My Winter Of Discontent

I won't lie to you.  I'm gonna tell you right up front that I dislike winter intensely.  As you should be able to tell from the photo above, summer is my favorite week here in Maine.  The more I think about it, the more obvious it has become that summer beats winter in every category.  I'll take a heat wave over a cold snap every time.  Why?  Well, for starters I don't have to scrape heat off my car's windshield in the morning.  I don't have to pay some guy to plow heat off my driveway so I can get out.  I don't have to shovel a path through the heat to get to my studio.  I save $3.58 a gallon every time my oil burner doesn't run.  I don't wonder if I'm dressed warmly enough to go out and check the mail.  And speaking of wearing enough clothes; going to the beach is alot more fun in the summer than the winter.

Now, some people say that heat makes people lethargic, that if it's too warm people just stand around and nobody wants to do any work.  That, I say, is just an urban myth started by people watching DOT road crews.  Everybody else is way more active in the summer.  You can actually see folks smile more because their faces aren't covered by ski masks.  Everyone has a spring in their step-- because their feet aren't weighed down by heavy boots.  Really, need I go on?

This winter has been an especially difficult one for me.  Somewhere under the four feet of snow in my yard lies my back.  I threw it out in January while shoveling yet another foot of snow and I haven't been able to find it.  So for weeks I've been walking around like someone who's looking for a lost contact lens.  As soon as I started to straighten up, I got hit with one of the worst head colds I've ever experienced.  Fifteen days of phlegm!  I was looking like a human mucus fountain.  At one point, I went through two new boxes of Kleenex in a six hour period.  (I should have bought stock in the company!)  The skin of my red, swollen, blistered nose had the same texture as pleather.  Every word I spoke had B in it, ie; "I'b jubst trybin' toob breathe-b!"

Needless to say, my work suffered.  It wasn't easy to stumble down to my frigid studio, warm it up, and get to work.  All I really wanted to do was lie crumpled in a corner with my boxes of tissues, a warm blanket and a hot toddy, and just let it pass.  If truth be told, I did just that on more than one day.  But you can only wallow in your own misery (and snot) for so long, so after a while I managed to suck it up and get back to work.

The good news is that tomorrow is the last day of February.  The bad, is that in Maine, March is the cruelest month.  As eager as we are for spring, we will undoubtedly have at least one or two more big snowstorms.  That's OK, though.   I know what is yet to come, and for that I say, bring it on!

                                                                  THINK SPRING!

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It's Only Business...

Paris Salon

Unlike many careers that need years of education and training, becoming an artist is insanely easy.  Just go out and get yourself some paints, brushes and canvas, and have at it.  While it's not required, it would be helpful to look the part, too.  After all, doctors drape stethoscopes over their white lab coats for no reason. You should wear black clothes, funky hats, and speak art babble whenever possible so others can easily identify that you are an "Artist".  It's that easy. 

Making a living as an artist, however, is insanely difficult.


Of course, there are varied strategies on how one can make a buck at their art.  The first method, practised by most beginners is:

• Wait to be Discovered.

That's when you paint all you want, and then wait for some rich collector, or a fancy New York City Gallery to find you and make you rich.  As a daydream on a boring day at work, it's great.  As a business philosophy, it's not that effective.


The next strategy is:

• The Social Scene

You know-- twitter your upcoming art event.  Update your Facebook status every time you finish a painting.  Make an App for your art.  The objective is to steer people over to your web site.  This is the first cousin to Exposing Yourself, but it is also remarkably similar to Wait To Be Discovered...



Well then, what about

• Exposing Yourself

Hey, you can't sell it if no one sees it.  At least this is a more proactive strategy for your art career.  So you hang your work in any venue that has a blank wall.  Personally, I have hung paintings in book stores, doctor's offices, town halls, grange halls, libraries, hospitals, cafe's and restaurants.  It was great for getting my name known, but not so much for sales.  The reason is that people are going to those locations for reasons other than buying art.  As a matter of fact, I don't recall seeing any one leave a hospital with a new painting under their hospital johnnie.


The more intensive next step is

• Hit The Road Jack

Do the shows.  The nomadic caravan that is art in the park shows, or sidewalk art festivals.  Another weekend, another town.  You can make money here, and maybe even win prizes for your work.  Many artists spend the winter painting, and the summer hitting the road going to one art event after another.  I've done a few of these over the years myself.  For some reason, everytime I did, it was during a violent windstorm, and I have had a few pieces damaged as a result.  I'll leave the road to the more experienced travellers with those really cool tents.


Lastly I guess, is

• Lose 50 percent

I know that sounds harsh, but that is what most galleries take for their commissions.  Personally, I like galleries.  I enjoy the concept of shipping off my paintings for others to hawk, leaving me free to stay in my studio and work.  And let's face it, tell people you're a painter and right after they ask if you do interiors, they'll ask if you show in galleries.  They don't ask what restaurant or library you show in.  It's snob appeal, I admit, but it works for me. 


So keep painting, and find a sales strategy that works for you.  Just remember,  there's lot's of difficulties doing what we do, so as the Godfather said, don't take it personal-- it's only business!

