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Kayla, shame on you, using "Ceasar Salad" and leroy nieman in the same statement. Wash you mouth out; I'm washing my ears out. I too love ceasar salads.
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Kayla, sorry that my castigation was posted after so many other comments which rendered it less funny than intended. Yes! I would very much appreciate a print-out of any technical comments you've posted. LW is graciously sending me some of his dialog with Farmerman (the original). My printer, as you may know, is offline. I'll send the address to you a la PM.
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By the way, Kayla, Neiman is, in my judgement, no more a true artist than is the native son of your town, Thomas Kincaid. And I know what you think of the latter.
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I am so fortunate to be able to go a reception tonight for an exhibit of paintings of the COBRA (art brut?) movement collection of a wealthy local.
To be fair, Neiman and the ilk are artist but they are commercial artists whose work has been marketed as fine art. Original works can be called fine art no matter what the quality but the practice of having a commercial silkscreen printer or now, an Iris drum scanner and spray printer which is a digital medium, and having the artist sign and number the reproductions has blurred the meaning of the term. You do have to establish an audience with enough buying power to be successful and there are enough foolish people with money to go around. They are buying what they like (or think they like as they have no artistic education to give them a clue) and often buy for a status consideration without really loving the art at all. If they have been visiting museums and see what the major artists of the past and present have created as visual images, you would think they'd develop an understanding of what is simply mediocre illustration and a really high quality work of fine art. I doubt that most of them have even stepped foot into a major museum and if they have, it's likely been once in ten years. With Neiman, it's more likely they have been watching a lot of sports and Neiman's most successful work has been sports oriented. Not to worry that the style of splotch and blotch came out of some of the worst abstract painters and that the composition is amatuerish.
Thomas Kinkaide must never be mentioned again
JL- this thread was going along nicely, I was getting some great tips and then, HIS name appears. The Home Shopping Network had a show dedicated to this guy today. his paintings are a sorry batch of tripe and much of the craftsmanship is really poor. Hes not a devotee of the rules of perspective, yet he tries to present these oversentamentalized scenes that make me want tol ose my lunch.
I would say that he would have had a short career as a greeting card artist and for perhaps some of the lesser periodicals but somehow he caught on to what other artists have done to appeal to the cheap sentiment that would just as well be expressed with a $2.50 get well card. Nobody who buys his work have any idea what is good painting and what is bad -- perspective is an obvious problem in his paintings as well as compostion. He doesn't have any idea of how to paint trees -- his technique is even second rate. Wouldn't one expect him to show up on QVC and the ilk to pander to the unwary? Ah, well, if it makes them happy (but what is the quality of their happiness from constantly staring at one of those "lightbulb in the house" windows). He can only paint artificial light because he has no idea what light does in the open air.
So I didn't mention his name once, farmerman, but everyone knows what kind of person is drawn toward his mediocrity. The fact is that he has a crew of elves who churn out even his originals.
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Sorry, Farmerman. It was unforgiveable. Won't happen again.
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Interesting comment about you-know-who's use of the light bulb because he can't paint outdoor light. Obvious now that you mention LW, but it never occurred to me.
Who is that person and what ... .
Illuminating comments re: YKW and the light bulb, Light! Thank you!
I tried gouache many years ago and found it extraordinary difficult. I used it more as a sort of drawing medium and used tiny brushes, best
result was a miniature still life about 2" x 2".
I have some really good info somewhere on egg tempera and will look for it and post it when I find it. Taking a tip from a fellow artist, I did some faux egg temperas once. I usually use acrylics, but found out that you can simulate egg tempera (my favorite but a real hassle) if you mix the two. At the time I had a studio temporarily in a cute but rickety garage apartment in San Antonio -- possibly the cockroach and ant capitol of the US (now I'm in trouble). I drove south out of SA early in the a.m. to an egg farm (eggs not older than 24 hours required), bought half a dozen of still-warm, fresh eggs, rushed home, and got to work. The results were very gratifying. Overnight I left the painting I was working on the floor, tipped up against the wall. The next morning it had a whole network of teensy mini-highways cut into it. Ants. They liked the egg. (And probably croaked from the acrylic content, but I didn't have the satisfaction of finding the near-dead in agony...)
Great story Tartarin, ants and Texas do go together without a doubt.
Tartarin....when I lived in Africa I once sold a painting executed in
some water based medium to someone who had seen it in an exhibit. She took it home and left it by an open window . A heavy rain occurred that night and about 3/4 of the painting was wrecked. She asked me to repaint it quickly (but did not expect to pay). Many people seem to think that painting is not work that requires learning (god given talent!) and compensation since "you enjoy it" !!!!!!
Farmerman....please give us an update on your egg tempera
...how did it go on that surface?
Shepaints -- When I lived in a village in Spain, the brother of the sweet local pharmacist (the brother was a hard man who lived in the Big City) wanted to buy one of my paintings because I'd become slightly famous and was living in his village -- not art for art's sake! He wanted to talk with me first, so we met in the plaza and over a cup of coffee he asked me all kinds of questions about myself in a stern, humorless voice, as though trying to verify my qualifications as an artist. At the end of the question period, he asked me the cost of the painting he wanted to buy. When I told him, he reached for his checkbook and remarked, "I'm going to take off 15% because you didn't go to art school."
Tartarin, the cad! And what a dummy...What did you do?
Good one Tartarin....I am rolling on the floor laughing....and
crying!
An acquaintance of mine has asked me to paint a mural.
The question of money has not arisen. I am wondering how
much enthusiasm there will be when I name an appropriate fee!
hehehehe.....chortle, sob!!!!!
"...por no haber estudiado..." I have it written in my log alongside the name of the painting I sold him. What did I do? Well, it was a very Arab part of Spain (still) and bargaining was still part of the deal in small villages. I can't remember how it turned out, but we were both pleased.
Anyway, ART is supposed to be FREE! Tra-la...
The great thing about Spain was that if you were going to live there and be a practicing (i.e., showing and selling) artist, you had to have a work permit -- well, not a work permit but a union card -- well, not a union card but a Guild Card, a plastic encased but otherwise ancient 12th century Guild Card. The Guild of Artists and Artisans. No particular distinction there which I really, really appreciated.
