This is a good start to the new year, painting a self portrait.
We all feel like we’re racing around to get everything done, continually multi -tasking in every way….
Life should be about those special moments… not about who gets the most tasks completed in a day. When your ninety and your sitting on the porch… I’m pretty sure you will not be saying, “I wish I would have cleaned more, worked harder or been more productive”. I do think you will be saying, “ I wish I would have kissed more babies, played with a puppy or painted something when ever I had the chance.
Boy oh boy!
I got a new printer and it’s wireless so it took me about two hours to get it to work. You know… I love technology but not when they make it so difficult even the support team couldn’t figure out how to make it work. After I hung up with them, I took the dogs for a walk and thought a few things out, came back tried those things and voila it worked!
Now I can print from anywhere in the house without wires! Hopefully I won’t have problems with it because I didn’t write anything down and won’t probably remember every step I took to get it up and running.
Tonight’s project runway’s finale, I’ve been following it it on BRAVO, and I can’t wait to see who wins! I like the show because I like to see what the designers come up with. Make it work!
Most artists struggle. Either they can’t seem to get down their vision of what they want or they don’t know what they want, (they’ll know it, if they see it). I think this struggle is part of the process. Its too bad because of this constant push/ pull it sometimes seems not to be worth the effort. Its why some people give up doing their art. Also, I see people giving up their art because they don’t have enough buyers. Buyers equate “good artist”. No buyers (not counting family and friends) means not a good artist. This definitely is not the case.
We live in an age when people will buy a Persian rug for their dining area, cover their sofa in silks, and import tiles from Italy to decorate their home tastefully and expensively, yet these same people will have pictures of art rather original art on every wall in their house. They will pay more for a custom frame and mat then for an original piece of art. Go into any model home these days, same thing, prints everywhere. (Please, I have nothing against prints.. so don’t write me justifying your print purchases) Most from 18th and 19th century artists. I guess they feel pretty good or safe rather, that this art cannot be denied as good art. It has stood the test of time. The truth is… I think people don’t trust their own judgement when it comes to choosing art. They need someone to tell them what is good art. All they have to do is trust their inner voice that says “I love this” but they don’t trust that little voice so they listen to experts…But who? do you trust Gallery owners? Especially when they are getting 50% of the profits? Do you trust your own decorator who is going to choose a piece of art because it matches a sofa? You have to admit, even I may not pay some of the high prices for some art, especially when it appears to have been painted with a stick or a rag. People don’t like to be taken advantage of and they don’t like to admit they don’t “know” art. The other problem is a simple one, people don’t appreciate original art in the US as much as in many other cultures around the globe. Now as in the past, Art was OK as long as it was something to do as a hobby but not as a career. It isn’t real work. We have a very strong work ethic in this county and some parents often put creativity in the back seat while encouraging productive hard work, left brain thinking.
So, if we don’t buy original art and we encourage our kids to do anything but become artists, and we don’t support the arts in schools what we are we saying?
Its no wonder today’s artists may feel as though it isn’t worth the effort, that the struggle to produce good art is just that, a struggle. As an artist I’ll remind you, of a few important things.
1. Its takes a very long time to become proficient at something as complex as art.
In fact, if it were easy, would you still even want to do it?
2. Don’t take the advice from lay people. They won’t help you, even if they have good intentions.
3. Be a lifelong student, don’t plan to figure it all out right now. It really is about the journey not the destination. Its a journey for one, just you.
4. Do whatever you enjoy doing, even if no one buys it. Hey, its cheaper than therapy.
Here I am sitting for a minute before I start the painting…..probably wondering what will I paint next. Often, I plan, plan plan, but once I start, I usually forget the plan and just let the painting decide what it wants to be.
Here are some small pieces of paper waiting for me to just get a few minutes to start a painting. I think I was gessoing these .. I usually do the priming in an assembly line because it can get messy.
I don’t like to store all of my seldom used items in my painting area preferring to keep it tidy. Especially since My painting area is small.
Behind all these completed paintings are several things, a big box of mat board, slides, a light box and related equipment ( some things I can’t seem to throw out even though I haven’t used them in years) and framing supplies. Also framed bios which are ready to be hung with my photo for outdoor festivals or street shows.
I have a small TV in my work area that I can watch. Often I will watch DVDs or videos of other artist’s painting or giving instruction. Its a good way to learn and its very easy to trade DVDs or videos with other artists so you can always have something new to see and possibly learn a new trick of the trade.
This is a walk in closet that I keep most of my frames and also larger framed paintings. Many of these paintings are stored here after being in a show or in a gallery. As you can see… I also store my Bike here to keep it dry and clean.
