My Art Blog

Art buying, demystified

Tue, 9 Aug 2011 21:14:31 -0400

Buying your first painting can be an intimidating experience, and many art galleries do little to help you through the process. Some galleries are downright intimidating. (Ever walked into a gallery, gotten the once-over, and been left to fend for yourself? I have!) Over the past few years, I’ve walked a lot of newbies through their first art buying experience. Here are some lessons learned.

1) Buy what moves you. Seriously, why else would you buy art? When you see a painting online or in a gallery, does it make you smile? Does it remind you of a certain feeling or bring back memories of summers spent on the shore? Does it talk to you? Do the colors and subject appeal to you, even if you can’t really articulate why? Don’t worry about what your friends think, it’s not about them, really….you’re the one who will be looking at the painting every day.

2) Don’t buy art to match your sofa. If you think, “I’m looking for the perfect painting for over the sofa, or over the fireplace,” the dimensions and colors of that space will affect your decision. That’s too short-term a view. If you truly love a piece of art, you will find the perfect space in your home for it. And, where you hang the piece is likely to change over time. Some of my favorite pieces have moved from kitchen to bedroom to living room, and all over my house, as rooms have been redecorated or I’ve simply wanted to shake things up a bit. If you buy a painting you’re not crazy about just because it goes with a certain room or color scheme, you will regret it in the long run. Trust me.

3) Avoid buying art in galleries. Galleries charge artists 40-50%+ of the sales price in commissions, so you end up paying far more for the same piece of work than if you bought it direct. Yes, galleries have a role, similar to that played by realtors when the only way to get a peek inside a home was to go to an open house during a two-hour window or set up an appointment. But all those wonderful sites like isoldmyhouse.com popped up for a reason – eliminating the middle person adds convenience and lowers costs – who can resist that kind of offer? Yes, if you’re an investor buying art with a price tag of $25K to $50K per piece and up, it probably makes sense to work with a “reputable” gallery. But for the rest of us mere mortals who simply want to add a little color and beauty to our lives, you can save yourself a lot of money by buying direct from the artist via etsy and other sites, or by wandering through open studios in your hometown.

4) Ask about the return policy, especially for online art purchases. In spite of all the wonderful color correction software out there, it’s still remarkably hard to accurately represent a piece of art digitally, as the end result depends to a great extent on the computer monitor/screen the end user has. If you’re on the fence about buying a painting, any reputable artist will be willing to let you live with it for a few days to see how you like it. For instance, any art sold through my esty site comes with a seven day “no questions asked” return policy. Any art you buy should, too.

5) Remember that framing often costs (a lot!) more than you would expect it to, particularly with odd-sized or odd-shaped pieces. Unfortunately, this is one of the challenges of buying art online, especially watercolors. Glass is heavy and breakable, so shipping a framed piece can be prohibitively expensive. Save money by buying works that have been mounted in mats to fit standard frame sizes. Or, look for a frame that complements your piece when you order it, and ask the artist to cut a mat to fit the frame. Most artists will agree to do this, you just need to ask!

Any other questions about buying art? Just ask! Always happy to help out and, really, there’s no such thing as a silly question.

Fun with Ink

Fri, 4 Feb 2011 10:42:57 -0500

I’ve been incorporating ink into my mixed media works with increasing frequency. While most of the inks I’ve used are intended as fountain pen inks, I’ve discovered through experimentation that they have several attributes that make them a valuable artistic medium. First, they retain their brilliance when thinned with water, while many acrylics become less saturated when diluted, even with expensive thinners. Second, they are highly fluid, which makes them perfect for the poured and dripped series I’ve been working on. All of my work, even my abstract paintings, are inspired by nature and, often, photographs I’ve taken while out on the lake or in the woods. The fluidity of ink has come in especially handy in my series inspired by water and reflections, including Essence of Life.

Both Essence of Life and Sound of the Trees incorporate pouring and dripping techniques. In both works I used an initial layer of resist to keep portions of the paper white while I colored and darkened other areas. For Sound of the Trees, I poured and dripped a something called frisket, which is a latex-based masking product used in water media that you pour or paint on and then allow to dry before painting around or over it. For Essence of Life, I used masking tape to create a rigid geometric pattern designed to create tension and visual interest against the softly curved colors.

