Something different (for me, at any rate). Got a bit tired of one of my larger canvasses last week, so decided to jazz it up somewhat. I don’t do this ‘pointilist’ type of work normally, so it was something strange to begin with but after a while I enjoyed the freedom.
‘What do you see?’
Acrylics on pre-textured stretched canvas.
120cm x 100cm x 4cm
Close up:
I have been working with water-soluble oil pastels most of the rest of the time and hope to have something half-way decent to post up here soon!
We are settling into our new home and I’m beginning to find more space and time to paint. This week I completed two pieces, this is the first to get up on a wall:
Image cropped :
“Gold”
Acrylics, sand texture, gels and inks on stretched canvas.
Size: 70cm x 60cm x 2cm (approx) or 27½” x 23½” x 1″
I am using this post to test out connection to my existing blog community on WordPress. I am not certain that my website is visible to you all and I’d appreciate comment if you can or can’t see the website via this post.
Yesht, so I have managed to eventually get myself sorted out with a bit of space to paint in. I tried it out today because the rest of the family have gone away for the weekend, so I could make as much mess as I liked and actually get to concentrate on something for a whole day. Wonderful. I made a little video of the process I use to make paintings on stretched canvas (that are considered abstract) … I don’t work like this all the time.
Anyway, hope you enjoy and I’d appreciate comments on my video if you have the time (or inclination) … be brutal, I can take it. [Yeah, right] This is the finished product:
Modelling gel, acrylics, metallics on mixed-media paper (250gm/169lb)
Approximately 12″ x 8″
Close up of texture detail.
One thing I learnt here is that you must use acrylic medium between layers – I don’t have any at the moment, hence my new found knowledge! Otherwise, the underlying layers become muddy and hard to work on. So I’m off to get me some new medium just as soon as I can – cos all my other stuff is finished!
Acrylics, gel medium, metallics on mixed-media paper (250gm/169lb)
Approximately 12″ x 8″
Close up of texture detail.
I have been watching a lot of videos by the German artist, Gerda Lipski and was inspired by her to try layering with acrylics on paper today. This is not something I normally do – because I don’t trust the nature of paper to stay strong during the layering process! Anyway, thanks to some of the tips that Gerda gives on her YouTube channel, I figured it out and now I’m having fun layering on paper for a change! Need to get some more acrylic medium though, as I’ve run out – so had to use heavy gel medium on this piece, which explains why I ended up with a bit more texture in the middle than I thought I would. 🙂
A friend of mine suggested that I do a better job with the images of my work, as this is one of the primary reasons why art doesn’t sell on the internet. I had a look at one painting in specific (Windy Day at Caister on Sea) which has received a lot of likes and so on but no purchase. The original photos were very dull and in fact, when I checked them out most of them had shadow on and were taken in low light. I took this painting out into my garden this morning (the sun is particularly bright today) and redid some photos – I didn’t use the tripod but I will for all future photos of work. I think the difference is quite obvious – any comment from my peers (i.e. you 🙂 ) would be welcome?
This is a heavily textured piece and a lot of reworking went into its creation. There are many layers of material that I have sculpted. The layers were made from caulk, modelling paste, fabric, threads (metallic and cotton), sand and paint. I used acrylics, as well as metal effect paints and the base is a stretched canvas.
This image taken in reflected natural daylight with tripod.
My phone made a bleep at around midnight last night and of course I was awake, so had to check it. The message was from a gallery in New York who wanted to know if I would be interested in exploring representation through them. I am not going to break out the champagne just yet as I need to know more and what is involved – but it is a personal victory and I’m proud that I have received some recognition from a major gallery.
“Silver Sea”‘
14″ x 11″ x 3/4″
Multi-media – featuring scraps of silver fabric, acrylics, glues and effect paints on stretched canvas.
Poured Acrylic paintings on stretched canvas. Both are 61cm x 46cm x 2cm deep.
I built up substrate first with all sorts of things – like paper pulp, card, caulk, modelling paste, grit and found things. Then poured and dripped acrylic paints, solvents and rubbing alcohol on the top. I’m in the process of varnishing with gloss coating.
