The ATC

Today, I've been doing a million errands and small jobs. And as it is officially "Be A Total Jerk At the Grocery Store Because YOU Are The Only One Who Still Needs Something For Thanksgiving" season, I've needed to do small things to make me happy. Today I worked on a few ATC's in between laundry, raking leaves, shopping, etc etc. If you're not familiar, the ATC is the Artist Trading Cards. There are a lot of ways to go with this little buggers. The only rule is that they are of a uniform size (2x3 inches) and that they are NOT for sale, they are for trade. Of course, there are artists out there who create such MAGNIFICENT works that they simply MUST sell them (note sarcasm) that you can sell them as limited edition some sort of nonsense or other.

Also, people do all kinds of things with these. From textiles, to collage, painting, sewing...you name it. I of course, just paint mine. And almost always in watercolor for the simplicity and speed.

Like my rant on 'journaling for journaling's sake, where people get so caught up in creating this masterpiece of work in a journal that will earn a spot in great libraries like Da Vinci's codex...again with the sarcasm. I think I'm hungry. Anyway. I think that the ATC should be a quick outlet to create something transient. After all, the point is to trade them away. Sometimes I work out compositions for larger works, or just play with color, or...whatever.

So, here are two that I did today. Enjoy.

A small one for warm up

Many of the artists I admire do several paintings a week. This can be a crutch in itself not unlike my little rant on sketchbooks and ATCs, but those whom I admire paint this often because thier style lends itself to it. My paintings can take anywhere from a week or two to a year. But I try to complete a few small ones once in a while to keep loose and reconnect with color and just have fun with paint. Here is yesterday's.

Small Pears (Oil on canvas 5x5)

The holiday rush begins

The fall weddings are over. The Halloween party is over. Thanksgiving is a week away. If we wait until we have 'time' to paint, it will never happen.

I find myself jumping between oils and watercolor (didnt I ever learn that oil and water dont mix?). Also, I find I waffle between works that take weeks and 'paint a day' type work. I have the time, I wish I had the tenacity to finish a work, even a small work, every day or two.

Here is one of my latest. I rarely paint anything with a thought to it's given ending location. Usually I dont paint for myself anyway, but in this case, I needed something to go over our couch. The room has a lot of roses in it. I am also spoiled in that the house itself often has roses as I have the most generous husband in the world. So, the subject, the color, the size...all came together. Sure, I'd include it in a show and even sell it if the opportunity arose, but for the time being...it's already found its home. I hope you enjoy it.

(Olive Roses. Oil. 36x36)

Monochromatic Painting

This week the task was to create a monochromatic painting. This is a 36 x 36 oil with only Windsor and Newton's Olive green and Titanium White. Now the technique that I like to teach with the 'seven steps' used by the Old Masters is similar, but I kind of combined steps 3 and 4 and used white in what would have been my underpainting. My monitor is a bit screwy and I think the ratio is off so everything looks stretched horizontally to me. Hopefully, this looks alright. enjoy.

Today's painting

This is today's practice painting. I'm doing a larger painting that features this peeled orange and I thought it'd be fun to do a small study. It's 5x7 oil.

The rest of the painting has one of my favorite bowls. A small silver bowl with a blue laquered interior. I like the green background. I may use it for the large painting as well.

I spent some of this afternoon browsing through a book about the Dutch masters. I'm quite partial to the portraits and especially the still lifes. I dont know that I'd ever try one of those complicated fru-fru flower ones, but I love the variety of surfaces in the paintings. Big pewter tankard, silver dish, always a peeled orange for some reason. sometimes bugs or a dead fish. Not sure the point of the bugs or fish. But...I love the look and I love the challenge of the different textures.

So...just thought I'd post todays work while the big one is in progress.

Christmas in August

First...here's a tiny fellow on the easel right now.