Here is a sneak peek at many of my small paintings just waiting for someone like you to buy. They are stored flat and by size. I have four big drawers full of Daily painting.
This is my little area that I use to pretty much do everything from painting to shipping. The green cabinet straight ahead is of course my flat files with all of my stored paper which I buy in bulk, all of my customer information and my daily paintings, also many larger works and drawings. I got this flat file at a newspaper that I used to work for because as most of you know newspapers now use computers. Of course I’m old enough to remember when back in the day they did something called “cut and paste ” these files were used to store all of their materials for this job. These flat files became obsolete and if your lucky, you’ll get one for next to nothing from your local paper. These large files are sold for $500.00 in most artist’s catalogs. On top of the flat files is my mat cutter ( I highly recommend the Logan 650) but from this distance you can’t see it very well… also along the sides of the flat file are stored all types of supports and foam core. My router is on top of the flat file and my computer is across the room on a small table I use to package the paintings and get them ready to ship out.
This large cabinet is full of art books, sketch books, video tapes and DVDs of art instruction and art history books. I really love these books and go thru them on a regular basis.
This is a photo of my daily painting table with my dog SAM lying underneath. I have three large dogs and there is always one under the table as I’m painting.
If you go to watch my video on Utube this part of the video is bascically black because it’s evening and a black dog in the dark is a dumb thing to video unless of course he opens his eyes.
This is a table I use for pressing the daily paintings. I also do most of my own framing and matting for the watercolor paintings. I will usually send out larger works for shows but most smaller paintings I’m comfortable with matting and framing myself if I have time. The square item at the-top right is what I use to flatten out the small paintings. I place the painting right side down in between paper towels inside the little press. Then I use books or heavy objects to keep it weighed down till it drys.. the final result is a perfectly flat painting, ready to mat. All you need are two boards connected with a hinge. This was my brother’s idea, I used to just put a lot of books on top of the paintings which were placed inside of paper towels.
My cat is my best critic… she watches and comments.. Everyone’s got an opinion!
I had a plan to up load a video with music or some fancy editing but as luck would have it no time… so if you would like to see my work space you can go to YOU TUBE and I uploaded a soundless video of my painting space you can look for it by going to youtube.com and putting in “Shantiartist” and my studio tour should come up. I was really under the gun today so I didn’t have time to really put much together. I hope you have enjoyed this slice of my life and a view of my work area.
HERE IS MY PAINTING FOR TODAY…. DID YOU THINK I WOULD FORGET? <a
I laughed out loud when I watched this… Thanks to David Darrow for pointing out this utube video. They have them on other topics too. I’ll never be able to sit with artists and discuss art again without thinking about the dog and his prints.
This painting is a triad painting, one yellow, one red, and one blue was placed on the paper with water and allowed to mingle. Where by the artists sees what is happening and decides what the painting wants to be. In this case I saw trees and cabins. Of course I’m sure I was influenced to paint this because I was in the mountains. I would venture to guess a lot of folks who think of triads think the colors have to be primaries but this isn’t the case. The yellow was Naples yellow, the blue was Andrew’s turquoise, and the red was actually burnt sienna. So you see the colors just have to be in the family of the three primaries to work.
Boy, did I have an adventure this morning. A big thunder storm pass thru here last night dumping a ton of water into the creeks. As luck would have it, I took my three labs down to the park which has a lake on one side and many small creeks leading down to the water. It was wet and I knew no one would be there. I let them off the leash to run and play for awhile. Its difficult at times to exercise these dogs especially if I’ve been sick. Well, as we are strolling along the dogs see a Beaver…
All H E double hockey sticks breaks loose…It took me ten minutes to get those dogs away from that poor creature. There I was standing up on a trail looking down into the creek bed. I’m thinking a Raccoon or Possum must be down there. I hear growling and barking, nothing too serious I can tell by their movements. While I can only see something brown and wet trying to get away from the three dogs I stumbling along the slick edge. Then I see them…while they circled him and nipped the poor little guy, I decide its time to intervene. I’ go tromping thru the underbrush and the wet rocks to get down there. The Beaver( he was about 40 lbs) couldn’t get away because he was in a very small creek bed and the beaver is apparently pretty slow on land. There wasn’t enough water for him to swim to get away so they sort of had him cornered. Finally I’m down at lease at their level in the water, I was calf deep in the creek mud, sand and water are rushing by me (good thing I wore my CROCKS) yelling to the various dogs but they are all insanely intent and not listening. Hmm…I think I’ll have to try to get one dog at a time… I knew Sam would listen to me as he is the best dog. I call for him and reluctantly he comes back & I tie him to the bridge nearby. Then my little yellow lab who is mostly afraid of everything including this beaver, He easily comes to me but is still very curious and is dashing about, first to me then back over to check out the action with the beaver then again back to me. Now that I have the two males secure, I know I’m going to have a bit of a struggle with the last dog. While going back for her I notice the Beaver is steadily moving up stream in the creek with Missy right behind her. My female lab is a mix breed and has some Australian sheepdog in her blood. She loves to run, she loves to chase anything that moves. Every time the Beaver would move she would dart over and try to nip it then crouch down and eye ball it for a moment till it moved again. Needless to say I’m wet, the rocks are wet, the Beaver continues to go upstream so I’m having a time even catching up to them. Finally after some yelling to the dog, she stops. I’m really glad no one is around now because I look like that beaver looks all wet and hysterical. I try to figure out what is my best move now…while I watching them, the Beaver is only feet away from me and is between me and the dog. I’m afraid the dog will be bit, the Beaver occasionally turn around and shows the dog its teeth. Just like that, the beaver crawls under a rock, the dog listens to me and comes back with this ashamed “I’m sorry I don’t listen” look and I get her leash back on climb out of the creek and get the three of them out of there.