Spring Fever incorporates some of the same inks, but an entirely different technique. Here I thinned the inks and painted background washes of rose and olive green using a very wide hake brush (an inexpensive goat hair brush that is ideal for washes as it covers large areas quickly, before the paint or ink dries, so it doesn’t leave any hard edges). After letting the background dry for a day or two, I painted the trunks and branches using a sumi brush and, primarily, sumi ink. I then added bold pastel highlights to the trunk, then painted and splashed in the leaves using various hues of drawing ink.

So far, I’ve only played around with a limited number of ink brands and colors, but I’m eager to try more. Since I’m used to mixing my own colors in other mediums, I’ve also been mixing my limited supply of inks to get the exact hues I want. (See a few of my mixes in the color chart at the bottom of this blog.) My first attempt at mixing was driven more by thriftiness than anything else. I had grabbed a bottle of J. Herbin vert reseda on a whim while roaming the aisles of the local art store. It looked so beautiful in the bottle, but when I got to my studio and tested it on paper, it was a gorgeous color, but far too garish to resemble any green found in nature. So, I mixed in some walnut ink I had nearby and, voila, I had a deep olive green. Since I use so many different greens in my work, I then ordered two different brands of olive green. As you can see from the chart, not all brands are alike, or even close, although they are both colors I put to use frequently. (Both Essence of Life and Sound of the Trees incorporate the two pre-mixed olive greens as well as my own mixed greens.)

Rose cyclamen is another color that you wouldn’t necessarily find in nature. Sometimes, you can put that discordance to good use as I did when incorporating the rose wash to create a surreal effect. Or, you can mix rose with olive green to make a beautiful deep brown with a subtle reddish tint. Whether you mix your inks or use pure hues from the bottle, they’re an awful lot of fun to brush, pour and splatter!

If you’re interested in learning more about inks or just want to visit a really fun blog, check this out: www.InkNouveau.com

The bloggers also sell a lot of the inks pictured here in their shop: www.GouletPens.com (It’s always a pleasure to find a friendly, family business that sells exactly what you want!!)

Azulejos and the Art of the Everyday

Wed, 8 Dec 2010 22:02:25 -0500

I just returned from a trip to Portugal, where I was blown away by the beauty of the glazed tiles (azulejos) that cover so many building surfaces. Apparently the Portuguese adopted the Moorish abhorrence of emptiness, rather elegantly titled horror vacui, leading them to plaster every available surface with decorated tiles. There are buildings covered in single-hued tiles, as well as elaborately themed murals in the Alfama, one of the oldest sections of Lisbon. Even all of the sidewalks in Lisbon are tiled, and they are absolutely stunning (and clean!!) Here’s a link to photos of some of them:
http://www.mosaicatlas.com/atlassite.aspx?RegionID=13&LocationID=27

An unexpected highlight of our trip was a visit to the National Tile Museum in Lisbon, which traces the history of the art form. Nearly hidden away on the top floor is the highlight of the museum – a 75-foot long mural composed of 1,300 blue and white tiles depicting the cit of London in 1738, prior to the Great Earthquake. If you’re in Lisbon, this museum is well worth the trip. And while Sintra in general was a little touristy/hokey with its Disney-esque castles, the National Palace of Sintra has original tiles dating from the 16th century that reveal an unmistakable Moorish influence.

