Blogs, Can anyone help?

I am very excited about the new possibilities that blogs are giving artists to reach an audience. For instance Blogger just made it really easy to add video, so I am going to try that. I want to post some video of opening night. I am also trying Feed Blitz so people can sign up to get email updates when I make a new post on my blog. I would love to connect more with readers, it would be motivating. Although blogging helps me even if no one is reading because when I need to write an art statement or talk about a particular painting I am ready. I have already figured it out in my blog.
Though I feel like a foreign tourist in a country where I do not know the language with these blogging features. I don't know how to change the look of the email sign up or exactly how it is all going to work. But I figure dive in and maybe I will learn to swim.

Tree of Life

I am working on this large 48" x 36" painting for the show. I am happy that it is turning out because I think this larger piece will break up the space in the gallery and look nice with my mostly medium to small works. I was somewhat formulaic with this piece because I really wanted to finish it in time for the show. I did not plan what the images would be around the tree but I began drawing stain glass type shapes around the tree and then "found" animals etc... while painting. It is quite monochromatic in color scheme but I think it needs to be so that it is not too busy. This photo is on the yellow side, I will take another one when it is finished.

Show Title Type

Wow, the middle of August. I think time is on fast forward.
I spent a lot of time on the type for the publicity material for the show. I think typography is like metal working for jewelry. You can continually sand and polish or quit at many various stages in the process.

Another combo.

I think it is between this one and the one on the top of the next set of three.

Pushing it

Getting Ready

As a graphic designer, I am really interested in designing the wall and poster type for the show. Here are some type treatments that I am considering. Which one do you like?
I can't believe there is just one month left to get everything ready for the show. The postcards need to be designed soon so they can be printed and mailed. I am so glad my husband has been making frames early. I will have a lot of running around to do at the end of August to pick up artwork from different patrons and venues.
I understand what Gary Borse was talking about when he said he could not wait to get back to the easel after his big show was over at the Capitol in Tallahassee.

Logistics

We are really getting into the logistics of the show now: making labels, filling out insurance forms, hiring a caterer, etc... My husband and I are making frames for the remainder of my unframed pieces. A corner clamp from www.woodworkers.com is wonderful but working in our hot, un-airconditioned Florida garage is not.
I am still hoping to do a couple of new pieces but I don't know if I will have time. Especially with my older son out of school and camp.
I have been thinking of Matisse and how his figures are immersed with nature. Many times the environment in his paintings are just as important as the figures. They all are vital parts of the composition. I can't wait to work in that direction. When I get time again.

Writing on the Painting

I have been writing short sentences to go with all of the paintings for the upcoming show. I am really more excited about that aspect of the show than any other. I have never done any creative writing beyond elementary school so I feel like a folk artist in that respect. I don't know if I am making obvious mistakes or not. Ignorance is bliss I guess. I am really curious how people are going to react to them. When my husband read one, he said "what does that mean?" and started making interpretations I never thought of. I think that is a good sign the writings match my art, ambiguous. Getting out of my comfort zone and entering the unknown is making the show more exciting and fun. If I ever get bored showing my art, I will have to remember to try something really different for me such as sculpture.

Poppies

This is the latest painting that I am working on and I feel that it represents a breakthrough. After looking at Chagall's and Odilon Redon's work, I wanted colors to stay in their own areas in the painting. The placement of the colors is forming the composition and is not dictated by the imagery and forms. I am also resisting the urge to disperse the colors equally over the painting. I still want to work more with the yellow areas and the small flowers but keep them soft and distant.

Internationl Exhibition

The online catalogue for the 10th international acrylic society exhibition is now at the following address: http://www.isap-usa.com/isapinternational/
My painting is in the galleries under Artists A-B
I was so happy to be juried into this show especially since I have been getting a lot of rejection letters lately. Gainesville is a competitive town for artists.

Man by the Sea

This painting did not flow from beginning to end like the last two small ones did. I ruined the colors making them too light and dark and then had to wash and sand them off and bring the forms back. What is amazing is how many sail boats and faces started appearing. That mystery of the creative process and how something develops never stops intriguing me. But as a painting I don't think the composition and color is as strong as in the last two. And I wonder if people will stop to see all that is hidden in this painting.

Free to Run

I really enjoyed showing for the art walk this past Friday night.
I am happy with this little painting too.

Island Shell

Composition - I feel like I am moving into a positive direction with compositions. I am starting with shapes of color and gesture marks to define spaces unlike before when I was starting with splashes of paint and texture.
Mediums - I haven't mastered where I want to go using the different acrylic mediums. I want the pieces to have thin washed areas and thick grainy areas like mixed media work. I used to be better at this than I am doing now, I would work a lot of wet into wet and wash everything off if it got to heavy. I would also use paper collage and stamping techniques. I am being too heavy handed with a brush now and getting that thick plastic look acrylics can have.
Color - I am happy letting colors stay in their areas of the painting. I once thought that all the colors had to be spread over the entire painting to unify it. So for instance a big face can be blue on one side and red on one side and yellow on the top to relate to its area of the painting not a face that is all blue with red shadows throughout and yellow highlights. So for this Island Shell painting, I started moving the yellow green around the painting but resisted the urge to put the white in another area and the teal in other areas. I guess it really is a matter of not over working.
Writings - I started writing short sentences to go with my paintings for the show. It is fun and comes really easy and fast. For some, I think a little bit about what I was feeling and thinking about at the time of the painting. For others it is just my interpretation of the image. It seems the more ambiguous the painting the easier it is to write for them. Making my nonlinear dreamscape type of compositions seem more valid. This is the writing for this piece: "The hot tropical night anticipates treasures for tomorrow."

