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Sue Halstenberg | American symbolist visionar painter

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Sue Halstenberg's paintings are vibrant portraits of love, beauty and healing energies. Her artwork is in Dr. Doreen Virtue’s oracle cards is also reproduced as stitchery kits, pillows and tapestries. Sue's art studio is in Ojai CA. Sue Halstenberg began her career working as a fashion illustrator for the Southern California department stores. A few years later she started her own business, accepting commissions for portrait and figure paintings in pastel and acrylic.

One of Sue's paintings, “Victoria”, was featured on the cover of American Artist Magazine and the Pastel Society of America, in New York City, juried her into their national association as a “Signature Member”. Well-known author Dr. Doreen Virtue asked Sue to paint five original pieces for the Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards in 2003. A dozen of Sue’s paintings have been included in Dr. Virtue’s Hay House projects. Sue’s original pastel of “Lakshmi” is in the collection of Dr. Virtue and now hangs in the healing room at her home. Sue paints and teaches classes at her art studio in the beautiful Ojai Valley of California. Her original artwork is on display in Ojai at Soul Centered and Janis’ Art Gallery, and in Ventura at Things From Heaven. Sue hold s a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in illustration from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Johan Messely 1927 | Belgian painter

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Johan Messely grew up in the artistic world of his father Paul Messely, also a painter, who served as his great example and motivation. After his studies into technical engineering and later photography, Johan settled as a proffessional photographer in Menen, Belgium, but eventually decided to turn painting from being just a hobby into his main occupation. Johan aims to create scenes in which the subtle play between light and shadow takes the central stage. His oil paintings are sunny and colourful, and depict optimism and the joy of life. They can be descibed as figurative art, but with an impressionistic touch. Apart from oil on canvas. Johan also has a passion for pastel, in which he depicts the woman in a natural pause. Again here, the combination of light and shadow are an important part of his work.

Watercolor by Takashi Akasaka

Takashi Akasaka was born in Yokohama in 1953.
After his graduation from the university, Takashi Akasaka worked for 30 years in architectural illustration.

But in 2006 he began to paint using transparent watercolor, so he had to learn a new way to paint using this artistic medium.
Takashi Akasaka had to change his point of view, going from illustration that must match the reality to the artistic watercolor painting where he wants to express the feeling of the scene and take care of composition and pallete to use.

Since 2009 he has had private exhibitions in Yokohama and he has already scheduled one exhibition for 2012 in Kyoto.


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Guido Borelli painting

Guido Borelli da Caluso is an Italian painter. He was born in Caluso in 1952. He comes from an artistic background, and his family always encouraged him to develop his talent, as early as childhood. He won a contest at 13 and held his first exhibition at the age of 17 at Ars Plauda Gallery in Turin. After high school, he received his artistic training at the Accademia Albertina in Turin. Today, he has permanent exhibitions in art galleries, in Italy, France, the United Kingdom and in the U.S.

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Markovtsev Tatyana painting

Russian painter Tatyana Markovtsev [Татьяна Марковцева] is becoming one of the most interesting artists-Minimalists of today. She is able to express powerful and complex human feelings just via a few elegant lines, capturing a wide variety of human emotions with amazing simplicity and clarity. Tatyana literally makes viewers feel the lines of her works. Now, her original Minimalistic style is finding many fans around the world.

Born and raised in Moscow, Russia, she immigrated to the U.S. with her family over 16 years ago, settling just northwest of Chicago. Tatyana, an engineer by trade, has never imagined that one day her works would have universal appeal and touch hearts of virtually everyone who has seen them. She only discovered a strong desire to drawing and begun her journey to mastery less than 2 years ago, 2010, completing over 200 works since.
Her truly unique, Minimalistic style brings lines to live, combining fresh elegance and dynamics of movement in each eternal moment. Tatyana is able to communicate complex emotions without ever drawing faces. She doesn’t name her works, believing that viewers should not be affected by her interpretation of the scene, but make their own minds. People often see themselves and their feelings or life situations in Tatyana’s art, making it relevant to many individuals.
She is masterfully using India ink on cold press paper and various materials to reach the hearts and minds of modern art lovers.


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Christina Nguyen painting

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Watercolor by Vivek Prabhukeluskar

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Thomas Benjamin Kennington (1856-1916)

Kennington was one of the founder members of the New English Art Club in 1886, and its first Secretary. He was well known for his compelling pictures of the urban poor, although he also painted less emotive scenes from everyday life, and portraits. The rich colouring, smooth handling of paint, and subject were probably inspired by the work of the seventeenth-century Spanish artist Murillo, who also painted poor children.

