The Studio Blog

Notes from the studio on painting, collecting, and living with art. Simple, practical thoughts on choosing pieces you’ll love, and reflections on why certain scenes stay with us.

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Choosing Art
From the Studio
Living With Art
Understanding the Work

Bird Paintings: Why Stillness Makes Them Feel So Personal

By James Redding | October 9, 2026

A customer once chose a hummingbird painting for her mother in less than two minutes from a phone screen. The reaction when the gift ...

Framing a Painting: What Needs a Frame and What Does Not

By James Redding | October 6, 2026

A man called the studio in some distress. He had ordered a canvas giclée as an anniversary present. The date was four days away. ...

Autumn Paintings: Bringing October’s Light and Color Into Your Home

By James Redding | October 2, 2026

In October, a familiar road can suddenly become the prettiest part of your day. Leaves gather along the edges. Trees you barely noticed in ...

Floral Paintings and the Quiet Problem of Painting a Flower

By James Redding | September 29, 2026

Every Friday for eleven years, Margaret bought herself flowers on the way home from work. Grocery store bunches, mostly, whatever looked decent that week. ...

Caring for an Acrylic Painting Over the Long Run

By James Redding | September 25, 2026

A woman emailed the studio about a piece she had owned for nine years. She was moving house and wanted to know, before the ...

Where to Hang a Painting: How High and Where It Works Best

By James Redding | September 22, 2026

The painting arrives, the wall gets chosen, and then somebody is standing on a chair holding it while somebody else squints from the doorway ...

Calming Wall Art: What Actually Makes a Painting Restful

By James Redding | September 18, 2026

A nurse who worked nights bought a painting for the wall opposite her bed. She had scrolled through hundreds of pieces labeled calming wall ...

Why the Cardinal Keeps Coming Back

By James Redding | September 15, 2026

A woman wrote to the studio one January asking for something red. Her kitchen window looked onto a feeder, and the cardinal that visited ...

The Role of Light in Painting

By James Redding | September 11, 2026

Two paintings can show the same field and feel like different countries. One glows at dawn and lifts you. The other sits under flat ...

The Witness Tree: 200 Years of Franklin History in One Painting

By James Redding | September 8, 2026

Locals call it The Witness Tree. It stands on the grounds of Carnton in Franklin, Tennessee, an Osage orange of roughly two hundred years, ...

What Makes a Scene Worth Painting?

By James Redding | September 4, 2026

Ask how artists find inspiration and you rarely get a straight answer. Inspiration does not always arrive as a dramatic landscape, a memorable occasion, ...

How to Commission a Painting

By James Redding | September 1, 2026

A woman once wrote in to ask whether she could commission a painting of the farm where she grew up. The barn had come ...

Painting Historic Buildings Before They Are Forgotten

By James Redding | August 28, 2026

A stone mill on the Brandywine. A stucco cottage behind a wildflower garden. Then a red barn and fieldstone farmhouse in the Bucks County ...

How a Self-Taught Artist Built a Career Without Art School

By James Redding | August 25, 2026

Most painter biographies open with a school. A degree, a mentor, a program with a reputation attached. James Redding's story starts somewhere very different. ...