Thoughts From A Wandering Mind

We've actually had two days in a row this week where the temperature went above forty degrees.  Brought me to mind of what I hope is coming soon.  After last year's non-winter event, this year has more than made up for it.  It did put me in a spring cleaning mode, as I spent most of the day straightening up the studio.  I also spent some time doing some touch-ups on a couple paintings I wasn't entirely satisfied with.  I use to never touch a painting after I called it "done" and signed my name to it.  These days, however, if I see how a painting can be improved, I'll do it with no hesitation.  After all, if I noticed my fly was down after I "finished" dressing in the morning, I'd still zip it up.


I was at an art store recently to buy some painting medium.  I firmly believe that supporting the arts means supporting local art stores too.  Most of these operations are Mom and Pop affairs, and I have seen way too many go out of business.  These days, it's the internet that is dooming them.  But then I saw this store charging exactly twice as much for a bottle of the medium I use compared to what I would pay online.  Look, I'd happily pay a few bucks more, but geez-- don't make me go elsewhere!  I went home and ordered it online.

This past summer I participated in a very well run charity paint-out art auction event.  It was held in a town full of millionaires on the coast of Maine.  Myself excluded, there where some well known artists participating, the work was top-notch, and the paintings were getting good prices.  Half-way through the auction, I noticed that some paintings were really getting great bids, while other, equally good pieces weren't getting as much.  Two young college-age girls where presenting the pieces for the bidders.  One was an attractive brunette.  The other was a striking blonde with movie star looks.  I noticed that the bids where much higher and more prolonged when the blonde girl displayed the art!  I kept my fingers crossed, but the brunette presented mine.

I sold my very first painting for eight dollars.  Why eight bucks?  I didn't think five was enough, but I didn't dare ask for ten.


All this winter I've wanted to climb to the top of a hill on a golf course near me to check out the view.  I'd been up there in the summer, of course, and the vistas were quite lovely.  I wanted to see how it would look on a sunny late afternoon covered in snow.  I thought it might be cool to try a plein air from up there.  I finally climbed up there today.  It was the hardest ordeal I've put my body through in years.  The snow was knee deep, or in many spots waist deep the entire three hundred yards up the hill.  I had originally thought I'd snow shoe up there, but opted for heavy boots instead.  (Because I'm wicked smaht!)  Each step was an ordeal.  I thought that somehow all the oxygen in the atmosphere had dried up.  Halfway up, I thought I'd take a photo of myself so my family could see how I spent my last moments on earth.  But I kept on going, anticipating the golden light shining over the snow covered hills I'd see at the top.  After an eternity, I made it.  And the view?  Lovely.  Except the sun went behind the clouds as soon as I got there.


And by the way-- today is the tenth day I've had this head cold...


In honor of Presidents Day:  John Singer Sargent was commissioned to paint a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, but found it very difficult to do.  Roosevelt had little use for Sargent, and didn't want to sit still long enough to have him complete the work.  For his part, Sargent didn't have a high regard for TeeDee (as Roosevelt's family called him), finding him to be a rather overbearing know-it-all.  Sargent was trailing behind the always moving president, imploring him to be still for just a little while, when Roosevelt, climbing some stairs, turned around and glared down at the master painter.  "Hold that pose!" cried Sargent.  Here's the painting:

Have a great long weekend!

Decisions, Decisions

When Thomas Eakins was working on this painting of a woman singing, one of his students asked him why he included a rather noticeable wrinkle in the woman's dress.  "Because it's there," replied Eakins.  There you go, Tom!  That's just like something I would do.  I was going to use this post to show a new painting I had just completed.  It's taken me about two weeks of work, as opposed to my usual five days.  It came out pretty much like I thought it would.  I did a lot of prep work to ensure I wouldn't get lost while I was working on it.  Technically, it's one of my better painted scenes.  But I have decided not to show it.  Why?  Because it's like that wrinkle in Eakins dress (so to speak) it shows how a scene looks, but there's not a whole lot of "art" in it.  I may be my own worse critic, but I didn't overburden myself with a whole lot of decision making when I conceived of the picture.  I painted a scene, "because it's there."  Ho-hum.

A painting is not just a testimony of an artists ability with paint and brush, it's an outward visualization of the artists decision making ability.  Why that turn of the head?  Why place that tree at that spot on the canvas?  How come the light is coming from that direction?  Change any of those elements and the picture is entirely different.  But would it be better?  A true master painter makes the correct decision in putting all the elements of a scene in the most dynamic placement possible.

I am not now stating, nor have I ever said that I am a master painter.  (As a matter of fact, in a recent WSJ/NBC News Poll of the Statistically Insignificant 88% said I am not a master anything, 22% said I wouldn't know a master if one slapped me and 19% said I am not even master of my own domain).  What I am saying is that there is always something to think about when you're trying to make a great painting.  And really, isn't that our goal every time we step up to the easel?  Deciding the best possible use of color, composition and design all add up to a quality piece of art.  Choose incorrectly on any of them, and chances are you'll get a dud.  A beautifully painted tree does you no good when it's in the wrong spot.


So there my little painting sits.  A victim of just looking ordinary.  But I'm a "the glass is half-full" kinda guy, in that I'm sure that every step takes you somewhere.  Nothing wrong with back-tracking if it leads you back to the right trail.  I'm sure that I'll make the right decisions on my next painting.

If only I could decide on what it will be...

