Category: The Business of Art

Jan 11

Red : Day Two

Wow, who knew painting could be this much fun??? Spent the morning working on  the realistic portions of the painting…and the afternoon using a palette knife…..

What’s funny is that I really felt like  I’d been BOLD when I painted the figure, floor, and paint cans……but it’s definitely TIMID looking next to the abstract painting in the background. What can I say? Working with a palette knife is fun….and fast. The only problem I had was when I tried to paint close to the figure….I ended up getting green paint all over the face. Now I just have to hope that the background dries quickly enough that I’ll have time to work on the rest of the painting before the competition deadline.

Thought: Maybe I should be an abstract palette knife painter. It feels much more like play when I use one.

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Posted in Inspiration, Painting, The Business of Art, Tools of the Trade

Dec 12

New York Artists

Was web browsing yesterday and followed a link to www.newyorksocialdiary.com with an article about designer Sarah Shaw dated 8/12/11. It showed photos of her fabulous Manhattan residence….and it showed fabulous art hanging on the walls.

Okay…that girl is swimming….over a piano. Had to look up the New York artist, Hope Gangloff….of whom I’ve never heard…and of course she’s very successful and very famous. Shows what I know about art….right? People always ask me where I get my ideas for paintings…..well, I certainly don’t have Hope’s  degree of imagination. Really like her work….it’s everything mine isn’t…..including  hanging in New York galleries and expensive New York residences.

Then I saw another painting which was by New York artist, Will Cotton, who happens to be internationally famous….and also previously unheard of by me.

This is a portrait which Will Cotton did of Sarah Story.

Good ole world famous Will Cotton has also done several paintings of Katy Perry. His art is described as landscapes of sweets inhabited by human subjects. Now why didn’t I ever think of painting people with cakes on top of their heads…or swimming on top of a piano? Makes me feel quite unimaginative……

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Posted in Inspiration, The Business of Art

Dec 01

Lemonade From Lemons

What do you do when an 80+ year old woman pushes her walker up next to you, hands you a sticky photo, and says’ “I want you to do a painting of my dog.”?? Well…..if you’re me…you inwardly sigh…take the photo home, and try to make lemonade from lemons.

Meet Puddin’ a dog rescued from the animal shelter who was a pet to Daisy for close to 15 years. My friend Melanie looked at the photo and said “what a cute dog.” I looked at the photo and said “WHAT IS IT?” Apparently I’m used to painting from better photographs than Melanie…..

I got online and researched Skye Terriers….they sorta look like hairy dachshunds with big ears. Took several photos to Daisy, she picked out a pose that she liked….and I forced myself to start painting.

Okay, so it’s kinda corny looking…..okay, it’s very corny looking…and not as realistic as I usually like to paint…but it’s finished. And now we return to our regular programming about Portrait Painting….and please don’t ask me to paint your dead dog.

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Posted in Painting, The Business of Art, Tools of the Trade

Nov 28

Advertising Your Art

I was paging through the most recent issue of American Art Collector magazine and was surprised to find a picture of one of my paintings in it. Can you see my painting?

The painting in the ad is Time Waits For No Man.

Now, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see my painting in the Xanadu ad…after all, I’d paid $220 to a part of the group ad. But we’d just celebrated Thanksgiving and I’d forgotten that the December issue of magazines comes out in late November. My painting is right in the center fold of the magazine (No, not Playboy centerfold!) which is not an optimal spot. If you ever place an ad remember that the upper right hand corner of a page is the best spot….because that’s where your fingers and eyes go when you turn a page. The second best spot is the upper left hand side because that’s where your eye goes after you’ve turned the page.

I did advertise in the December 2010 edition of American Art Collector. A 1/4 page ad cost me $1200 (yes, gasp!). I  sold a painting as a direct result of the ad….a collector from California called and purchased it. However, the hits on my website actually went down that month. Logically the hits should have gone up….so I don’t know if everyone was just too busy with Christmas preparations to look at the magazine. Maybe December isn’t the best time to advertise…however, it’s the annual Figurative issue, so I thought it would be a good match. We’ll see if lighting strikes twice….

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Posted in The Business of Art, Tools of the Trade

Nov 14

You Paint Good

Wow, I totally suck at self-promotion. Last week I said I’d be doing a painting demonstration Nov. 19th….actually I did one over the weekend on the 12th! I’d probably fire a PR person who screwed up that badly! To set the record straight…I will also be painting on Nov. 19th at the MasterPiece Gallery in the Florence Mall….and to further clarify….that’s Florence, Kentucky – not Florence, Italy……

I hate having people in my studio when I’m painting….but I had absolutely no problem painting in a storefront.  Either I have a big ego or I’m a ham.

Occasionally people even stopped to watch me paint.…and they came into the store to ask me questions. My favorite comment of the entire day:  “You paint good for an old person.” I guess the preteen was surprised that I could still stand up without using a walker…much less hold a brush and paint.

Nic Green was also there doing caricatures. I’m always amazed watching someone do caricatures…his are really good, too.

So, if you have nothing better to do next Saturday….come and watch me do a demo….it’s as much fun as watching paint dry……

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Posted in Painting, The Business of Art

Nov 10

Portrait Painting Demonstration

Saturday November 19th I’ll be doing a painting demonstration in a store front window at the Florence Mall in Florence, Kentucky. I’ll be there from 10a.m. – 5  or 6p.m. …it depends on how much energy I have! The store is called Masterpiece Gallery.

They’ve recently started carrying prints of my artwork….the Cincinnati prints, some of my Fantasy prints as well as notecards and bookmarks.

See….my artwork is right there next to an original oil reproduction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The store’s owner is Judy Adams. We did a photo session together this week…and she’ll be one of the figures in my painting. I thought it would be fun to be painting a portrait of her in the storefront. That way people can compare my painting to the real thing and see if I captured her likeness.

