Dan McCaw

Artful Painter Podcast

Sep 25

Written By Carl Olson

Painting Purple Trees

Episode 45

Episode length: 1 hour, 24 minutes

Also available on:
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Dan McCaw believes that art is a “collaboration between the heart and mind.” The result of that often contentious, frustrating collaboration are paintings that expose the artist’s soul. Dan’s paintings are rich with thick texture, vibrant colors, and strong contrasts. As a contemporary impressionist painter, his works are highly sought out by collectors and people who love art. His paintings dance between the realms of representational, figurative, and abstract expressionism. Dan is always exploring, always experimenting.

I first discovered Dan McCaw about twenty years ago when I found his book, A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art, on the shelf of a Borders book store. Of course, Borders is no longer. However, Dan’s wisdom lives on in this rare and highly sought after book. This wasn’t just another how-to-paint book. Dan went beyond that. He explored such topics as opening your heart, rendering versus expression, developing a point of view, broadening your perceptions, enjoying your journey, and much more.

In our conversation in this edition of the Artful Painter, Dan continues his exploration of things that affect an artist’s growth. In a world where people are so quick to take sides and condemn those who do not agree with them, it certainly takes courage to create. Dan wants to help artists break out from the chains of oppressive, opinionated art-making dogma and learn to freely express themselves in their paintings. The challenge is much like that of a child who uses exuberant colors to paint a tree, but are crushingly chided for not painting the leaves of the tree the color green “like you are supposed to.” Dan McCaw is on a mission to help artists continue painting their purple trees.