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My History Of Photography Part III

When I talk about the evils of using photos in paintings, I really don't mean that after years of using them I have now found religion, and that my God is better than your God.  It's just that, as the saying goes, "all things in moderation".  And that's my problem; I go way overboard on moderation.  I know that photographs can be a huge help in painting.  After all, they can do things for us that makes our task of painting that much easier.  They can help us keep our values in scale. For instance, the brightest spot on any printed photograph can never be brighter than the white of the paper it's printed on.  And we have a tube of color for that.  Conversely, Nature gives us such dazzling whites and color that no tube of paint can hope to match.  My problem was that I found myself not just relying on photographs for details, but I started to mimic photographic colors.


The painting above was done early in my use of photos.  I still had the ability to imagine color back then.  The scene is of Cousin's Island in Casco Bay, Maine.  The photo didn't have a fog bank, or clouds in the sky.  The sun was still relatively high in the sky.  I made changes to the scene based on my observation of that beach over the course of many summers.


The painting below is of an old barn (since torn down) in Durham, Maine on a late September afternoon.  It's another 40% photographic reference, and 60% imagination.

I changed the barn and trees, the color of the field and the sky.  All of the elements were actually there, but I rearranged them into a different composition.  So far, so good.  But then over the course of years, I got too "photo bound."


I have always known that cameras distort perspective because of it's convex lens.  What that does is enlarge the foreground which simultaneously diminishes the background.  So a lovely meadow with a looming mountain range in the distance becomes a truncated field with a thin stripe of hills across the horizon.  Kinda like this:

Let's say this is a scene you stumble upon out in the country.  A cow resting under a big shade tree with a barn and pond nearby.  In the distance is a blue band of mountains.

   You like it and want to take a picture of it to paint later.  What the camera does to it is this:

It's an exaggeration, but not by much.  The barn looks like a hundred miles away, and the mountains have disappeared.  All because of the properties of a camera lens.  If you want to make the picture look right, you need to adjust the perspective.  I knew this was a drawback with photos, so I could fix it.  But as camera technology got better and better, I copied too much.  Here's a scene from my old home of Cundy's Harbor, Maine.

Here's the painting I made from it;

Gee, do you think I used a whole lot of imagination with this?  Of course, I couldn't very well have set my easel up in the middle of the harbor now, could I?  And that's another good thing about photographs-- you can get views with them that are impossible to get lugging your gear around.  But I have spent too long observing nature through the camera lens, and I have forgotten to use my eyes. 


So where does that leave me with photographs?  Am I going to stop using them? 


Hell no!

But I am going to do more outdoor color sketches so that in conjunction with a photo, I can get a more accurate and realistic painting.  Sort of like going back to my beginnings. 

Nothing like art to make you take a long journey only to find that where you end up is the place you shouldn't have left.

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My History Of Photography Part ll

From A Photograph

The first digital camera I ever bought is sitting here in front of me.  It's an HP Photosmart.  It doesn't say it, but if I recall it has 3.5 mega pixels.  Yeah, I know... they make cigarette lighters with more pixels than that these days.  It's fairly small.  It's lightweight. 

It's pure evil. 

I bought this thing about ten years ago, and I thought it would serve me well.  The only problem with it is that it got me hooked on using photos for my paintings.  Let me tell you, that monkey has been heavy on my back.

I mentioned in Part I that I didn't use photos much in my early years of painting because they were so dreadful, what was the point?  The colors were brutal, the perspective all off, I might as well have used a kindergartner's drawing for reference.  Ah, but this digital thing was a little different.  Even though it is still pretty bad by today's standards, compared to a Pocket Instamatic, it was perfection.  I could zoom in on details (to a point that the pixels allowed me).  I could color correct.  Best of all, I could see right off the bat if I didn't like the photo.  If I didn't like it, I could take another shot.  And it stored up to a hundred pictures in it's memory.  I can't remember a hundred words-- but I digress...  Anyway, that's a whole lotta polaroids!  I use a separate hard drive to store my photos (and I back them up on CD's).  In the past four years I have taken over 14,000 photographs.  Except for the obligatory birthday pic's, each one was of something I thought might be a good painting.  Of course, after I showed the kids their birthday pictures, I'd delete them.  (The photos, not the kids...)


I originally thought I'd use pictures only occasionally, you know, just to help me with the details of a scene.  Oh, sure, I knew the hazards that photos presented, but I was going to be different.  I wasn't going to let them be my crutch.  But a little soon became a lot.  It got to be so bad, I couldn't make a grocery list without taking photos first.  As a matter of fact, I relied on photos so much, I even set up my studio to accommodate my "Photo Jones":

But, like every addiction, I knew deep down that I was wrong in "using".  Worst of all was that my ability to imagine colors was completely gone.  I used to be able to imagine a sunrise scene, and paint the colors fairly accurately, drawn from my memory of observation.  Then it got to be that if I didn't have a photo of it, I'd be lost.  I would even pass up painting beautiful scenes because I knew I wouldn't be able to get a good photo of it.  And heck, if I can't get a photo of it, I can't paint it, right?  It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't always aware of the limits that photos have.  It's like smoking cigarettes.  If you started smoking back in the day when they were considered "healthy" then you have an excuse for smoking.  For everyone else-- no excuses.  I have long known how photos skew reality.

I think I'll use Part III on how cameras screw you up, and how I have struggled to try and end my addiction.  But I need a smoke break...