The whole time we were walking back, the dogs were all full of themselves. Prancing and sniffing, they were on high alert, heads held high like they had just been on a fox hunt… I guess they were still looking for more Beavers. I put them in the car figuring we all had enough exercise for one day.
Now we’re home, the house smells like a wet dog, the back of my Toyota Matrix is all wet and muddy, I smell like a wet dog and we all need a bath.
All this and it isn’t even 8:00 am…Just another summer day in South Carolina.
Today in our art league painting session all of us were talking ACEO’s and everyone is very interested in making them. My Friend Nance has been making these great Collage ACEOs which I may try to show you some time. I went home & decided to do a little pen and Ink with watercolor ACEO. I didn’t have much time to get anything together and as I got out my paints.. My cat was sitting on the window, she instantly became the subject.
Chubbs is a special cat and I have many many drawings of chubbs but only a few actual paintings. I think its because she is really a beautiful cat and I can’t do her justice. Looking at her from the back she looks like just any old cat. She always reminds me of a bowling pin. It makes me laugh! She weighs only nine pounds so the name doesn’t actually fit any more. The thing is…when we named her, she was a very fat kitten but we found at least two of the pounds are just fur. She is one huge fluff ball.
She sits at the Window like so many cats and watches the birds at the feeder or in the bird bath which is just outside the glass. She is ten years old now and I love the fact that I have many good memories with her. I love dogs and have three but there is only one Chubbs.
She is actually a black and white rag doll kitty but from the back you would never know. Her trademark is a little Hitler mustache.
I hope you like this little ACEO, its for sale for $15.00 + 1.50
Shantmarie@aol.com if interested.
Can you believe it? There was a speck of dust on the scanner when I scanned this painting. I’m sorry, I’ll try to take another picture of it soon.
I painted this little guy yesterday, in fact I painted about five of them. I’m working on several paintings and a collage right now which I’ll post when I get it finished. Of course, I have one large painting I’m also working on. Since I wanted to make sure I’d have some paintings to post, I painted some ACEOs for my daily painting site. I’ll put one up each day so you can see what I’m up too. I am working on some abstract paintings too, on gessoed paper, I love the texture!
In case your wondering…My larger work is on another blog and its more like a painting a week, ( if I’m lucky) you can see those pieces at: h20color.wordpress.com if your interested. I don’t like to rush my really Big paintings. I really think and think and think about those paintings.
I work and rework the bigger ones because I usually put several in a few big competitions each year. These smaller works are sold on line in my ebay store or at DP ‘s website which is….. http://www.dailypainters.com take a look around if you have a minute.
If you haven’t seen an ACEO go to ebay and put in the letters ACEO and see the avalanche of paintings that are offered. Some are prints but many are originals. They can be fun to collect! Also there is a whole cottage industry that has sprung up with all the supplies to make the ACEOs. They even sell frames, books, sleeves, & albums. Collectors love to buy stuff. Makes ya think.. Hmmmn
I’ve been painting a lot of figures lately so I thought I would include a figure in my next ACEO… Here it is… $10.00 + shipping… worldwide.
