Mike Chambers

Painting

Gaps in Knowledge: What a Studio Cleanup Taught Me

For the past few months, I've been working on my craft—mostly concentrating on revisiting good practices that, for one reason or another, were abandoned or even forgotten. I'm focusing on the importance of composition, the benefits of a limited palette, and the rewarding discipline of…

Mike ChambersJune 6, 2026

Artists I love

An inspiring artist

My wife Sasi is an inspiring artist for me. But you already knew that if you know anything about us. She was the first real live artist I ever met way back in high school and I've been her #1 fan since then. Here's her…

Mike ChambersMarch 16, 2026

Painting of a plein air painter in the landscape

Landscape Painting

A Painting from the Land of Nod

If I could carry a painting of a dream in my pocket, it might look like this -- a tiny little 3 inch by 4 inch canvas showing a painter in a landscape. The image is a bit grainy. It's not quite realistic, is it?…

Mike ChambersMarch 4, 2026

Christmas Linocut

Christmas Parade

Every year I get a little misty-eyed about Christmas and what it means to me. And so I get to share my feelings with friends and loved ones in the form of a little family vignette captured in a Christmas card. This year's card is…

Mike ChambersDecember 19, 2025

Landscape Painting

Beginning Again

A long time ago I promised myself that I'd one day return to landscape painting. Have you ever made a promise to yourself? You gotta keep it! A couple weeks ago I bought a French easel, stocked it up with good brushes and paints and…

Mike ChambersOctober 6, 2025

Digital Art Figurative Painting

Soubrette

Leah, 2000 Soubrette, 2025 One of my favorite things to do is to read the Goings On section of the About Town page in the New Yorker. In this week's issue, I came across the word soubrette in a description of an actor's role in…

Mike ChambersJune 15, 2025

Digital Art Figurative Painting

From Bad Photo to Masterpiece: Fixing ‘Green Goddesses’

Green Goddesses, not a great photo Green Goddesses I was thinking about how to fix my painting Green Goddesses. I remembered reading a story about Jackson Pollock going into a house where someone had one of his paintings and he insisted on making corrections to…

Mike ChambersMay 17, 2025

Figurative Interior Painting Work in process

A Wrestling Match: Layers, History, and the Truth of Painting

This is my artistic process: my paintings and drawings are the result of a wrestling match between me and the canvas. During this process I rework, erase, and even turn everything upside down to correct things, repaint and retry. One of the unexpected things that…

Mike ChambersMay 29, 2022