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My History Of Photography Part I

From A Photograph

When I first started painting a few decades ago, killer rabbits were attacking Presidents, computers were housed in rooms the size of parking garages and served by scientists in white coats and respirators, telephones were only used to talk to other people, and cameras really, really sucked.  My goal was to paint in a realist manner, so I figured I would use photographs to help me get the details I needed for my subjects.  There wasn't much debate about the use of photo aids in painting back then.  Realism wasn't popular, to say the least.  Types like Pollock, Picasso and the rest of the painters in the abstract movement didn't exactly use a whole lot of photographic reference material.  I thought it perfectly logical, and didn't think there would be any problem with using photography.


But there was a problem, I soon learned.  I found that the photos I took of things I wanted to paint looked nothing like what I originally saw.  Let me first explain that the camera I was using was a Polaroid Land Camera.  You know, the big, bulky thing that spit your photo out the front where you could then watch it develop right in front of your eyes!  Now, I don't care if it could liven up any dull party just by taking instant photos, that thing produced ghastly results.  On a three inch by three inch square, that lovely golden late autumn field I took a photo of, with beautiful maple trees surrounding it in brilliant, intense orange and red, and with the White Mountains of New Hampshire rising up in purple splendor in the far distance looked like a badly crayoned childs drawing.  The field would be a flat yellow-grey, the tiny trees a dull orange smear, and the looming  mountains had been compressed into a thin strip of blue along the horizon.  It was completely useless for my purposes.


There were better cameras around, of course.  There was the Kodak Pocket Instamatic with 110 film. At least that photo was a slightly larger three inch by four inch.  The colors were a little better, but still light years removed from how objects really looked.  But you had to ship off the roll of film to be processed.  It took two weeks to get the processed pictures back so you could be disappointed with the results.  35mm was the best, but those cameras, film and processing were way beyond what my wage of $2.85 an hour could afford.  So, photos were out.  I didn't realize at the time that it would turn out to be for the better, because when I realized that using photos was useless, I began to teach myself to observe.


I guess it's a legitimate question to ask why I just didn't go out and paint out doors?  You kidding?  If rabbits were able to attack President Carter, what do you think they'd do to me?  Actually, if truth be told, it never dawned on me to paint plein air.  In my defence, there just wasn't a whole lot of plein air painters back then, anyway.  And besides, my hero, Norman Rockwell was a studio painter.  'Nuff said.  So, I sketched and painted objects from life, alla prima, but not plein air.  But I would also spend hours and hours observing nature.  I lived in the middle of one hundred acres of dense Maine forest, so I grew accustomed to the colors, sights and light of the woods.  When I painted trees I put colors in that I had seen with my own eyes, and not through the lens of the camera.


But as we all know, technology has improved cameras greatly.  Ten years ago I bought my first digital camera, and soon found myself totally immersed in helpless addiction to photos.  More on that to come...


By the way... there aren't any killer rabbits anymore, is there?

Let The Games Begin!

I want to pass on my hearty congratulations to the Green Bay Packers for winning Super Bowl XXXVLE-I-E-I-O.  If your team didn't get to play in it (like the Patriots...) then at least there were two teams worth routing for.  The Steelers and Packers have history that goes as far back as the beginning of the NFL.  Would we really care if the Tennessee Titans took on the Carolina Panthers?  So congrats to all the cheese-heads, wherever you are.

With the Super Bowl gone for the year, and baseball season still months away, I feel the need to have more sporting events.  So, I've thought of The Super Bowl of Artists.  I won't be so pretentious as to number my super bowl with roman numerals, so instead I'll use the alphabet.  So here is The Super Bowl Of Artist.a!

Competing first in the Play-Offs are:   Michelangelo vs Pollock!

And the winner is... Michelangelo!  His easy victory moves him on to the next round. 

Okay, next up we have DaVinci vs Picasso-

Geez, another blow-out!  DaVinci takes this one.

Maybe this next match will provide some competition.  We now have Sargent vs Johns:

Nope.  Can't say this one was close either.  John Singer Sargent waltz's away with a sure victory.  So far, we have Michelangelo, DaVinci and Sargent in the semi-finals.  One more match to go.  Which of these next two artists will take on the "Big Three"?

Let's here it for Rockwell vs Munch:

Looks like it'll be... is the suspense killing you?   NORMAN ROCKWELL!

Just like the NFL, these players are going to rest up for awhile to prepare for their next match.  The schedule makers haven't decided on when exactly that may be, but one thing I know for sure is that The Super Bowl Of Artist.a is going to be exciting!

Anybody know where I can get a Norman Rockwell pennant?


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References, Please...

Many years ago I got to do something I always wanted to do.  I was an FM radio jock.  You know, I love music.  When I was growing up I didn't watch television, I was glued to the sound coming from the the little white radio on my nightstand.  I would sketch and listen to the top 40.  I remember thinking of how cool it would be to someday be the voice coming out of that small speaker.  Well, fast forward a few decades, and I got a spot at a Portland, Maine radio station.  I didn't have a lick of experience, but I knew a person who had a friend who knew someone at a station that needed someone quick.  At first, I was just a behind-the- scenes technical guy, but before long, I got my own shift on-air.  The boss liked my voice, and thought I had a future in the business.  Pretty soon, I would occasionally fill in for his morning shift, or do a mid-day slot when needed.  I never went full-time, but I stayed there for about two years, and I had a blast.  I was friendly with the staff, and enjoyed everyone's company--except one.  The overnight guy.  He hated me.