I walked out to the mailbox today and when I opened it up, there was a bright light and angelic singing... Turns out, it was the Blick 2010 Art Supply Catalog. Woohoo.
It was reminiscent of those days when that huge Sears catalog would arrive and I'd sit somewhere comfy and look at every page of the toy section and dog ear pages and make a note for my Christmas list. Yesterday was kind of like that. I made a cup of tea and curled up in the big chair and dived in.
Some people might flip right to the oil paint page, or the canvas, or to printing supply. Not me. I look at every page. I read every description of the product. There are paint companies that I didnt know existed. There are ones I thought were long out of business. There are ones that probably SHOULD be out of business. I scan paints I never heard of to see how much their Cobalt Blue was (always the pricey one).
I think we as artists can easily get stuck in a groove. I use THIS paint, and THIS brush and THIS canvas or whatever and we forget to look around at all that is possible. Forget that there are new advances and old techniques. New equipment and old favorites.
Through the years, I switched mediums every few years or so. I did charcoal, then pen and ink, then ink like watercolor, then pastels, colored pencils, illustration, still life, animals, portraits, abstracts....The bad part of that was that sometimes I feel that I dont have a particular 'style'. That if I showed 20 works in a variety of the range that I can do...people wouldnt necessarily be able to say, "ah, that's a Karen May...I like her work). For example, I recently showed 4 works at a financial centers open house shindig. I went to the open house and listened to people tell me what artwork they liked and yadayada. More than one person said "I really like these" (pointing to my 2 photorealistic oils), but I also like those (across the room were two oil landscapes that I'd done). I was flattered that they picked out my work as their favorites, but they had no idea that they were the same artist.
Anyhoo...I digress. I think that we should remember to look around and try new things. It doesnt have to be goofy and dangerous or expensive...just pick up some oil pastels for a change and sketch. Grab a travel watercolor set and do a few florals. God forbid...pick up a pencil and practice drawing again.
The catalog keeps me in touch with that. Just look at what's out there. Every new page and section I was like "ooooh....ahhhhh". What's next? what havent I tried? Silverpoint? Encaustic?
I am like the buffet at the Belagio. Give me some of EVERYTHING!!!!

To teach or to 'take'. Art classes

There are lots of adages about teaching. My Dad used to say "thos who can-Do, those who can't-Teach". Granted, he was an engineer and people who never left the hallowed halls of academia, but continued to teach from the latest text sources, may not have inspired great respect. In some fields, school gives you the tools and you are supposed to then run with it, keeping ahead of the curve, on top of the wave and all kinds of other silly sayings. There are other fields however that are ever changing and new discoveries and advances in science create the need for people willing to not only never leave academia, but to impart knowledge and pass the torch to a new group who will in turn, do the research, come back to teach...etc. For example, my sister is a doctor of archaeology. In her field, while the subject matter may be dry as dust (hee hee) get it? nevermind. While the subjects of study are usually long gone, new advances in technology, new tools and better understanding constantly challenges the accepted conceptions of the past. It's the complete opposite of math. There's no going back in math. In archaeology, going forward enables them to go further back.
Now uncross your eyes because this IS relevant to art. Art swings both ways so to speak. Art is about the past, somewhat about the present and about the future. We study the masters while employing new graphic tools and technology to improve what we do today and create something that will last well into the future.
If math is like a hallway where every advance firmly closes the door behind it and archaeology advances allows more and more doors to be unlocked further back, art is the funhouse where all of the doors are open, some hallways go nowhere, some doors are brick walls pretending to be doors and every door is different and you can call yourself an artist and open as many or as few as you want in any direction.
So...teachers of art. Those who can, should teach. Those who can't unfortunately, sometimes teach also...but...that's another story.
If you are a student of history and love the great masters, you can impart to a new crop of picker-uppers-of the paintbrush what they can learn from those who came before. Or, you can show them the past so that they see what NOT to do. If you develop a new technique, why hide it under a bushel basket...shine your light baby.
As a teacher, while I may be teaching a specific technique or idea, there are very few rules and many of them are like my mother-in-laws angel figurines...made to be broken. I learn as much from teaching as I think my students do. They're discoveries or 'mistakes' teach me more about what I know, what I want to try and where to go.
Now, we all know 'artists' (usually pronounced "ARTEESTS") who wear black turtlenecks, berets, and pretend they are french who think they have nothing to learn and if you dont know what they know, if you dont collect the obscure artist they looooove, then poo poo you. Forget them. they are like artistic dung beetles who gather thier toys, names, references and 'travels' around them and feel superior in describing everything as 'exquisite...simply exquisite". Pbttthhhhhh. If you come across a 'teacher' lke that...run away...run far away.
But dont forget to take classes too. I teach and I take. I learn from both. sure, I took figure drawing in college, but that was a long time ago. Get back in and charcoal yourself some nekkid folk. Yeah, you slogged your way through color theory, but who couldnt use a refresher or just a new way to look at your old pallete. Try a class in something you dont think you like. I personally want to throw myself on the floor like a 4 year old in WalMart when someone shows me what passes for abstract art. I just dont like it. Yet, when my teacher assigns something abstract, I do it. I try it. She hates it. I learn.
If you can't...well...then take up raquetball, but if you can.... take classes and teach some. There's always someone who could learn from what you know and there's always someone 'better' than you.
Have fun opening doors.