While I was at first disappointed that Portgual lacks its fair share of well-known paintings, I became quickly enthralled by the azulejos. Sometimes seeming primitive or crudely drawn, the images all have a freshness and energy and charm of their own. Back home, I started looking around for modern mosaic art, just to see what artists in this medium were up to. It’s a challenging research assignment, as most searches lead you to kitchen tile shops or people selling scrabble tile jewelry. Finally, I landed on some sites worth recommending:

The British Association for Modern Mosaic has an online gallery with some tremendously talented artists. Here’s the home page:

http://www.bamm.org.uk/
My favorite artist is Nathalie Vin (top right corner in grid on gallery page, no separate link)

Another fun site is mosaicatlas, a photo-sharing site with photos of public mosaics from all over the globe (sadly, the site is no longer taking new contributions):
http://www.mosaicatlas.com/atlas.aspx

And a few individual artists whose sites I love:
http://www.icmosaics.com/index.html

http://www.mosaicworks.com/

http://www.virginiamosaics.com/gallery.html

The Amazing Vision of Rockwell Kent

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 14:12:34 -0400

I’m a big Rockwell Kent fan. Aside from his fantastic sense of color, I love the way he simplifies forms and shapes in his landscapes. And I admire his sense of adventure and how he reinvented himself so often during his life, moving from lobsterman to dairy farmer o architect and builder to political activist.

I saw a fabulous retrospective of his work at the Portland Museum of Art a few years back that included a number of his iconic paintings from both the museum’s collection and others. I’d always thought the PMA had the most extensive collection of his works around, given the amount of time he spent in Maine (on Monhegan) and the number of paintings the museum owns. So, I was quite surprised when a friend sent me a link to the Rockwell Kent Gallery ad Collection at SUNY Plattsburgh.

http://clubs.plattsburgh.edu/museum/rk_paint.htm

The museum claims to have the most complete and balanced collection of Rockwell Kent’s work in the US, including 34 of his paintings. Looking through the online images, I was amazed to find works I hadn’t seen before. There are some compelling landscapes that are unmistakably Kent’s, from his travels to South America, including Admiralty Sound, Tierra de Fuego, and a few works from his summers on Monhegan. There are landscapes from the area around his farm in upstate New York, including the absolutely stunning Winter Sunrise, Adirondacks and

There are also some scenes that remind me of the hauntingly bleak moodiness of a lot of Edvard Munch’s work. Among these is a work titled, House of Dread, Newfoundland. The SUNY web site quotes Kent’s autobiography on this work. "Upon a bleak and lofty cliff's edge, land's end, stands a house; against it's corner and facing seawards leans a man, naked even as the land, and sea, and house; his head is bowed as though in utter dejection; and from an upper window leans a weeping woman. It is our cliff, our sea, our house stripped bare and stark, its loneliness intensified. It is ourselves in Newfoundland, our hidden but prevailing misery revealed." Other paintings in the same vein include And Women Must Weep or Shipwreck, Coast of Ireland and Recumbent Nudes with Ringed Sun.

It’s a long hike over to Plattsburgh, and the museum is open only limited hours, so it may be a while before I see these works in person. In the meantime, I’m going to revisit this site frequently, and I recommend you do, too!

Bringing Out My Inner Designer On Etsy

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:57:27 -0400

I’ve been spending way too much of my free time on Etsy lately. That probably wouldn’t be bad if it were time spent listing items in my shop or marketing my art, but instead I find myself spending hours trolling through the Treasury section. If you haven’t visited Etsy or this section of Etsy, you should check it out – it’s incredibly addictive. Essentially, it lets anyone become an interior designer of sorts, collating their own collection of treasured objects. I just posted a Treasury this morning on the persimmon theme:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c6682c62fe96d91dafb6a9d/persimmon?index=0

And I did one a few weeks back on summer nights:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c586f3e49258eefa67d3587/summer-nights?index=1

All this curating comes as I’ve been toying, in a rather abstract way, with the idea of going back to school for design or architecture. (I have to admit that the thought of going back to school for anything right now is rather intimidating.) I’ve been browsing through design magazines and have found an awesome web site - designspongeonline.com. Designsponge has a continual assortment of interesting features like one this week on patio items under $100. It’s also got a really fun section called sneakpeaks where you get peak inside beautifully decorated homes. (Sort of like going to open houses in your neighborhood, but this time all your neighbors are artistically inclined and really cool.) If you want to pretend you’re doing “serious” browsing I’d also highly recommend their bizladies section – it’s a fabulous resource if you’ve got, or are thinking of starting, your own business. Visit designsponge.com and you just may find yourself wanting to become a designer, too!