The truth was, he was jealous of me.  You see, I strolled in off the street and landed a gig while he went to Broadcasting School.  I filled in during highly rated time slots.  He toiled in overnight obscurity.  But I had a good radio voice.  (And a face made for radio too...)  For confidentiality, I'll call him Dale-- even though his name was Adam-- but his voice was God-awful!  It was so bad, you'd long to hear someone's nails on a chalk-board for it's soothing effect.  After listening to Dale's voice, squeaking balloons sounded like a heavenly choir in comparison.  The sad truth was that Dale just didn't have it.  Radio was a talent-driven business back then.  It didn't matter that maybe you graduated from Broadcasting School with high honors; if you had the voice of a choking herring, you didn't get the prime slots.


Isn't art something like that, too?  Art is a talent driven business, isn't it?  Yes, you can certainly be schooled to learn the craft.  You can even be a straight A student at the local College Of Art.  But when a patron walks into a gallery to purchase some art, the only thing that grabs their attention is the painting.  If they are torn between two pictures, do they ask to see the artists references as a tie-breaker?  Well...maybe-- if they are purchasing an investment.  But not if they just want to enjoy owning a painting.  It's talent that's the deciding factor.  Of course, there is no universal yardstick to measure talent, and reams of paper (and endless blog space) have been wasted trying to explain taste.  But we all can recognize something we like.  Does it matter if the artist was self taught, or the ace of the class?  Does it matter if a painting was done in the dining room after the artist got home from her day job, as opposed to being done in a lavish studio?  The artists long list of honors, education and accomplishments mean nothing if you don't like the picture.


So, if you fear you're lacking in the proper credentials to be considered seriously, cheer up!  The alternative isn't all it's cracked up to be, either.  Right, Dale?

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What-to-call-it?

Just a quick post for tonight.  I'm busy polishing up my snow shovels, shining my winter boots and greasing up my ski-mask in anticipation of another winter storm.  By my count this one makes one hundred twenty-eight so far this year.  I love it when meteorologists say things like, "This will be the worst storm in history!"  They mean recorded history, of course.  Some of those records only go back sixty years, or so.  There might have been a worse storm three hundred years ago, but whose to say?

Anyway, I'm posting a photo of a painting I finished last week.  This was another one I did from life, with no photo help.  I worked on it one hour at a time, from 2:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon, and of course, only when it was sunny.  My vantage point was from my living room window, looking out at my back yard.  While I painted this standing indoors, it is an outdoor scene.  Can I call it a plein air? 

I'm not inventing the wheel here when I say that observation beats photos every time.  Below is a photo I took of the spot from my vantage point, but at a slightly different time of day. 

But I don't know what to name it.  Got any ideas?  My working title is Mid-Winter.  Yeah... exciting, I know.  So if you can think of a good name, drop me a line.  And if you live in an area of the world that doesn't have snow, I'll even come by and pick up the name!

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Success.Com

I recently saw an ad placed in one of those on-line classified ad sites.  I don't want to give anybody free publicity, so let's just call it "kraig's list".  The ad read, "Artist seeking gallery representation."  I didn't make that up.  An ad like that is right up there with, "Person seeking mechanic to come fix my car."  Or, how about, "Singer looking for recording contract."  Now, I'm sure that somewhere out there, there is a gallery that has sold out of all its merchandise and is desperate to find new artists because they haven't had any contact them for months.  They go shopping in blind hope on the internet, and lo and behold they find this guy.

But probably not.


Remember the Dot Com bubble?  When the internet first hit ten years ago, the thinking was that a company doing business on it couldn't help but make money.  After all, they had access to potential consumers from around the world.  Investors flocked to these companies and threw money at them hand over fist.  Everyone was going to be filthy rich!  And then a funny thing happened on the way to the bank.  Hardly anybody made any money.  In fact, quite a few dot.coms went belly-up.  (Pets.com anyone?)  Why did that happen?  Because "Build it, and they will come" only works in Hollywood.  For the rest of us, it's "Build it.  Now go bust your ass and go try to sell it."


The internet really is a wonderful creation.  So is a tuning fork.  So what?  A tool has to have a function, a reason for being.  At least a tuning fork can tune your piano.  But it can't tuna fish.  But I digress...  What can the internet do?  Well, for starters, it can let your work be seen.  The ubiquitous "they" say that to be successful, you must have an internet presence.  So just about every artist out there has his own internet site.  But that's almost as many sites as there are stars in the sky.  How is anyone going to notice my star?  Then there's FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  The concept here is to "network".  You know, artists connecting to other artists.  You know what "network" really is?  The choir singing to the choir.  Have you ever sold your work on Twitter?  The internet is a great social networking vehicle, but as eToys.com, Flooz.com, and WebVan.com can tell you, it's hell on making money. 


My point for all of this is:  There is no easy way.  The trick to being successful now is the same as it has been over the centuries;  Work hard, make great art, and promote it ruthlessly.  Waiting for success to find you is not a viable business option.  The internet isn't the be-all and end-all.  Sometimes, you have to pound the pavement and knock on some doors.   So, Mr. "kraig's list," best of luck to you.  I hope a gallery contacts you and promotes your work.  But I'm doing things the old fashioned way--

By the way, anybody know where the Medici's live?

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Relax...

One of the more common statements I get when I tell people I paint pictures is, "Oh, isn't that sooo relaxing?"

Relaxing?

Relaxing?

You kidding me?  Relaxing?

Yeah, it's relaxing alright.  As relaxing as a knife fight.  As relaxing as a swim with sharks.  As relaxing as engine trouble at 37,000 feet.  Let me put it another way-- no, I don't find it relaxing. 


