What's Up My Sleeve

"If you don't treat your art professionally, nobody else will either."

I heard an artist say that during a 3-day seminar I attended last week. It was a fantastic workshop in Midland, Michigan, titled Professional Practices for the Artist. I came home brimming with new ideas to put into practice, and I'll write more posts about those ideas later. But the first one is simply to get a handle on this issue of moving art from place to place. Every time I have to take my artwork out of the house, or ship it somewhere, I worry. 

Transporting Artwork in the Car

The first several times I had to load my artwork into the car, I wrapped each piece in beach towels. But I was a little bit embarrassed walking in and out of exhibition venues with my pink and orange seahorses flopping around me. I then tried carrying artwork without any covering at all, just stacking the frames front to front, or back to back. But I was finding chips in the frames and sometimes the backing paper was torn or starting to peel up.
I decided to get out the old sewing machine and make some custom-fitted sleeves finally. My first design, last year, was made from fleece. I thought that was good idea because fleece is so soft. I made them each with a little flap and ties, thinking how convenient that would be... but after a few times using them, I realized the ties were a hindrance and it was too hard to slide the artwork into the shapeless fleece sleeve.  People were always coming to my aid and trying to help me with them. Again, a source of embarrassment and a feeling of unprofessionalism.
Today I bought some quilted fabric in a neutral beige color (no seahorsies), and made a matching set of very simple sleeves. No flaps or ties. I think these are going to work well, and will look much more professional when I use them. 

Shipping Artwork

Next month I have to ship my piece "Adagio" from Ohio to California and arrange for it to be shipped back to me in September. I'm thrilled to have it accepted into this show, and I'm planning to fly to California for the convention to see it hanging there, but I'm very apprehensive about shipping it! 

When I ship a framed piece to a client, I use various boxes and packing materials that I find around the house, or things that I can buy as inexpensively as possible. I haven't had a problem yet, but it's always a hassle trying to get it packed safely.  The little project of shipping my artwork takes up an entire day.  

For shipping to California, I splurged on an Airfloat container, simply for the peace of mind that I will have, knowing my artwork is protected well and has the best chance of getting back to me safely. I can't afford to spend 100$ on every box, though.
If you have an efficient system for shipping work to clients, please share it, I'm all ears!

Old Design...(didn't work well...)

I hope to post my progress on my latest commission soon! It's a graphite portrait of a mother and baby.

PS - I'm going to get rid of the blue fleece sleeves. If you want them, let me know. Oh, but I'd have to find a box...

New Work: "Souvenirs"

"Souvenirs"
19 x 24 Colored Pencil

House By The Side Of The Road

Let me live in my house

By the side of the road,

Where the race of men go by.

They are good, they are bad

They are weak, they are strong,

Wise, foolish - 

So am I.

(song by S.W. Foss)

Hard Parts First... Or Last?

One small section of the piece.

I finished my huge 19x24 piece yesterday... except for this little one-inch bird... I have been avoiding this little bird, hoping he would magically paint himself. I honestly had no idea what colors I was going to use, or how I was going to shape his body and feathers. Way back in the beginning when I was planning the piece, I drew the little bird as a whim. 

I don't even have a reference photo for him, specifically. But I Googled birds in flight and looked at several pictures to get a sense of the shaping and contours, and the details of the wings. I forced myself to use colors that were already in the piece. I didn't want to draw too much attention to the bird; I want the viewer's eye to flow upward through the piece, rest momentarily on the bird, then flow back down the other side of the house.

He turned out okay, and I'm relieved that he isn't going to make me trash the whole piece at this point. But I wish I hadn't saved him for last. I was worrying about that darn bird the whole time I was working on everything else. 

On the other hand, saving him for last helped me to figure out what I wanted to do with him. If I had completed him right away before the rest of the piece, I might have regretted the color choices or the way I shaped his body and wings. (With colored pencil, once that color is on the paper... it's ON THE PAPER)     

I probably should have approached the bird some time during the middle of the piece, when I was feeling particularly confident about the colors and the overall impact that I was trying to achieve.

What do other artists do about the hard parts? Do you face those extra-challenging areas right away? Or do you wait and approach them at the end?

I'm not ready to post the entire piece, but it is unofficially finished! 

...One small corner of the piece...

Yes, 456 square inches of colored pencil layers!  I could post the whole thing right now and it would be fine. But I know that if I declare this piece finished and rush it down to the printer to be photographed, then frame it up and hang it on the wall... I will be forever making excuses for why I didn't  darken those shadows, or why I didn't smooth out that sky, and.... (the list could go on and on). So, for these next few days I will be tweaking and polishing, and THEN I will declare the piece finished at last. 