All things are relative. That’s the first point of reference, I find, when it comes to putting a price to a piece of art. It ISN’T about supply and demand either, as many marketers would have you believe. It’s about concept and connections. Many pieces of mediocre art are sold at astronomical prices because the artist or artwork itself, has generated some controversy, fame or following – not because of the scarcity of the work (limited edition prints for example) or physical output of original work by the artist.
Coming to a point where an artist can accurately gauge the hard currency value of his or her piece of work, rests solely on historical feedback and constant manipulation of the selling price. There is no magic formula. Pricing a work cheaply, does not guarantee that it will sell – in fact, it can very often have the opposite effect and actually result in work being perceived as sub-standard or below par; or that the artist is naïve and does not understand the intrinsic value of his or her work. Under-valuing a work of art, I believe, is the single biggest mistake that emergent artists make but how do you avoid this pitfall? Yes, you can assign some crazy value to that oil you just did (that took you all of ten minutes to create) in the hope that someone with tons of money will walk past and offload the cash in your direction – you are very lucky indeed if that happens! Or you can sit down, carefully and examine:
How much your materials cost.
The length of time it took you to produce the work.
Comment from your peers, as to the work’s artistic merit, originality and individuality of the artist’s voice.
Feedback you may have received since the work’s creation, from interested parties – such as galleries or private collectors.
The first two points above are relatively easy to put a value on. Especially, if you have a clear idea of how much you want to earn as a professional artist on a monthly basis, then you can reasonably calculate what your hourly rate is. So adding up the values of the first two items on the above list, will give you your base line, your ‘cost of sale’. Assigning a value to the mystical ‘artistic’ worth of a painting is where you hit the big problems.
It is sometimes valuable to look at work that is being marketed at local galleries (if you are hoping to attract interest from your neighbourhood gallery owner) but that can be a constraint in itself. Just because Joe Soap’s Gallery down the road markets abstract works of a similar size to your pieces at 20 to 100 pounds a painting, doesn’t mean that this price range applies to your work. So how do you (the new artist on the block) come to a realistic selling price for an original piece of art?
I decided to do something a bit daft on this blog and put a picture below of one of my recent works and ask commentators/followers/ visitors to this site to give me an idea what they believed the work was worth – not what they’d pay for it, what they believed it was worth (these are two entirely different values :)) So please would you participate for a bit of fun? You can be entirely anonymous in your comment.
Acrylics, collage (silk material), effect paints on stretched canvas.
I read a report in our local newspaper a week or so ago about an elderly couple who killed themselves in a pact that they made 30 years ago. The man was 72 and his wife was 66 – they had always said that they did not want to go into a nursing home when they became old or ill and that when the time came they would take their own lives. When the wife’s health began to deteriorate they got their affairs in order and sent hand-written letters to all of their friends, some of whom they had known for three decades or more.
One of the friends realised that the couple had or were intending killing themselves when she received her letter and alerted the police. The local Sergeant arrived at the couple’s large house, to find the door partially open. The couple were fully clothed, holding hands lying next to each other on their bed. The post-mortem examination recorded that the medical cause of the couple’s death was drug toxicity – they had taken an overdose of the husband’s medication.
Yellow ‘post-it‘ notes were left on certain items in the house, explaining that they had been washed and cleaned. The couple had made sure that all their bills had been paid and had even put money aside for the window cleaner.
The pathos of this story goes very deep in me. I found it incredibly moving and sad but also so beautiful, proud and strong! In this day and age, we allow women to abort a foetus, we should also be allowed to end our own lives with dignity when we feel that the time is right. This couple knew that each could not live without the other, so they chose to go together, calmly, in their sleep. I had been dwelling on these thoughts and the story of these two people for a while before I started working on this piece and my mind was consumed with this story the whole time I was applying the paint. I did not set out to pay any homage, or create anything with obvious symbolism, metaphor, icon included in it – this is just how the emotion of these feelings came out (for me) in the creative process.
Preparation of an old discarded canvas – with newspaper cutting and glueMore preparation of sub-strateFirst strokes of colour – using water-soluble oils, acrylics and irridescent gel mediumEmotion starting to come through, more application of paint with a knife and brush
Acrylics on stretched canvas. The canvas was previously substantially treated with structural pastes and fillers, resulting in a heavy sculptural feel to the work.
24″ x 18″ (or 61cm x 45.5cm) approximately 3/4” thick.