You see, when I'm painting, every watt of power in my little brain is focused on the end of my paint brush.  Each stroke can come out just right, or a disaster.  The color note that looked good on the palette is completely wrong when I put it on the canvas.  That nice, flowing brush stroke just overlapped into another section, and smeared the color.  That little tweak I gave that perfectly good passage just turned it into a frozen pile of mud.  Things go wrong.  So I am completely focused on the task at hand.  Does that sound relaxing to you?


Now, on the other hand, occasionally something really cool happens.  That's when a passage turns out better than I had any reason to hope for.  Then I'm all jazzed up.  I'm jumping around the studio, doing back flips, patting myself on the back, acting like the Red Sox just beat the yankees!  (A common occurrence these days, but still exciting).  I go charging on, anxious to see if the rest of the painting will turn out as good.  Doesn't really sound all that relaxing, now does it?


There are some things about painting that are not heart palpitating and stress inducing.  Doing initial underdrawings, underpaintings or detail work--while very important-- can be somewhat dull.  Some may even say boring.  And boring isn't relaxing.  We don't go to spas to be bored.  We don't take vacations to be bored.  So there's another strike against painting being relaxing.  The truth is, when you put your heart and soul into any effort, it's not relaxing.  Not if you care about how it turns out.



So, what do I do to relax after a hard day's painting?  Why, I turn to the most relaxing person there ever was--


Mr. Relaxation, Perry Como!

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See The Tree, How Big It's Grown

What do you do when you want to paint an outdoor scene from life, but the temperature outside is only five degrees above zero, with a wind-chill temperature near twenty below?  Well, I guess you could don multi layers of clothing so you resemble a heftier version of the Michelin Man, put on boots that weigh twenty pounds and arctic gloves that are even too big to fit in the overhead compartment on planes, and set out to show Mother Nature who's boss.  Or, if you're like me, you fire up the parlor wood stove, grab your french easel and a cup of coffee and head on over to a window to look outside.  I may be a wimp, but I'm a warm wimp!

I set my easel up in my living room by the picture window that looks out on the large tree that dominates my back yard.  I love that tree.  It's a huge maple with a six foot diameter and it looms over my garage and house with branches that block out the sky.  I thought the thing was ancient when we first moved here last year, but come to find out it was planted around 1950 or so.  I'm sure that when it was planted it was just a twig...   


Like the painting I recently did of my bedroom dressers, this one is from observation with no photographic reference.  I mean, the thing just sits there, it's not like it's a horse grazing in a field.  I am cognizant of the light though.  The time frame I'm depicting is between 2:30 and 3:30 in the afternoon.  After I finished quickly roughing it in, I've been working on it one section at a time, and only at that time in the afternoon.  This is the fifth afternoon I've been at it.  I've miles to go on this, one hour at a time, but the photo above should give you an idea of what I'm shooting for.  I hope to be able to post the finished job next week.  Good thing I started this in January.  Not only is the tree not going anywhere, but at five degrees, the snow's in no hurry to leave either.  And that tree is way too big to brush all the snow away. 

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Two Below, Honey

A couple of weeks ago, I packed up my french easel and did a painting "on location" in my bedroom.  I had a lot of fun doing the project, but I looked forward to going back to my studio and normal routine.  So, bright and early this past Monday morning I headed out to the studio and stumbled upon a cold hard truth:  Winter had arrived in Maine.  Dark and glowering skies, frigid winds howling from the north and mountains of snow piling and drifting up.  My studio is an out building about fifty yards away from the back step of the house in the summertime, but in the winter, it seems like it's a mile away.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my remodeled chicken coop of a studio, it's set up to suit my needs exactly as I want.  The problem is that while it's insulated, it's not heated.  The inside temperature is about two degrees warmer than outside.  Even though I've got a pretty hefty kerosene heater and a small electric heater, and four good sized windows on the south side to add some thermal heat, the temperature inside the building that morning stood at four degrees.  On a good sunny winter day, it takes about three hours to heat the place up to a workable fifty degrees, or so.  By noon, the temperature is usually up to sixty-five or even seventy.  But when it's a cloudy day, I can't get it warm enough to take off my winter coat.  So I decided this week I'd do another painting from inside the house.

One would think that I would enjoy working "at home" as it were, but the funny thing is-- I don't.  I mean, I don't have to go out and freeze, I have a bathroom, I have my usual music playing.  Heck, I've never even had a studio before we moved into this place last year.  But you know what I miss?  Going to work.  Since I started painting full time, I have always gotten up, got dressed and went to wherever I had my stuff set up to work.  I suppose that's just the habit I've acquired from punching the clock for all these years.  I've never been one to hang around in my jammies and slippers while I paint.  So, I really get the feeling of "going to work" when I head out to my studio.  I feel like a slacker or something when all I have to do when I'm here in the house is drag out my easel to get going.



But I guess I'm going to have to feel this way for a little while longer.  The weather folks are calling for some of the coldest weather of the winter to hit us this week.  Night time lows are going to be in the ten to twenty below zero range, while daytime highs will only be about ten degrees.  So, in the house I'll stay.  But still-- absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I think my studio is sweet even at two below, honey.

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The Weakest Link

We received another four or five inches of snow yesterday.  Coupled with the foot we got last week, I'd say Winter is fast approaching!  Everytime I'm out shoveling snow, I can't help but think of N.C. Wyeth's painting, From An Upper Snow Platform.  Now, that, my friend, is shoveling snow!

