recently with a question related to one of my previous articles here on Muddy Colors called “Guided by Marks and Pareidolia”. The…
- Muddy Colors
Cherish Your Motifs
I paint a lot of trees. I love their shapes and textures, they make for great compositional tools, and most importantly, they’re symbolically versatile…
- Muddy Colors
A Scientific Study on Art Careers
So it’s not often that PubMed and Fine Art cross paths, but I ran across this study referenced in something I was reading, and I think it’s…
- Muddy Colors
10 Things…About Planning Pictures
Gregory Manchess Start small. Thumbnails. Learn to draw them. Learn to use them. Learn to love them. What you design small will always blow up proportionately…
- Muddy Colors
Think You’re Not Creative? You’re Measuring it Wrong
What does it actually mean to be creative? Most of us have developed a very specific picture of creativity who has it, what it looks like, and what someone has…
- Muddy Colors
Reference, Exactly
Recently a couple of different students have mentioned to me that “they don’t get a chance to see artists’ reference side-by-side with their finals all that…
- Muddy Colors
Within each image are the contents of all that came before it
A few questions for the creative-minded individuals who might find themselves at times feeling pulled in different directions:   What does it mean to…
- Muddy Colors
Authors Looking for Non-AI Artists
I started working on an update for my oft-referenced How To Get Into Publishing post from 2017, but that’s turning into a bit of a monster overhaul, so…
- Muddy Colors
10 Things… Connections
I just finished the semester of SmArtSchool with Scott Fischer for our Team Teach class. Our guest this year was Sarah Wassell, art director with Wizards of…
- Muddy Colors
Learning How to See Part 2
Every artist you admire is looking at the same world you are — same light, same faces, same ordinary Tuesday afternoon. So why does their painting of a chair…
- Muddy Colors
Donato Arts Open Studio 2026
DONATO ARTS OPEN STUDIO 2026 Saturday September 26, 2026 11am – 6pm 397 Pacific Street Brooklyn, NY 11217 Another round, another year to the tradition!…
- Muddy Colors
Just Imagine: Exploring Graphic Markmaking in Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks provide an opportunity for artists to explore alternative mark making. There are creative painting instruments that have been introduced into my…
- Muddy Colors
Unraveling The Seen
Sharing a new painting and a moment of reflecting on.. well.. being human.   For me, creative time yields space for reflection while simultaneously also…
- Muddy Colors
Acrylics Part 3 – Practical Application
When I wrote Acrylics Part 1 & Part 2, I generalized for the sake of clarity. I shared how I control acrylics’ dry time and use medium in an unusual…
- Muddy Colors
On Edge: Leveling Up with Edge Quality
I spent much of my life self taught, so when I came to atelier training, there were a lot of things that blew my mind. I realized I had spent so much time…
- Muddy Colors
Curative vs. Transformational Fandom
Fantasy Art, or Fantastical Art, or Speculative Art — whatever it is that ties us folks together who both contribute and consume this blog — has some murky…
- Muddy Colors
10 Things…To Nail A Likeness
A handful of practical issues will improve your portrait work really fast. It comes from paying attention to minute details that many new artists miss. It’s…
- Muddy Colors
The Frog Bard Returns
  Awhile back, I made a post featuring a digital painting of a frog bard, serenading passers-by on a dusty medieval street. Today we are revisiting that…
- Muddy Colors
Learning to See
Have you ever wondered why some artists seem to notice things that everyone else walks right past? The truth is, learning to see has very little to do with…
- Muddy Colors
VILLAIN
Okay we are just about, as of this posting, a solid week left before the opening of VILLAIN, my 52 Weeks Project-style solo gallery show at Harman Projects in…
- Muddy Colors
Why Make Art?
*First, a disclaimer.. I know how that title “Why Make Art?” might sound. I’ve seen this type of question a lot in social media posts by artists in…
- Muddy Colors
Painting Warbreaker 2026
Some of my favorite jobs of my career have been those where I had the pleasure of working with Brandon Sanderson on one of his books. As an early fan of his…
- Muddy Colors
How to Learn Drapery Part 2 – A Labeling System for Common Folds that Artist’s Use
In figurative art, whether in illustration or fine art, artists frequently work from clothed or costumed models as their primary subject. While many receive…
- Muddy Colors
BE THE THING THAT’S MISSING
The weirdest and also most bewilderingly persistent truth in illustration and art is that we, (the artists), are the most arrogantly self-assuming people…
- Muddy Colors
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  Wraithmarked Creative has undertaken creating the most beautifully illustrated version of Douglas Adams’ novels from his Hitchhiker’s Guide…
- Muddy Colors
What was I painting (and composing) in the 90’s? (Buckle up!)
Many of you know I play guitar. I write mini soundtracks for process videos. That has been my musical outlet for years.   But there was a time when the…