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The Wedding Dress

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Robin Erickson painting

Robin is a Fallbrook resident specializing in watermedia painting. She's been painting for 15 years and has studied with nationally known painters Judi Betts, Sandi D'Allesandro, Judy Morris, Ted Nuttall, Carla O'Connor, John Salminen, Sally Strand, and Donna Zagotta. Her work is a synthesis of realism and abstract design; her interest is in reflections, street scenes reflected from shop windows that can be viewed as layered abstractions.

She has received awards in watermedia shows around the country, and has attained Signature Membership in the American Watercolor Society, National Watercolor Society, California Watercolor Association, and San Diego Watercolor Society.

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Elena Yusheva painting

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Elena Yushina painting

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Francesca Strino painting

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Francesca Strino was born in 1979 in Naples, Italy. She comes from an artistic family. Francesca’s powerful paintings reflect the influence of her father, Maestro Gianni Strino. She began studying art at the ‘Artistic Lyceum’ and then furthered her studies by attending the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli with specialization in sculpture and portraiture. Strino became a pupil of the well-known master G Di Fiore whilst at the Academy. Her potential as an artist was soon recognized and she was invited to submit her work for an exhibition held in 2002 celebrating the 250th Anniversary the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli.


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Johanna Harmon painting

Johanna Harmon 1968 | American Figurative Plein-air painter

Born in Tempe-Arizona in 1968, american painter Johanna Harmon remembers being passionate about drawing from as early as seven years old. Unsure of how to apply her vast natural talent in her adult life, she went to work at a design and fabrication firm. In her mid-twenties she began taking numerous classes at the Scottsdale Artists’ School and would also attend workshops at the Denver Art Students League and the Fechin Art Institute in Taos. In the late 90’s she moved with her husband to Colorado and at 30 she set up a studio in her home to become a full-time painter.
Johanna paints her figures both accurately and beautifully. Observations and emotions are balanced within her canvases by her mastery of the formal aspects art and her reverence and compassion for her subjects. Her models are mostly females, they differ in their ethnicity and are often times dancers, mothers with their children and young women in contemplative poses. Since committing to a career painting full-time, Johanna has enjoyed a great deal of recognition. She has won numerous awards including the Plein Air Magazine Award of Excellence at the OPA National Juried Exhibition in 2005, the William Schneider OPA Award of Excellence in 2003, and Best of Show at the Scottsdale Artist’s School’s Best and the Brightest Show in 2001. Her work has been featured in such publications as Focus Santa Fe and Southwest Art and on the cover of Arizona Trends. She currently lives just outside of Denver, Colorado.

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Maria Ilieva 1973 | Bulgaria

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Edward Robert Hughes

Edward Robert Hughes (1851–1914) was an English painter who worked in a style influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism and Aestheticism. Some of his best known works are Midsummer Eve and Night With Her Train of Stars. Hughes was the nephew of Arthur Hughes and studio assistant to William Holman Hunt. He often used watercolour/gouache. He was elected ARWS in 1891, and chose as his diploma work for election to full membership a mystical piece inspired by a verse by Christina Rossetti's "Amor Mundi". He experimented with ambitious techniques and was a perfectionist; he did numerous studies for many of his paintings, some of which turned out to be good enough for exhibition.

Midsummer Eve :

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Alexi Zaitsev painting

Alexi Zaitsev was born in 1959 in Ryazan, Russia.
He graduated in 1983 from the Ulianov Art School and worked as a book and magazine illustrator at the Union of Journalists of the USSR.
In 1990, Alexi Zaitsev began to show his work at various fine art exhibitions and soon became one of the most talked about young Russian artists.

Alexi Zaitsev`s works are in the permanent collections of the Institute of the Russian Economy and Culture, the Russian Embassy in Ireland, the Russian Embassy in Hungary and The Art Centre of Belfast, Ireland.
Several of his works are in the fine art collections of major corporations such as Bayer AG (Germany) and Rand Xerox (USA).
He is held in the official art collection of the First President of Russia Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Kremlin, Moscow).