Now, I'm not against getting in a little physical activity now and then.  Lord knows, I've shoveled miles and miles of snow in my life, and I've split and stacked an untold number of cords of wood.  For the past few years I've even gone to the gym to work out.  Of course, no one would confuse my physique for a body builder, but for an old duff, I'm no slouch around the weight rack.  But for all the weight I can curl or leg press, thanks to a degenerative disk, I have the lower back strength of a six year-old girl.  No matter how strong I can make the surrounding muscles, that disk is my weak link.  So, for every minute I spend shoveling, I spend two minutes later on with heat on my back, so I can go stand at the easel. 

But that got me to thinking about weak links in our painting abilities.  In our never ending quest to grow as painters, (I refuse to say "get better" anymore.  A seven foot tree is no better than a sixty-five foot tree.  The sixty footer has just grown, that's all), we are always assessing our work.  We naturally play up our strengths when we paint, and tend to avoid that with which we have troubles.  I mean, if I really stink at painting flowers, (and I do) why would I want to incorporate them in my paintings and have everyone see I can't paint them?  So, in going over the links of my painting chain, what do I feel is my weakest link?  I'd have to say design.


Now, I'm not talking about composition.  I think I balance my subjects OK.  I get the left to off-set the right, the top to even-out with the bottom, and all that, so my paintings don't look like they want to tip over and slide down the wall.  But I mean the over all look of the picture.  Let me give you an example.  Say I do a painting of my red wing-back chair in a strong half light.  In the composition, the chair faces you directly with the light coming from the left to the right.  The chair takes up 80% of the scene, the rest is darkened background.  I'm happy with the result; the drawing is good, the colors realistic-- it looks just like the chair would in that raking light.  But what if I had backed the chair up so that it only filled 65% of the view, and instead of being dead-on, I had turned it to the right at a 45 degree angle.  The composition wouldn't be that much different-- a chair in half light-- but the design would be much more evocative, don't you think?  The problem, of course, is that it is always easier to ask, "what was I thinking?" after the fact, than it is to think a thing through to begin with.  Slowing myself down to work out the best design possible is always going to be a challenge, because when I'm inspired, I want to just jump right in.


So, let me ask you, do you know what your weakest link is?  Do you avoid it, or do you try to work on it to improve it?  I guess I have no choice but to tackle my problem with design.  But can I avoid painting flowers?

Another thing I can't avoid is shoveling more snow.  Another snow storm is coming in a couple of days.  Where's that heat pack?

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Is The Devil In The Details?

Warning:  The wearing of steel-toed boots is recommended for the reading of this blog.  We can not be responsible for any discomfort from toes being stepped on.  Thank you.

We all know that the number one rule in art is, "There are no rules".  There are, however, axioms, tenets, general suggestions, standard way of doing things, my way, and what the hell are you thinking?  One of the non-rules is, "you can't learn to draw from copying photographs".  I agree.  Copying them only gives one a thin veneer of reality.  So, put those polaroids away and go copy an old masters painting!  Another accepted non-rule, but would be a rule if it were open for a vote, is "do not put all the details in your painting in focus".  I know I stand the risk of sounding like the self-taught, totally ignorant hack that I am, but I have to ask-- why?

The argument behind not having everything in focus goes like this:  The human eye does not see everything in focus at the same time.  While we're looking at an object, everything else in it's periphery loses detail.  Thus, we should make our paintings with the point of interest having the highest amount of detail, and everything else with a lesser amount because that's how our eyes see.  As a matter of fact, having everything in sharp focus is the mark of an amateur.  Or so says Virgil Elliott, the writer of Traditional Oil Painting.  I love that book.  Of all the art books I own, it's one of only three that I keep with me in the studio.  (The others are John Carlson's book on landscape painting, and Rockwell on Rockwell).  In fairness to Mr. Elliott, I've seen that opinion from a whole lot of other artists too.

But here's why I question that (Oh, no! It's not a) rule.  I want my paintings to be very realistic, so why shouldn't I make everything as accurate as I can, then let the eye of the viewers see it as it would the real thing?  In other words, should I paint the way the eye interprets the scene, or let the eye interpret the scene in the painting?  Now, a disclaimer:  I am certainly aware of hard and soft edges, and I'm not saying that everything should have a hard edge.  What I'm asking is why can't I paint everything with the same level of realism and detail?  Let me show you a few examples of what I'm thinking about.

At the top of the page is a detail from one of my all-time favorite Andrew Wyeth paintings, The Patriot.

I stood for hours in front of this painting when I saw it at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine.  What I love about this painting is the exquisite detail Wyeth gave everything.  If Wyeth only wanted the focus to be on the face of his subject, he could have merely indicated the medals and buttons on the uniform.  Instead, everything is in such sharp focus that you can read the inscription on the medals.  Wyeth isn't telling you, "Look only at what I want you to see,"  He's letting your eyes do the work.  When I look at his face, I don't see the medals in focus at all.  I see this painting in the same manner as if the man was sitting in front of me.  


Another of my favorite Wyeth's is Weathered Side. 

This is not a great reproduction of the painting, but again, look at the degree of focus he gave every element in this scene.  The composition leads your eye into and up the side of the Olsen House in Cushing, Maine, but each object is sharply rendered.  The window panes high up on the house are as crisply realized as the bucket at your feet.  The clapboards are not a mass of color, but as detailed as the shingles beside you.   Wyeth didn't paint this the way our eyes see it, he painted it the way it is.  We do the rest.