photo by Sam Carr

Emotional Roller Coaster

Participating in art festivals can really be an emotional roller coaster ride for me. The one that I was in this past weekend was a first attempt in a new location and did not have a big crowd. I do not sell well in these types of local festivals. I think people who have art and photography that is about the local environment fair much better in these situations. And even with the locally inspired art, it has to be of high quality and creative to get noticed and bought. Low cost and functional art also does well. I need a more targeted audience for my work or millions of art lovers attending so that I can filter out my audience. It takes so much effort to set up and prepare for any festival even if it is not well attended or small. So after you have done all of the preparation and paid booth fees it is hard not to get your hopes up for selling. I won an award on Saturday so that lifted my spirits but after sitting in the heat all day Sunday and not having any interested customers. I started feeling pretty low again. What I didn't know that was on that very same Sunday I had sold a major painting at the restaurant that shows my work. There is always just enough success to keep me going and think my ship is going to really come in at any moment.
But after talking to Norman Jensen Saturday night, I have decided that I just need to get comfortable and settled in for the next 20 to 40 years. (However many years God allows.) Get in a place that my family likes and find a part time job for money and settle in to paint. Just be happy painting as a lifestyle and not be anxious for success. And let paintings go. Give them to charity or as presents or destroy them. I don't have to sell everything in order to make more and continue on my path.

Not Just Eye Candy

From the Painter's Keys Blog

'Eye candy'

by Adrian Deckbar, New Orleans, LA, USA

I teach at Tulane University as a Professor of Practice, often I use the squinting technique all the time, in teaching and in my own work. However, I am in a dilemma. Mel Chin recently visited Tulane and lectured and gave a power point presentation and cracked jokes--the whole schtick. He suggested that realistic painting with no political message is "eye candy." I am struggling with that notion. I hear his voice over my shoulder as I paint. Any advice?

(RG note) Thanks, Adrian. All art is confectionary of a sort even when it is political or when it is meant to shock. There is a place for all art but it is commonplace for conceptual, politically- or ecologically-motivated purists to debunk skill-driven realistic art.


My Response

The click back about eye candy and the lecture by Mel Chin really struck me. I create art to nourish others' souls and mine. If all of the art I saw, books I read, music I listened to and plays or dance productions I attended were politically charged, I would be depressed. I love thoughtful content but I think shocking art or political statements are not the only valid ones.

Always Learning

I am varnishing all of the paintings I have done over the last few months and I am starting to appreciate some of them more and more. I see that I have been in an expressive brush stroke phase. Doing more brushstrokes I believe is a result of attending the Skip Lawerence workshop. At the time I didn't know what if anything I was getting from that but I did grow and change. And brushstrokes were not his focus for the workshop. My earlier acrylic paintings were more like watercolors because I was using lots of fluid medium. I would like to do some paintings that combine the two more successfully. Lots of variation with thin washed areas, brush strokes with heavier paint and maybe even some collaged paper. With all of that, I have learned the shape and composition will need to be simpilier.

A Time for Compassion

What does anyone think of this new painting? I think maybe it is too cutesy. I am wondering why I am not getting the unique results of former mixed media sketches in my paintings. One theory I have is that I am getting too heavy handed with paint too soon. I like some of my former paintings that started as liquid subtle washes really watery paint mixing out of control and then I clarified with purposeful heavier strokes. I am anxious to try again but I need to get ready for two upcoming shows May 5th and 6th.



Speaking of cute. I can't resist posting my two sons photo from yesterday.

Houses in the Wind

This painting will always remind me of hearing the news of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Ironically, I was thinking of the houses I painted while being a graduate student at Radford University near Blacksburg, Va. yesterday morning and finished this painting yesterday before I heard the news. My husband got his undergraduate degree and did his post doctorate at Virginia Tech. I always think of it as being home, I didn't want to leave when we moved to Florida. My thoughts and prayers are with all of them there.

Juried Show

I had a painting accepted into the tenth annual International Society of Acrylic Painters exhibition to be held in the San Luis Obispo Art Center in California, May 5 through June 17. So it will be showing if I can follow the shipping instructions correctly. I wish I was going to the California coast with it, sounds fun.
My husband says I am not as excited as I should be. For me I would feel more validated if it was one of the pieces I am working on now. I have gone back to finding a narrative during the painting process, I feel this is the way I want to work the most. The accepted piece was from last year when I was working on composition and not allowing myself to find images. But it is one of my favorite pieces from last year and I know it came from me and was a result of my previous work. So I fell good about the piece. What I am really excited about is that I get to send a brochure for the gallery's binder. So on that I can put other work and my blog site and hopefully get some feed back. I have been rejected from the juried show at the Thomas Center Gallery here in town lots of times so this is much better than that. The first year I entered there, I had all three pieces accepted but zero since then. Those first three were single figures with layering not narratives. So I worry that my narrative work is not serious-looking enough to be accepted into juried shows. But I don't want to comform just keep following my path.