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Paul Hedley 1947 | British Figurative painter

Paul Hedley, british painter, was born in 1947 spending his childhood in Chatham, Kent. He studied art at Medway College of Art from 1966-68, and then later at Maidstone College of Art where he was awarded the Diploma in Art and Design. Paul Hedley has been painting ever since he can remember. An education based on traditional art techniques of drawing and painting plus the influence the French artists Edgar Degas 1834-1917 and Edouard Vuillard 1868-1940 have influenced the development of his art works.
Paul paints with compulsion, subtly influenced by his environment and daily experiences. Hedley is technically gifted as a painter and draughtsman. His paintings and drawings show a fine skill particularly in producing figurative studies of enduring compositions. He successfully captures a fleeting moment of time and the associated feeling. Paul prefers to create his art work in natural light, using sketches and photographs. The process begins with numerous preliminary sketches which eventually leads to the application of tone and colour. His drawings are produced in a ‘classical’ manner on a toned ground in chalks often combined with watercolour and gouache.

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Vladimir Volegov painting
Painted in 2005, Botanical garden in Malta

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Gavlin Evgeniy painting

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Oil painting by Osamu Obi

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Gianni Strino painting

Gianni Strino was born in 1953 in Naples, Italy where he currently resides. Strino studied fine art at the acclaimed Naples Art Institute winning the medal for the best graduate artist in 1970.After completing his studies at the Neapolitan Artistic Lyceum, he enrolled at the Faculty of Architecture. He taught art and art history in various state schools until the demand for his work allowed him to become a full time artist.
Strino knows how to treat his light and shade with an absolutely sure technique. His works today express the unique maturity of his talents. Though he is constantly seeking new expressions in art, Strino's art always sticks to the fundamentals of painting: exquisite drawing, composition and color. His obsession with form and tonal values give his work an old master rather than contemporary appearance. Expert handling of light and shade, as well as clear understanding of anatomy and composition, result in fine portraits that are compared to the company of his major influence, artist Agnolo Bronzino

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Art photography by Andrey Yakovlev and Lili Aleev

Works of masters of art photography Andrei Yakovlev and Lili Aleev leave no one indifferent. At first it may seem that this is a photo-realistic painting. In the recent work of the duo photographers Russians Andrey Yakovlev and Lili Aleeva, models were transformed into living paintings. With a refined technique of light and composition, the photographs have won one aspect of the artwork.


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James Tissot painting (1836-1902)

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902) was a French painter, who spent much of his career in Britain.

Tissot was born in the port town of Nantes, France, Europe, to a family of Italian descent. His father, Marcel Théodore Tissot, was a successful drapery merchant. His mother, Marie Durand, assisted her husband in the family business and designed hats. A devout Catholic, Tissot's mother instilled pious devotion in the future artist from a very young age.

In about 1863, Tissot suddenly shifted his focus from the medieval style to the depiction of modern life through portraits. During this period, Tissot found himself held in high critical acclaim, quickly becoming a successful artist. Like contemporaries such as Alfred Stevens and Claude Monet, Tissot also explored japonisme, including Japanese objects and costumes in his pictures. A portrait of Tissot by Degas from these years (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) shows him with a Japanese screen hanging on the wall.


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Helene Beland painting

Hélène Béland 1949 | Montreal, Canada

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Tan trường / After school
Silk painting


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Yuri Obukhov painting

Born in 1965 in Perm.
In 1987, he graduated from the Painting Department of the Penza Art College. KA Savitsky.
Works in the genre of landscape painting in oil painting and watercolors, continuing and developing the traditions of Russian realistic school, more precisely, the direction of "romantic realism".
Since 1989 - exhibitions in many galleries in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
1992. - An exhibition of watercolors in London.
1993 to 2006. - Participation in exhibitions of Russian artists in Finland, Sweden and the United States.
Since 1998 - the annual exhibition in the Central House of Artists in Moscow.

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Watercolor by Villas Kulkami

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Vladimir Volegov painting

Rolling Stones

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En Vacance
Marie-Francois Firmin-Girard [French Academic Painter, 1838-1921]

Marie-François Firmin-Girard was born on 29 May 1838 in the village of Poncin, a hamlet in the Ain region of France adjacent to the Swiss border. The landscape is comprised of a surprising variety of terrains from flat marshlands to rich agricultural plains to the Jura mountains. By age sixteen, the ambitious young artist had left his hometown to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Initially he sought out the guidance of Charles Gleyre, the Swiss painter, who offered a traditional visual arts curriculum in an independent studio setting. Later, Firmin-Girard would study with Jean-Léon Gérôme, the academic master of orientalism and anecdotal history paintings.

Throughout his very long career, Firmin-Girard enjoyed considerable commercial and critical approbation. His paintings, routinely shown at the annual Salon for thirty years, received frequent and positive critical attention. In 1874, Les fiancés won a second-class medal; and at the Exposition Universelle of 1900, he was awarded a bronze medal for Le Quai aux Fleurs and Berger d'Onival.

The last decades of Firmin-Girard’s life are less well known. Although his paintings continued to sell very well in commercial galleries and auction houses, he seems to have retired to the countryside at some point in the early twentieth century. Perhaps he felt the need to escape from yet another war between France and Germany as World War I began its downward spiral into ever-increasing horror; or perhaps he simply felt it was time to return to a quieter life outside of Paris. Whatever his reasons, Firmin-Girard moved to the small town of Montluçon in the Auvergne region, and probably not coincidentally, far south of the fighting in the north. He died there at age 83 in 1921.


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Yves Thos painting

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Yves Thos, is an accomplished designer, painter, graphic designer, illustrator. There is continuity between all his creations. Interestingly, there are very few biographies on this artiste. His works bridge the old master painters and the new energy colours.

His painting has been nourished by the requirements of his profession and that's what gives it personality so deep.

Frank Myers Boggs (American, 1855-1926) - Grand Opera House Paris

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AN HE painting

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An He was born in 1957 in Guangzhou, China. He was born into an artistic family. He was drawn to the arts at a young age, and was under the tutledge of his father, a highly respected artist and Professor of Art in Guangzhou. He later studied at the Fine Art College of Guangzhou, one of the top academies in China. Interestingly, his father’s top student, Guan ZeJu, later became An He’s teacher at the academy.

While attending the academy, An was invited to join the All China Artist Association, a top national organization only for professional artists. At the age of 24, he was the youngest member ever to be chosen. This was his first honor. Since then, his paintings have been widely exhibited in many cities throughout China. He also was commissioned to do hundreds of book covers and illustrations for publications. An He has won several National Art Excellence awards in China. Three of his works have been purchased by the Chinese government for the permanent collections on display in the Nationall Museum of Fine Arts in Beijing.

An He arrived in the United States in 1985, settling in New York before making San Francisco his permanent home in 1988. Specializing in figurative painting, he has become one of the most sought after artists in the country for his romantic paintings of women. An He’s tremendous admiration and respect for women comes through in all his work. There is a grace; a peek into the inner beauty of his subject. His women are usually caught in a moment of contemplation, sometimes in an opulent interior, sometimes in a garden. Ballet themes and musical instruments find their way into his compositions as well. His subjects are always breathtaking and timeless.

His style has been compared to the work of John Singer Sargent, bringing him tremendous attention from other artists, as well as collectors. He has also specialized in portraiture, and has been commissioned by collectors throughout the United Sates, Europe and Asia.


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Jean Beraud - Le Pont Neuf


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Yukio Kumasaka painting

枯れ色の野辺
Per field of color that withered


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Nicolae Grigorescu Romanian 1838 - 1907
By the Sea

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Anders Zorn painting

Anders Leonard Zorn (February 18, 1860 – August 22, 1920) was one of Sweden’s foremost artists who obtained international success as a painter, sculptor and printmaker in etching.


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Frits Thaulow painting

Frits Thaulow (Christiania, 20 October 1847 – Volendam, 5 November 1906) was a Norwegian impressionist painter, best known for his naturalistic depictions of landscape.


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Richard S. Johnson painting

Richard S. Johnson is an award-winning contemporary American painter based in Chicago, Illinois.

Johnson's style has been regarded as having the technical excellence of pre-Raphael Romanticism mixed with contemporary expressionism and abstraction

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Alexander Sheversky 1961 | Russian Realistic Figurative painter

Striking a harmonic balance between classical composition and modern disposition an original oil painting by Sheversky speaks to an appreciation for the vocation to contemporary realism. Each canvas is stately and monumental, extolling the virtues of discipline and emotion styled by the foremost of his teachers - Rembrandt and Vermeer. The interplay of light and shadow and especially Sheversky’s inherent understanding of light bring a life to the painting that resonates and lives before the viewer. Whether it is a figurative study or a still life its own existence is captured by the emotive values of light itself that the artist exhibits, thus embodying the living, omnipresent nature of the subject. And so a Sheversky painting espouses a marriage of the meticulous detail of classical technique to that which is clean, modern, and conceptually crisp.


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Lowell Birge Harrison - November Sun 1881

Lovell Birge Harrison (October 28, 1854, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 1929) was an American genre and landscape painter, teacher, and writer. He was a prominent practitioner and advocate of Tonalism.


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