In the meantime, what do you do about the hard parts? I'm guessing your approach is probably better than my put-it-off-indefinitely approach!

While You Were Out

Ballpoint Pen in Moleskine Journal

Being away from the studio doesn't have to be a cause for frustration. It can be a source of stimulation and a good time to strengthen my artistic skills. 

I like to bring along a moleskine notebook in my purse, and draw with my Cross ballpoint pen. I try to practice contouring forms and making the lines blend and flow as the composition grows. I learn what patterns and types of movement are pleasing to the eye that way. There is no erasing, so I have to find creative ways to solve mistakes.

On longer outings, I'll bring along a field book of smooth bristol, and my trusty pencil kit. I draw things that I'm comfortable with, so I don't need reference photos, and I can easily pick up where I left off. I hope I finish this drawing of the rocks and mitten soon... I'm liking it!

Sometimes an hour of looking out the window on the highway can do more for my art development than an hour spent in the studio. I like to observe firsthand the things that I've read about recently, or things I've been working on in my current piece. I look at houses and observe how the shadow over here is a different color from the shadow over there. I look at how the shadows on the ground are sometimes crisp and other times diffused. I notice how the gradations of values change as they shape an object. Sometimes exactly like the art books describe, but not always!  I look for reflected light bouncing off the outer edges of forms and notice that it doesn't occur all the time, only in certain surroundings. 

I notice different sized buildings and how the perspective changes completely when I move my viewpoint.  I look at how tree branches connect to trunks and how many branches are on each limb. 

In restaurants I experiment with the shadows of a glass of water and how the reflections show up in the shadows. (I try to look at people and figure out the colors I see in their skintones or how their features change with their expression, but they always turn around and catch me looking at them... )

Often, I'll come back to my studio feeling strengthened and more confident about my abilities, or maybe with a better understanding about something that I'd been struggling with in my art.

What do you do when you're away from the studio? How does it help you?

Finding Your Voice

Even sane people hear voices in their heads (They DO, don't they?), and artists probably hear them especially loudly. We hear the voices of our mentors and instructors. We hear the voices of our critics and our friends. We hear the words that we've read in books and websites. But the art that we produce can't speak with a chorus of different voices, it has to resonate with just one true voice, strong and clear. Your voice.
There was a speaker last week at our CP chapter meeting who emphasized that very point. She ran a gallery for many years and was an artist herself. But, you and I have heard the message over and over. It is so important for an artist to have a portfolio of consistent work, and your style must be uniquely YOU, not a reflection of other artists' styles and techniques.  When people walk through a gallery or browse through a website full of artists, they should be able to recognize your work without even looking at the signature. When your name is mentioned in art circles, people should have an instant mental image of what your work is like.  

When I scroll down the Blogger Dashboard every morning, I can usually recognize the new work that my friends have posted, and I know who painted each piece without even looking at the names. I admire you all for that! I usually spend about an hour reading blogs and looking at artists' websites before I head into my own studio to begin working.  I'm always inspired by the gorgeous work I've seen on those sites, and excited about the new things that my artist friends have produced. But when I sit down to make my own art, I have to clear everybody else's artwork from my mind. I can hear those other voices and heed what they're saying, but I have to stay true to my own voice and my own personal expression of what I want my work to convey. I can't let my creativity be influenced by anybody else.  I think (I hope) this gets easier and easier with each piece an artist produces.
One voice that I've heard in my head today is from James Gurney's book "Color and Light". He reminded me that when creating textures, the areas of greatest contrast are where the shadow meets the light. If you look closely at my bricks, I've tried to do that in all the dark little corners.
I actually went down to Cincinnati today and visited the little house I'm drawing. I was hoping to see it with some interesting shadows, but the clouds weren't cooperating. Still it was good to just look at it face to face.

What do you do to help you stay consistent with your personal style in your artwork? Do you regularly go back and look through your portfolio and compare new works to old ones? Do people see one of your new pieces and instantly know that it was you who painted it? What have you done that really helped you to develop a uniqueness to your artwork that was all your own?

"Take Your Bloggers To Work" Day

I always like to see how other artists work, and I always get good ideas from seeing pictures of their studios, so I thought I'd share my own workspace with you.
This is where I spend most of my day, in what was once the front living room of the house. That's my little shadow, Moe, wondering what the heck I'm doing... 

