NEW ART PROJECTS GOIN ON?

Nice job. Do you keep the names of visitors and patrons from the guest books? Ive kept those and sent mailers to subsequent shows (and/or e-mails ).
Its nice to have a packed house at an opening.

PS, there is always a cost of doing shows and a dealer ,(who takes your work as his business,) will always spend time marketing your work and not just providing an empty wall and a calendar space.

Ive always sold more of my work through a gallery/dealer than at a business that is hanging my work to fill empty walls. You pay a hefty percentage but,if left on my own, I do a rather shitty job of applying the business of marketing my work. Its always the gallery folks who demand that framing be a certain quality and that my work have a theme or that I be available at a time in the month after the opening to act as a refresher to meet some fo the patrons. I deal with a gallery in NJ and another in Del (none in the Dutch country of PA). Both of these gallery folks keep an eye out for me and guard my (and their) interests. It costs me, but, Ive often priced my work below what they wanted me to charge and even with their commission, I have always done better dealing with the gallery than on my own.

Course NJ and Del are tourist areas and both galleries like to get their patrons all "mellow" on opening nights. Gallery opemnings in Summer are coveted positions for these galleries. Ive not yet made it to the "A" list.

Address? yes: I'll phone it to you tomorrow. BTW, I always take pictures of hanging works; I just don't have the ability to post them here.
J.

J, I'll call you tomorrow with more info.
Goodnight.

It's just occupational therapy effemm. Nothing to do with art.

Osso, I repeated my first post to you believing that I had accidently erased the first.
Farmer, you are of course right. My approach to show art is no more than non-commercial exhibitionism. I'm retired and left with no desire or willingness to undergo the LABOR of business. And perhaps I lack the confidence in my "product" to make marketing efforts. I paint for its recreational value and then look for blank walls.

be vulnerable. Exose your work to a gallery owner or two and listen to their advice on your work. Sometimes marketablity helps one get out of a funk of a hiatus in work. I ent through a period of about 10 years and only re started my work in the mid 1990's, when it worked itself into my techy drawings. Now That I too am retired, its all consuming (along with fishing ,writing my geo book and woordworking)

I must confess, Farmer, that I am waiting for a good dealer to discover ME. I have no way to argue FOR my work. It satisfies ME (sometimes), but I don't know how to "convince" others to like it. That's their business. This is the extent to which I am willing to be "vulnerable" (false humility).
Oh, the advice of a dealer could never carry any weight with me, unless my concern is how to sell.

I don't know how to paint, but I'm trying to learn. I feel like my control of the medium is poor, so I've been doing very geometric designs in order to increase my confidence with a brush.

I'm also spending a lot of time mixing colors, just to find out what works and what doesn't. Amazing how easy it is to replicate mud, and how hard it can be to get the right shades of lighter colors without washing them out.

Cycloptichorn

Most good dealers are quite knowledgeable about work and its presentation. They obviously want to have each section of wall be marketeable.
My belief isnt to make a living at my work, but to somehow make my materials bills be offset. (So far Im doing real well on that part).

I went and introduced myself to several dealers and gallery owners at the ATlantic City NJ and the Pa watercolor show.

I get a feel that you have made a distinction between "ars gratia" and commercial art. My only suggestion is to lose that and see whether your stuff could sell. Id seen a couple of your pieces and found them very accomplished. I remember one of a blazing sun through a slat chair. I got a feeling of an afternoon in a desrt environment.

Best way to learn is to continue painting. Did you get some feeling of perspective and design? We used to do these mosaic types of paintings in a commercial art class I took years ago.Its a good way to learn . Try taking a photo and break it down into these squares and colors.

Do you keep a journal of the color that result from your mixes?
It looks like you are painting in acrylics. You like those the best?

You're right on the first try - that's exactly what I have been doing. My first few attempts didn't turn out well, b/c I feel I took on too much at once. So I'm attempting to learn by focusing on more limited situations. There are so many different things to keep in mind that it's difficult to feel satisfied unless I do that.



I have three large sheets of posterboard, and when I mix a color I like, I paint it on there with notations of what went into it; that way while working I can just look over at the wall and get an idea of which of my favorite colors might go well in the piece I'm working on. In theory anywayy.

I am using acrylics, b/c they are cheap and dry fast.

Cycloptichorn

I have finished the project that I had mentioned previously, the one where you take an old piece and re-work it. The contest is still being judged on Deviant Art, but I wanted to post the before and after here. I have to admit that I am pretty pleased with it.

The 'Before' image. I did this as a homework assignment back in art school (circa 2001). I always liked the colors, but the work itself was always something I felt could have been far better.



The 'After' image that I completed a few days ago.



I had re-read the story and realized that besides the boots Puss had no clothing so, away with the cloak. Puss is also a male, so he would most likely not be a calico cat. 99% of all calico's are female, some genetic quirk. so I modeled Puss after one of my male cats.

good stuff. So you do watercolors. Thats my favorite medium. Course, I throw away most of my work becauase I dont want to hang on to stuff that im critical of.

Farmer, one of the things I like most about acrylics is that I can re-visit them later. Some have gone from "not liked" to "much liked".

I can rework a watercolor too. Ive discovered lifting medium and erase medium and granulation meidiums, so I can really attack the paper without it turning to mush. I sometimes will resize a piece of paper thats 300 lb . Thats almost like a thin piece of plywood.

I love 300 lb cold press paper. It is great to work on. I like watercolor quite a bit, but also have worked in acrylics.

Discovered a "collage transfer" trick that allows me to transfer stuff like Chinese calligraphy onto a watercolor. I do the calligraphy until the thing pleases me (simple lettering v more flowing characters). Then I copy it on a xerox (IN REVERSE MODE) .Ill make maybe three or more and then take the copies back and , with a transfer piquid marker (or a brush filled with acetone, I paint both sides of the copy and then apply it to the place on the paper that I want the calligraphy. I will repeat the transfers with a gradational sequence , from very sharp down to one thats barely visible on the papaer. This adds up to a nice photo collage transfer onto my painting. I just finished a work for a friend who is also a gardener. The phrase
"Plants will die, Sometimes its your fault, soletimes its not" was translated for me by FRANCIS, (who had access to a chinese character translation source, or else he speaks and write chinese-I think ikts the former)
ANyway, the characters need to be messed with before putting them on papaer, and, technically, they look much better ith a print look rather than a sumi brush look. (IMHO).

Now Im thinking of taking a line or two out of the Federaloist Papers to include on a new work Im planning for an upcoming "Plein AIr" show. I want to do the calligraphy as it appeared in the actual printing. So Ill copy it from a library copy and then keep blowing it up and then transferring the whole thing.

I'm showing eight 40X30 acrylics at a popular book store in my town throughout the month of October (Dyslexia blessed a similar show at the same venue a couple of years ago).

can you send a NAME OF THE store? I may be in the S CAlif area in mid October and I lov driving.

It's in southern California? Then I'd like to know too please, JLNobody!