Arts Affair Successes

I just wanted to take a moment and give a big congratulations to my friends and fellow Needham Art Association members who won awards at this years Arts Affair at Marina Bay. 

Congratulations to Paul Graveline, Evelyn Bernal, Linda Porreca, and Nancy Daly!

Constantly Learning

Reading about art and other artist’s techniques can be so inspiring.  It makes me feel productive when I’m not able to take out my paints and canvas (like when I’m riding public transportation).  Art books can give you inside information to another artist’s life.  Details that you don’t see when looking at a finished painting, like what does that artist’s pallet look like?  Which colors does he/she choose to use?  Which tools do they find most important when they paint? 

 

Right now you can find me riding the T reading Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color by Kevin D. Macpherson.  The book centers on Macpherson’s techniques and color pallet, which he limits to four colors: red, yellow, blue, green and white.  In his book he recommends doing color studies to get familiar with mixing colors so that you can mix colors quickly and effortlessly. 

 

My color study.

I’ve been told that an artist should do color studies at least once in their life, if not more.  So, considering I didn’t have formal oil painting color classes in college, I’ve taken some time to practice mixing colors.  Seen here is me doing my most recent color studies created by taking the tube color and mixing it with white mixed in four stages gradually.

 

 

 

 

 

Pricing Artwork

Children learning about art

People often wonder why art is so expensive.  That is why I was so impressed when I met a woman with three children at a recent art fair who, after the children looked at my prices and became wide eyed, taught the children what was behind the price.   I don’t consider my prices to be high and I know that they’re not, especially considering I’ve had art dealers and patrons say my artwork is worth a whole lot more than what I’m selling it for.  I’ve actually heard stories from other artist say that they’ve been rejected from galleries, not because the gallery disliked the artwork but because their prices were too low! 

 

Anyway, after the three children turned around to the woman she started teaching them and told them about the time involved in making a piece and asked me how long it took me to paint it and then took my price and divided it by the hours.  Then there is the cost of the materials, canvas, paints, easel, the booth, show items, rent for a space to paint, website, business cards, etc.  Then she went on and mentioned student loans and cost for getting an education in art.  It was wonderful.  It actually helped me put things in perspective.  If you are an artist I highly recommend you do this as an exercise to find out how much your artwork is really worth.  It will probably be a lot more than you think! 

If you’re an artist and interested in art pricing I highly recommend Alyson B. Standfield’s Art Biz Blog, specifically the catergory on art pricing.

The Frustrations of Plein Air

My first Plein Air class went off without a hitch.  We had beautiful weather.  My second one, not so much.  We set up our easels in the beautiful Fenway Rose Garden (something you can only do with permission) and began our paintings.  The sky was clear and it was so sunny.  We began our paintings of wonderful rose filled arches and blossoming bushes.  I was very excited because my painting was coming along nicely.  Being in New England it is not completely far off to have a huge storm come out of the middle of nowhere, and that is exactly what happened.  We were somewhat prepared for it because we had heard there would be some rain so we all planned to head for the covered benches.  Once we felt those first drops that is where we all headed.  Well, the storm clouds rolled in and the rain hit full force – sideways.  Everything of mine was drenched, including me.  We managed to avoid getting hit by the lighting bolts that were coming down to the left and right of us. 

This was when I learned my first lesson in oil painting.  I looked down at my friend’s painting and hers looked great; the oil didn’t absorb the water at all, the water just ran right off.  You could have dunked her painting in water and it would have looked fine.  Then, I saw mine.  ALL of the paint on my canvas was running to the ground.  I had been using water-soluble oil paint and well – duh - it’s water-soluble.  So in the end here is what my painting looks like… 

Wet Painting

Lesson learned.  Don’t use water-soluble oils when painting out doors if you think there is any chance of rain, or if you live in New England! 

As an end note I will probably give this painting a second chance and start over, so you may still see it in a gallery someday!

 

Happy Painting!

Mary

Great Painting Workshop – see the difference!

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a structured art class.  So I was so excited when I got the chance to study with Joel Babb at the Fort Point Studio School in Boston.  It was only a two day weekend class but what I’ve learned has already had an affect on my painting technique – specifically Joel’s technique of mixing colors and setting up the palette.  Joel is an amazing artist and if you have a moment you should check out his work at http://www.joelmbabb.com.  The most important (to me) part of the workshop was learning how to set up a palette so the colors can be organized by hue, value, intensity and shades.  For me it created an organized palette to work from.  I have two photographs I want to share with you.  The first one below is a painting I had started years ago and have been struggling with ever since.  Then, following the workshop I decided to give this subject matter another shot so I started another painting using the techniques I used in the workshop.  It is unfinished but if you continue scrolling down to the second painting you can see the difference.

Untitled1

Untitled2