The blue stool was in my grandmother's house, and I used to have it in my classroom. It's a special treasure, as are most of the items in this room.
I don't work at the easel very often, but I like to clip my work onto it when I leave the room, so I can see how it looks from a distance.
The walls around the room display paintings and posters that have special meaning for me and inspire me.
Next to the easel is a little storage unit, but those paintbrushes on top are purely for show. No more painting for this girl! But I like how the jars of brushes look, and I do use the soft mop brushes to apply powdered colored pencil, graphite or charcoal.
My desk is huge, I'll admit. But lately, my pieces have been big enough to fill the whole space.

I have a big cushy desk chair that I love, but honestly, I don't sit in it when I'm really concentrating on my drawing. I stand up and hunch over the desk, which is probably why my back hurts by the end of the day! (I know there is a better way, I just haven't thought of it yet).

I like to watch movies while I'm working, and of course I need the computer by my side to catch up with my social media throughout the day!
My windows face east, which is not optimal, but it's not changeable either.

See the little paint card by the thermostat? I want to repaint the walls in Sea Salt, by Sherwin Williams.
The little taboret at the side has custom-built drawers (by my resident carpenter) for storing extra pencils and markers, as well as reference books.  I also have art supplies in a cupboard in the basement, and some other little nooks and crannies around the house.
Thanks for stopping by to visit! In the process of showing you around, I realized that something on my current WIP needs to be changed.... See? My put-it-on-the-easel system works! But now I have to go work on it. What movie should I watch this afternoon?

Our Daily Dose of Doubt

I was happily cruising along on this commission, feeling really good about it, and even patting myself on the back for being so competent at what I was doing... And then it hit. About 8 p.m. on the second day of the project... everything looked all wrong. The perspective was all skewed, the background woods were too dense and dark, the house blended into the surroundings way too much, the flag looked too cartoony... It was all horribly, horribly wrong. Before I went to bed, I knew without a doubt that I was going to have to throw it away and start over tomorrow. 

But then it occurred to me that this happens with every piece I draw! It's all going along just beautifully, and I'm full of excitement and anticipation... and then suddenly it all seems to fall apart, and nothing looks right to me. This time, I wisely decided NOT to throw it away until the following morning. And somehow, during the night, the art fairies worked wonders on it. It didn't look nearly as bad in the morning light, and when I examined the problem areas with fresh eyes, I knew exactly what needed to be fixed and quickly took care of them. The client loved the finished piece and said that it brought tears to her eyes, and that she could tell how much love I put into my work.
I've realized that there are distinct stages that all artists go through during the process of completing a piece. Not just the physical stages of executing the work, but the mental and emotional stages as well. And each stage is a necessary part of the process, without which the final product would not be right.
So the self-doubt stage is always going to occur, with every piece you create.  You just have to be able to recognize it for what it really is. It's the stage where the piece really becomes your own, and starts to reflect your individual style and personality.  And you need to listen to that little voice niggling at you, calling your attention to something important.
How do you get through that stage? It always helps me if I stay out of my studio for a few hours, or a whole night. It also helps to compare the new piece to one of my older finished pieces that I feel especially good about.  I try to look for what they have in common, and what the new piece might be lacking still. And if I really truly feel that the piece is not going to go any further, that's okay too. It's just paper and pens and pencils. But most times, the daily dose of doubt can be worked through, and the piece can move happily onward, better than before, because it's sealed with the artist's sweat and tears. 

March Madness

This week's efforts when into completing this commissioned portrait. I did two versions, because I wanted to show the client how it would look before I drew it onto her mother's special envelope, which she received during the war in 1944.

It seems like the art world wakes up in March. Most of the exhibition deadlines occur this month and plans are announced for all the upcoming shows and artists opportunities to be held during the year.  As I think about what I want to accomplish this year, I'm torn on the issue of entering all the exhibitions that I so diligently listed on my calendar. The deadlines are looming... but should I or shouldn't I?

Juried Exhibitions

This past week, I let the deadlines for two local juried exhibitions slip by without entering.  I'm wondering whether it's worth the money and the effort to enter every local competition that comes along.  I used to think that it was vitally important, but now I'm not so sure. The entry fee was $45 for one painting, and $10 or $15 for each additional piece. If your work is not selected, you lose that money. Period. Your money helps to fund not only the judges' fee, but the awards, the venue rental, refreshments, and various other costs involved in putting on an exhibition that no longer involves you. That's something to think about. Maybe that $60 could be better spent elsewhere! When you look at the number of people who actually attend the exhibitions and walk away remembering your name and your artwork.... I think it's very few, indeed. It's mostly just other artists who attend those things, and they already know you. I will enter a few juried shows, yes, but only those with reasonable entry fees and high attendance rates.