I was tagged yesterday by fellow artist painter Ronda Carpenter, so now I must tag seven other folks in the blogesphere and I have chosen:
I don’t know who started this tagging thing but I figure I’ll do it this time, I know people hate chain letters and such but perhaps this may generate some interest in the art blogs. Besides picking seven blogs I also have to tell seven things about myself. Some of the things should be a secret. Hmmmnnn
1. I’m 52 and also five foot two,
2. I like email but hate phones
3. I don’t like crowds or loud noises
4. I payed flute in college and was a Music Major for three years.
5. I have three daughters .
6. I’ll remember a face but cannot remember anyones name.
7 I payed banjo in an old time band while in college.
2. Edward B Gordon …http://www.edwardbgordon.blogspot.com/ is my next choice. I love his work because even thought it is realistic, it has an abstract quality to it. Lovely color combinations and a real feel for putting figures in paintings. I can almost see what the people are thinking by his use of body language and expression or lack there of.
3. Nanch Poucher …http://poucherpastels.blogspot.com/ I love her landscapes and seascapes! The colors are vibrant without being raw and you can almost feel the softness of the pastels… they are so rich in texture.
4. Toni Grote …http://www.artisttonigrote.blogspot.com/
Toni’s paintings are wonderfully filled with fun! The shapes and forms she chooses to fill her landscapes with are so perfect and her compositions are great.
5. Nicole Wong …http://thesundaypainter.blogspot.com/ I ‘m always amused by the subjects in Nicole’s work, her animals have attitude and her ladies are always fair and intriguing. Great ACEOs!
6. Cecilia Price http://artmaker-cecilia-price.blogspot.com/
Cia as folks call her is the founder of serious watercolor and is very active in the watercolor world. She paints wonderful Iris and other florals and her use of color is interesting and unique.
7. Andrew Taylor …http://paint-gallery.blogspot.com/ I love his plein Aire paintings and simply adore his stain glass windows. I hope to see them in person one day.
This original painting is part of my “Ancient ritual” series I started last year. This is the third piece I have painted in this abstract series. The series explores the way people use ritual to commemorate time, history, events and significant changes in human growth. It is a spiritual series and yet it is also a comment on our cultures.
This piece is 3.75 by 5.75 inches and is for sale for $25.00 unframed. I will mat it for you if you wish. Neutral or white mats only. This new painting will be for sale tomorrow at: http://www.dailypainters.com/
I realize I haven’t been doing one of the things I started out to do with this blog. I always wanted to write a bit more about being an artist and the thought process and such. Like the hows and whys of picking out subject matter and how your stream of consciousness is affeced by seeing other art or just by viewing nature. I went to the annual “Spring into Art” show on Friday night and really enjoyed seeing the other paintings. After seeing what everyone is working on, I realize that we (each artist) are all on this quest, a mission of sorts. It seems like you can see each person’s progression and their Art is evolving almost like we are on different roads but they appear to all lead to the same destination. I’m not trying to get too “New Age” on you, but it seems as Artists, we do share an essential lifetime commitment of exploration, experimentation and discovery. Michael Angelo supposedly said at the age of 87 “Isn’t art grand, I’m still learning”. I have been painting for a long time and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t seem to learn something either a technique or new process or more importantly something about myself.
I found out one thing that has always been important to me and that is the use of color and how I react to it. Its not the same as other people, even other artists. Yes, most beginning artist are seduced by color, but I have been painting for 27 years and I still love bright intense pure color. There was a time I was almost embarrassed to admit it because it wasn’t the trend to paint with color that wasn’t greyed down and I, toeing the line painted paintings like everyone else with these greyed down colors and they were OK and people really did like them. But I asked myself, why do I paint and who am I painting for? Am I painting with my voice or the voice I believed to be mine. We all paint for customers and that’s just good marketing, but at the end of the day do you ever just create something that you enjoy regardless of its marketability or if your friends will like it?
The Koi are “MY” paintings and sometimes some of the other Lake paintings or nature paintings become my paintings when I allow my intuition to paint. As for many of these daily paintings, they are good exercises for keeping your technique up and they are also good for exploration. You don’t have the pressure to make everyone of them successful. If you have been reading this blog for a while you’ll see the good, the bad and the ugly. But since its a daily regime they get posted no matter what.
Nature has always been my inspiration, sitting besides my garden or walking thru the woods near the lake I get energized and a sense of wonder and beauty fill my senses so that I feel renewed. Other artists get this same feeling by being on a busy street in New York or wherever. The colors, sounds, smells and of course the light. All artist love light and the way it shapes things. I think most artists feed upon light, they use it as their inspiration. Since most artists are visual beings everything around them can be inspiration, the creative proces is a metamorphisis of sorts.
We take in things, they are internalized and mixed in with a jumble of life experiences and a bit of our personality and a few other influences and out of this something new is created. We call it art
Here I am sitting for a minute before I start the painting…..probably wondering what will I paint next. Often, I plan, plan plan, but once I start, I usually forget the plan and just let the painting decide what it wants to be.
