UK artist Mary Jane Ansell has been a finalist in the prestigious National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award in 2004, 2009 and 2010 (see my post on the 2011 BP Portrait Award).

Her portraits and other figurative paintings are elegant and highly refined, both in their paint handling and in her use of light to reveal form and texture. They can also feel intimate and, when she has her models engage the viewer directly, as she often does, they can be subtly piercing.

Most of her subjects are young women, though her formal portrait commissions are sometimes of men and she occasionally takes on still life subjects.

In all of her work she has a keen ability to use light and subtle color to focus your eye exactly where she want it and carry you through the composition in a very deliberate manner.

Many of her paintings have an narrative undercurrent, hinting at a story behind the moment.

Ansell’s website offers galleries of her work both current and from previous years, as well as a small selection of etchings. Though there is some discussion of her procedure for commissioned portraits, there is little information about her approach as a painter, save that she works in oil on panels.

Ansell is represented by the Fairfax Gallery and is a member of the PRISMA Artist Collective.

Boston based painter Sam Vokey paints still life, landscapes and portraits in a crisp, clear, realist style.

Though the surface of his paintings often looks refined, he never crosses over into the stiffness of photorealism, and maintains a painterly edge.

His palette ranges from muted to bright as the subject warrants. His still life paintings, in particular, have a wonderful quality of calm contemplation and careful observation. Vokey will often rearrange the same simple still life subjects into different, fresh compositions, playing with reflections and highlights in reflective objects.

I also admire the elegant simplicity of his handling of water in his landscapes. In those, as well as in his still life paintings, Vokey plays with value, at times choosing strong contrasts and at other times narrowing the value range to beautifully restrained effect.

On his website you will find several categories of paintings and prints, including portraits. Some of those combine elements of room interiors as well.

Vokey occasionally leads workshops, though it doesn’t look as though the page for those has been recently updated.

There are step-through demos of two still life paintings here.

[Via Jeffrey Hayes]

Arizona artist Matt Smith paints en plein air in locations across the Western U.S.

Smith studied in the Fine Arts program of Arizona State University, but somewhat disenchanted with the abstract emphasis of the program, pursued independent study of American Western artists like Maynard Dixon, William Herbert Dunton, and Edgar Payne. Smith has also studied with contemporary artists Michael Lynch, James Reynolds and Clyde Aspevig.

Smith finds particular fascination in the craggy, intricate forms of wind sculpted rocks, weatherbeaten trees and other highly textural aspects of natural erosion. He approaches these with a controlled palette accented with higher chroma passages, and deft handling of light and shadow.

Smith teaches for several weeks out of the year, and conducts workshops at the Tuscon Art Academy. There is a brief video of a 2011 workshop on YouTube.

He also offers three location painting DVD’s on his site.

Royalists to Romantics: Women Artists from the Louvre, Versailles, and Other French National Collections is an exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC that offers a chance to view paintings from European collections by women artist who were active from 1750 to 1850.

Unfortunately, the museum’s website doesn’t feature a preview, but Salon has both a review and preview slideshow. The artists bear further investigation should you care to research them on the internet (particularly Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun and Constance Mayer, two favorites of mine that I have not yet featured on Lines and Colors).

Royalists to Romantics is on display until July 29, 2012. There is a catalog accompanying the exhibition.

(Images above: Constance Mayer, Antoinette Cécile Hortense, Adrienne Marie Louise Grandpierre-Deverzy, Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard)