Tintoretto once said 'Beautiful colours can be bought in the shops on the Rialto, but good drawing can only be bought from the casket of the artist's talent with patient study and nights without sleep.' (a little drawing I did in Edinburgh of St Giles church). Note to self: Value the observational process. Embrace drawing. Do more! .
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This doesn’t really have anything to do with art but is such a good story I just had to share. This is Kent’s new office. Kent lives in the Philippines. He has been my website designer and has taken care of all my online stuff since 2011. Whenever I’ve needed anything done, Kent always manages to be there and has never let me down.
When Kent told me he was trying to raise funds to build an office that was separate to his family home, I jumped at the chance to help him out with a small loan. I love seeing people with an entrepreneurial spirit striving to make a better life for themselves and their families. As Kent says, “$100 here can get me a lot of materials! Thanks to you and my other clients, my mini two-floor office is already in progress”. Note to self: success is a gradual process of small steps, a series of daily wins. Work within your means but dream big! . As artists we are always feeling the pressure to fit into certain categories. Am I ever going to get selected for that Art Prize? Will that group of people over there ever notice me? Oh, my work is not political enough, my paintings aren’t big enough, my CV isn’t long enough. There are games that we will never be invited to join, categories that will never quite fit what we do. But there is another category, the one that you get to create, the one that is the most powerful of all, the one that defies comparison and you get to own. The Category of One. This is the one that belongs to the artist who gets up at dawn and just sketches people in the same café. This is the category that belongs to the sculptor who rides his bike to the top of his local mountain and creates with found objects when he gets there. I set out to be the only postman who could create an oil painting within 15 minutes while out delivering mail. Of course, being unique is not enough. We should also aim to become really, really good at what we do. But once we can define our own Category of One we feel the shackles of comparison and expectation begin to immediately slip away… our confidence starts to grow and our skills begin to improve in leaps and bounds. No-one will ever be able to create art in exactly the same way that you do. What’s your Category of One? . The Impressionists wanted to convey truth by painting what the fleeting glance saw. The unconsidered gaze. Not the myriad of detail. They painted quickly to get that look. This moon on water takes out detail to strip back to bare essentials. The forms and space. The single light. My coast at night .
New York colours are different. They ought to be more predictable. I thought they could be made to be mine, I wanted to bend them to my will. But they insisted. They started to teach me about themselves. ‘These together" they said. "Yes, these together. Believe your senses and not your colour wheel. Paint what we tell you” .
The problem with painting from a medium to far distance is the painting can appear flat. Solution? Placing an object or objects in the foreground can create a wonderful sense of depth which will make the viewer want to live in your painting forever. Generally, warm colours will capture more attention. Keep the background cool and with less detail.
The best use for these little cigar boxes is to paint in them. Oil paints to be bought when I get there. I am always looking for new and different ways to paint on the run. Travelling has many challenges for the artist. Finding materials, painting surfaces, then keeping the painting protected. And here as always - size matters - particularly portability.
This week I am trying these little beauties and will see what I can find to paint in Melbourne. Stay tuned! Joshua Reynold’s niece, Mary Palmer observed that (he) seems more bewitched than ever…painting from morning till night. Munch and Vincent needed the palette to receive the outpouring of their souls to clutch at sanity. Art is a demanding lover. Stealing thought and time and everything in between. The mistress ever present and unashamed she takes hold and will not release, her offspring on display to the world.
Your image on the screen is real estate. Digital real estate. It is your ad board. Your best foot forward. A well placed, well intentioned image can sell your work.
Choose the context of your work intentionally and make your real estate work for you. Photography… clear , well lit, squared up and cropped appropriately. No paintings leaning against garage doors or half the painting disappearing out of the photo. What you do with your digital chances are up to you but remember… location location location! As artists we’ve all been there before… you send in the work, you fill out the forms, you jump through all the hoops. And then wait. A phone call to check on progress. “The person you have to speak to is on holidays”. More waiting. Another call. “We will be reviewing all the applications next year”. You wait until next year. Finally the letter comes… you are nearly falling over yourself with excitement… this is it… the big break! “We received a large number of applications and we are very sorry. You didn’t get picked”.
Then something really big happened. The internet came along. All of a sudden it became really easy to meet new people. Whereas before a small group of people had no time to look at my work it turned out that now there was a big group who actually really liked it. I also realized that I had no time to wait… I had too many ideas and there was too much painting to be done! Conversations happened, I got into a painting routine, things started to take off, even some sales! Studies have shown that less than 1% of actors will ever make it into a Hollywood movie. There are over 56,000 artists living in New York City but less than 1% will ever be picked by a top gallery. You can spend a whole lifetime waiting to be picked. Or you could start. On your own. Now. |
AuthorRichard Claremont - artist. A peek into my studio. How I think. How I paint. How I run my art business. Bite sized daily chunks of goodness. Just me talking aloud, really. Join me for a chat over a cuppa. subscribe to newsletterArchives
August 2018
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