I love this photo…her face looks so beautiful. Expect to see this pose in one of my future paintings.

Judy was very sweet and let me photograph her in the store….in between waiting on customers! There will also be a caricature artist at the store on Saturday…..so it should be lots of fun. At least I hope so……who knows? I’ll probably feel like an idiot standing in the window and painting.…poor shy little me.

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Posted in Painting, The Business of Art

Oct 18

Art Print Give Away

My niece, Amanda Boehmer, has been doing some guest blogging on her friend’s blog called Surviving Motherhood. Her series of posts has been titled Booties In My Briefcase….which makes me laugh…I can just imagine Amanda sitting in a meeting at Proctor & Gamble and opening up her briefcase to find booties inside! Imagine pulling out booties instead of a business report! Would you laugh or be embarrassed? Amanda would definitely laugh.

Amanda asked if anyone had something they could offer as a give away on the website in exchange for being blogged about. Surviving Motherhood gets 50,000 hits a month and mine gets…well, let’s say…it gets somewhat less. So I offered her a print of Living Is An Art.

The print is 16×20″ and fits into a standard sized  frame….that is standard for the U.S. I’ve been told that other sizes are standard in other countries…I’m guessing metric.  The contest closes at 12:00 noon on October 30th. To enter just go to the October 18th post of Surviving Motherhood and leave a comment saying which one of the alphabet letters you’d like to make more time for in your life. Personally I’d like more time to Make Art !!!!! And so now I’m going into my studio to paint. Good Luck.

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Posted in The Business of Art, Tools of the Trade

Oct 11

How To Be A Successful Artist

I have finally discovered the secret to being a successful artist….and I’m willing to share that secret with you for free. Follow this simple rule and you will be successful:

Do the exact opposite of what I do and you will be a financially successful artist.

Yep, it’s as simple as that. If I do an outdoor arts/crafts show, then you should approach galleries. If I insist upon painting the human figure, then you should paint landscapes. If I paint realistically, then you should paint abstracts. Really now, what was I thinking trying to sell this kind of artwork….

To this type of customer?

The Ohio Sauerkraut Festival features over 500 booths filled with everything from bottle cap jewelry to  wildlife photographs. And there was everything in between….needless to say, mine was one of the few booths selling artwork. And guess which booth sold $40,000 worth of merchandise? The garden nursery selling potted mums for $5.00 each. They had people waiting in line for the next truck delivery of plants. People were going nut-so over the mums. Which means that next year there will be more booths selling mums…heck, do what’s successful.

The show officially opened at 9am both Saturday and Sunday, but there were crowds of people there shopping each morning by 7:30am. I’ve never seen such eager crowds at an actual art show outdoors.

Best parts of the show (for me):

1) The pumpkin ice cream (natch)

2) A woman saying that she’d never seen anything like my artwork before…..I think that was a compliment.

3) I met a Cincinnati Bengal cheerleader..I think her name was Britney. I thought I’d recognize her photo on their website, but she looks different in full make-up and cheerleading outfit. The woman I met was beautiful, but she was wearing jeans, tee shirt, and a baseball hat. She thought it would be fun to have her portrait painted in her cheerleading outfit. Wouldn’t it be great if I could start painting all the Bengal cheerleaders….and players. Wishful thinking. If I were better at marketing, then I might be able to make it happen……

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Posted in Art Shows, The Business of Art

Oct 06

Artists and Commissions

I read something interesting about how working on a commission stifles an artist’s creativity. A Harvard Business School professor did a study which had curators and accomplished artists evaluating commissioned and non-commissioned artwork by various artists.. The commissioned pieces were rated as significantly less creative than the non-commissioned pieces….even though they were both rated equally for technical quality.

This is one of my commissioned paintings. It’s a double portrait of Elana Rosen who is also an artist. The idea of having her paint herself…only dressed up and looking more elegant….wasn’t exactly an original one. I will admit that I felt  constrained to use the photos she preferred and to make everything look as close as possible to the actual items she owned. I also showed her the painting several times while I was working on it….and made small changes to make sure that she was satisfied with the results.

This is my self-portrait. When I painted my name on the wallpaper…Tom said, “That’s over the top.” And when I painted ME ME ME on the floor tiles…well, he just threw up his hands. Because I didn’t have to please anyone but myself with this painting….I could go all out and paint whatever I wanted. I think that someone looking at the portrait of Elana would say that technically it’s a good painting. But when people see my self portrait…they burst out laughing.

So I guess I would agree with the results of the Harvard study….commissions stifle an artist’s creativity. Yeah, but they sure help to pay the bills!

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Posted in Inspiration, Portrait Commission, The Business of Art

Oct 04

Good Husband Bad Photographer

I asked Tom to take a photograph of me in our booth at the Hyde Park Square Art Show on Sunday.  If this is what I really look like, then it’s no wonder my sales were down….I’d be afraid of me, too.

Seriously, the man is a real sweetheart…but a really lousy photographer.

The best things I heard about my artwork were:

1) My paintings are a gift to people. Hmmmm, I was really hoping to sell my paintings, but I guess they’re just a gift. I think this was supposed to be a compliment….

2) One young woman remembered my paintings from when I had a studio at the Pendleton Art Center…..that was several years ago. She said that my studio was her favorite one….because my paintings didn’t look like everyone else’s. Once again, I think that’s supposed to be  a good thing……

3) Several people recognized two of the models that I used in my paintings……Valerie Abati and Myrtle Blankenbeuhler. That always makes me feel good – at least my portraits look like the people that modeled for them….and I know that that’s a good thing.

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Posted in The Business of Art, Tools of the Trade

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