Local Merchants

Many of my blog friends display their work in local banks and places of business. I always thought that was a really good idea, because folks like to support their local artists, and buying artwork from somebody whom you've met face to face, or you've seen around town, makes it a more personable item to own and display in your home. I summoned my courage the other day, and asked the owner of my favorite Fedex/UPS shop if I could hang a few of my envelope drawings on his wall. I prepared a drawing of a nearby church and also hung my drawing of the old schoolhouse down the road, both of them nicely framed with my business card taped to the corner.

Email Lists

The next idea that I'm considering is the email newsletter, letting past customers and potential customers know about new pieces that I've completed. I thought I could send a PDF file once or twice a year. However, I'm having trouble figuring out those websites that offer newsletter services. I want to have a little "Subscribe Here" window on my website. Friends, If you offer an email newsletter, and you have any suggestions, let me know. I have come to rely on my blog friends, and they always have good insights! 

And Then There Were Two

This girl is only seven inches tall. I'm thinking she needs some companions,  and some sort of London street scene, or magical forest to be walking through.

I want this piece to tell a story about aspirations, courage, and perseverance.  I'm using children to tell the story, but it's a story and a message that applies to all people of all ages. This girl in the foreground will embody the hopes, dreams and imaginings that we all feel deep down inside.
When I saw these dancers milling around in the lobby at Kroger, I was attracted to their costumes and all the beautiful colors and fabrics flowing around together. But when I got home and looked at the pictures more closely, it was the expressions on their faces that had me mesmerized. The differences among them seemed the perfect reflection of the differences among people in all walks and stages of life. Some of them seemed very intent on making sure they looked good. Others were absentmindly going through their dance steps. Several were gathered in little clusters, chatting happily, and looking at their phones. Only this girl had her eyes focused on the instructor... standing in her assigned spot... poised and somewhat apprehensive. She had an air of purpose about her, and an unmistakable pride that was not arrogant or self-serving. But she also had a look of doubt, as though she was not sure of what would happen next.

So far, I've tried to convey those feelings in subtle ways. By drawing her shoe untied, with the ribbons trailing and not tucked in properly, it reveals her naivity and suggests that she still makes mistakes. She is not an accomplished ballerina, perfectly polished and precise. She is not even the best among her troupe.  But she is the one with her eyes focused on a distant point while the others are absorbed in more trivial things.
The shabby clothing is symbolic of the hardships that people face. Whether real hardships or perceived hardships, we all have challenges that daunt us, and we can either summon our courage and conviction to overcome them, or we can succumb to those  hardships and let them hold us back from what we want to do.
The second girl is ready to be rendered in color now, and I plan to use more browns, olives, golds, and darker purples for her clothing. I'm still trying to figure out how to dull and darken her skintones without making them look muddy, so that she doesn't stand out as much as the first girl. I have a feeling that's going to be a struggle for me, as I tend to make everything too bright and cheery looking.  However, I thought the other girls' skin tones could reflect the drab olives and purples from the background, while our main character glows in the foreground?

Strike Two

"Yanks and Sox"
Pen and Ink 

When I was teaching school, I often felt that parents did not see me as a real person. To many of them, I was nothing more than an entity that served a specific purpose: of educating, disciplining, and caring for their child. I represented the establishment that I worked for. I was just part of the word "They" whenever school issues were discussed among parents. I didn't like that.  I wanted to be seen as a human being first, rather than merely a provider of services. 

You're probably nodding emphatically and saying, "Yeah, so what else is new, same thing happens to me in my job every day..." And I guess I'm starting to realize how we ALL lapse into that insensitive mode of seeing others only as the producer of a good or service that we need/want, rather than as people just like ourselves. 

It's only been over these past few months, as I've really been concentrating on marketing my art, I've noticed that many people see me as a producer of a product, rather than a living breathing human being. Someone recently emailed a photo to me, and requested a commissioned portrait of three children, and they needed it delivered for a birthday gift in a week. I had to tell them I couldn't do that, but I would love to do the portrait if I had a few more weeks. I never heard back from them. Another person just requested  this drawing, specifically drawn on a New York envelope, with blue pinstripes and the red socks. I haven't heard back from them yet either.  I guess I'll have to get used to that and not be so sensitive about it, huh? My work is sometimes seen as a commodity to be purchased or not, and I am merely the factory that produces it.
I also believe that the anonymity of the internet makes it easy for us to forget that there are real people at the other end. I'm going to make more of an effort, myself, to remember that when I email companies or order things from online sellers.

But now I've gotten two strikes in two weeks... I need at least a little bunt (or a walk), and soon! 

Friends, please tell me that this too, has happened to you? Or am I the only one who has had to turn down a commission because I know I can't work fast enough, and then accepts a request to draw something for somebody who doesn't want it any more two days later? 

I have a lot to learn about this biz, don't I?