Aaron Holland Fine Art

"Skill in handling pigment is necessary to create rhythmic feeling...

"Painting is like handwriting- the grace and swing in curves, ovals and the general rhythm in the line of written words is possible only when the hand easily and confidently makes the strokes. "

-Edgar Payne

"I believe I have had the most trouble with a portrait which I painted in installments -- the head on one canvas and the bust on another.

The housemaid stood the bust up sideways, and now I don't know which way it goes. Some authorities think it belongs with the breastpin at the top, under the man's chin; others think it belongs the reverse way, on account of the collar, one of these saying, 'A person can wear a breastpin on his stomach if he wants to, but he can't wear his collar anywhere he dern pleases.' "

Mr. Brian Lewis was my mentor for about three and a half years at the Bougie Studio (MPLS) where he instructed his students in classical drawing and painting techniques.

Brian's lineage as an artist comes also from the French Academic approach, specifically classical realism, or neo-classicism via Richard Lack (et al. Gammel). Brian is probably best known for his still-life and portraiture. He is in fact one of the finest portrait and figurative painters alive. He is also a well respected landscape painter.

I remember on weekends, or sometimes on a week-long vacation, Brian would take a sketching trip to Colorado or the North Shore or some distant, beautiful location with other artists and return with a bundle of small plein air sketches under his arm. All of us students would gather around to admire his paintings. These paintings would often become the subject of large-scale finished paintings like the one above. The picture(above) hung in the foyer of the Bougie Studio for a number of years while I was attending. Brian is currently instructing at The Atelier in Minneapolis, and is preparing for a one-man show which is to be announced.

For more information about Mr. Lewis or The Atelier tradition click here.