Now let's look at Jean-Leone Gerome:

If you click on this, you should probably get a bigger version.  Yes, there are soft and hard edges here, but look at the way he portrays the tile over on the extreme right edge.  Keeping in mind the change in light and corresponding values, the detail is as clear as the closer tiles on the left.  Again, Gerome let's our eyes wander wherever we want over this image, he's not dictating what is important.  His composition does that.  I like that in a painting.


I know that the idea of a central focus point comes from the great landscape artists like Constable, and later with the Impressionist and, of course, John Singer Sargent, and it shows in many modern paintings today.  I truly like that style of painting.  And I sure know I'm no Andrew Wyeth or Jean-Leon Gerome!  I'm old school I guess, but to me, I just don't see the Devil in those details.


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Mirror, Mirror

After having spent the better part of 2010 (pronounced twenty-ten) in search of a different painting philosophy, I came to the conclusion that my trying a different style would be like Kermit The Frog spitting Rap.  While doing an Elvis Presley impersonation.  I guess he could do it, but it wouldn't be natural for good ol' Kermit, now would it?  So for the painting I just finished, I let myself be me.  Got in touch with my inner Kermit, so to speak.

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought the combination of reflections and light on my bedroom bureau would be cool to paint.  So I spent this week staring into the mid-day glare of my bedroom windows while I painted this scene Alla Prima.

My faithful dog Champ spent most of the painting session sleeping on the bed.  He probably thought he was posing in Ellen's place.  Anyway, I was lucky in that I wasn't trying to portray a specific lighting moment, just how the room looks in the morning's sun.  As such, I could devote several hours a day to painting, and not have the scene change much.  I also lucked out in that four of the five days it took to paint it were sunny.  Regrettably, the one day it wasn't sunny we got hit with a foot of snow. 

I'm sure that different artists would have treated this subject differently.  Some would have made it far moodier.  Others may have infused much more color into the scene.  Not me.  My inner Kermit wanted me to paint this with as much exacting truth as I could muster.  I have to say that after having used photographs so extensively for so long, I had a blast observing and painting this scene!  I used a photo to help during the initial drawing stages.  However, I can safely say this painting would have been a far different animal if I had used a photo exclusively to paint it.  I'm not saying it would have been necessarily worse, it just would have been different.

All in all, I'm pleased with how this one turned out.  It brought me back to the days when I was first teaching myself to paint.  I was a teen, and my "studio" was the corner of my 9ft by 12ft bedroom.  (Gee, that's the size of a prison cell!)  I would grab various objects from around the house, set 'em up and paint them.  I painted my old sneakers, a shiny metal pencil sharpener.  A bottle of whiskey (don't ask how I got one...).  You name it.  I didn't use photos, I just looked at them and painted.  That's what I want to do more of.  Not discard photographs entirely, because I think they can be a useful tool, but use direct observation a lot more. 

You know, let my inner Kermit run free!

Sleeping In

I decided I would paint the bedroom this year.  So, that's where I spent today.  No, I didn't have drop cloths and masking tape, I had my easel and paints.  Sometimes inspiration hits you in the strangest of places.


Last week I was in the bedroom when I noticed that the mirrors on top of our dressers where reflecting each other, and that the mid-morning light was giving the room an interesting glow.  I thought the combination of effects was kind of cool, so I grabbed my camera and took some pictures.  A few moments later, my beautiful partner Ellen came up, so I asked her to pose for me.  This was the shot I liked the most.

While they may not be spectacular, I like our antique dressers, and I've used them a couple of times for drawings and paintings.  Poor Ellen actually had to contort herself in a rather uncomfortable position for me to get that picture, but hey, you gotta suffer for Art, right?  I was in the middle of another painting at the time, so I put this on the "to do" list.  While I was finishing up the other picture, my mind would wander to this one.  I even thought up a title; Sleeping In.  "How should I portray this?" I would think.  "Should I make it kind of chiaroscuro with the center lit up for dramatic effect?  Should I paint it all loose with warm colors?"  I'm sure you do the same thing when you're beginning a new project.  That's when an inner voice went off in my head.  (And not the inner voice that says, "Hey, while you're here on the couch, have some more potato chips!")  But my Art inner voice.  "Hey, fool-- if this was the scene that attracted you, why don't you paint it that way?"  My inner Art voice can be rather harsh...  But I had to admit he had a good point. 


So, using the photo, I drew it out on a 12X12 inch masonite panel.  I worked on this for four days, making sure I got it as close to right as I could possibly make it.

But we all know one thing:  Photo color is pretty bad, no matter what camera you may use.  As a result, I thought it would be fun to actually go up there and paint "on location".  Before I grabbed my plein air kit and set up, I did an underpainting using Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna.  Then I just waited for the sun to shine.  My intent is to paint this as accurately and truthfully as I can.

Here we are at the end of day one of painting:

As usual in photographing paintings, I lost a lot of color nuance in this shot.  But it does show my habit of pecking away, doing a little of this, a little of that...  I've never been a top to bottom painter, I like to keep all the elements working at once.  It gives me a better idea of how the pieces are coming together. 

Here's a detail of the inner mirror:

Plenty more to do on this one.  But the Weather Prognosticator says we'll have sunny days the majority of this week. 

I guess I won't be sleeping in.

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