Stand On Your Head

Looking at a painting from a different vantage point helps you to see mistakes in composition and value.  I don't literally stand on my head, but sometimes I turn the painting upside down.  One of my favorite artist/authors is Lori McKnee and this article describes the advantages of doing that.  Turning the painting upside down allows you to see the composition differently.  Turning your head to the side can sometimes do the same thing.  Can you still see the focal point?  How does your eye enter the composition and move around?

Here's a work-in-progress, from a series of city scenes.  I can see the negative shapes of the sky better when it's turned upside down as well as how the composition is working.

My favorite method, though, of checking on how I'm doing is taking photos and looking at them on my computer screen.  I suddenly see mistakes in drawing or in value a lot better by looking at a photo.  Some artists use a mirror to do the same thing.  I don't really stand on my head (I never could do that!).  Do you use these methods to assess your progress?

Nature Vs. Man-Made

I finished my painting of the St. Louis Gateway Arch and it got me to thinking:  do man-made structures enhance or detract from their natural surroundings in a painting?  Except for the top ten ugliest buildings in the world, I guess it depends.  If the structure detracts from the scene, but is essential, it's a moot point. In this painting, I wanted the Arch to be the focal point, but I could certainly have just painted the trees and pond.  I think buildings, interesting structures or people can bring life into an otherwise boring landscape painting. Unless the landscape has something going on like mood - dark stormy skies, crashing ocean waves, huge mountain rocks.

                                             Stand Tall (St. Louis Arch) 8 x 10 Buy This On Etsy

What's your point of view?

What's So Great About Blogging?

 I really didn't want to write a blog, because I thought I'd run out of things to write about.  It has happened a couple of times, but for the most part I do come up with ideas.  Blogs are easy to set up. You can even write your post ahead of time & set to publish whenever you want at a later date.  There are templates to choose from for the design, colors, fonts, you name it.  It's actually fun.  After I got the hang of it, I added widgets.  I just created a new banner - what do you think? 

 Blogs help artists reach beyond the canvas or the computer screen and make contact with other people all across the world.  Blogs provide any creative-minded individual the opportunity to share their work with the world. Blogging, combined with social media and online art communities offers artists a unique opportunity for self-promotion, expanded viewership, and ultimately, contacts with buyers.  Although galleries are still important, most folks realize that the internet is where it's at.  Blogs allow artists to show works-in-progress. You can receive feedback and criticism before the work is finalized, make changes, and contemplate new ideas and suggestions.  Blogging can help bring the world to your art, and your art to the world.

You're already reading blogs...do you write one?

                                  Two Cherries, 3 x 3 on miniature easel Buy this on Daily Paintworks

How Do You Sign Your Name?

 I've seen a few paintings that don't have any signature at all.  The last time a Monet exhibit was in St. Louis, I learned that the family signed for him.  I thought those signatures looked too perfect (they were a stamp)!  When I began doing my colored pencil work and framing them for the gallery I signed my whole name:

                           
                                                  Three In A Jar 6 x 6 Buy this painting on Etsy

Lately, I've been playing around with my signature.  I looked at a lot of other artists - wow, what an array of styles!  Initials only, last name only, first name only, you name it (sorry for that).  I thought about a qr code:

                                                 
How cool would that be?  But I finally decided on using my initials:

                                                 Blue Butterfly 8 x 8 Buy this painting on Etsy

How do you sign your name?

Underpainting: Get Your Glow On

I love using an underpainting. Sometimes I use a yellow wash of colored pencil before layering other colors.  Here's an example of a recent painting of green apples which I began with yellow:

Apple Juice, 11 x 12 

See how the yellow shines through the layers of color to create a glow?  I've used this method with other colors as well.  If I'm not sure whether or not it will work (or look good after a lot of layers) I use a scrap piece of paper to work out the order of the colors.  I write down the names of each color so I'll remember what I did in case I stop and come back to it the next day.  Give it a try, I think you'll like this technique.

I want to thank the folks at the Greater St. Louis Art Association for having me present a workshop this past week.  It was a pleasure to speak to his talented group of artists.  I gave them my top tips for selling online as well as some of my favorite colored pencil techniques.  If you're in the St. Louis area check out their juried Art Fair at Queeny Park, March 30 - April 1

Selling Art Online Is An Art

     I spent the whole day Saturday creating my first power point presentation.  It didn't take very long to put together, but I lingered looking at the various ways I could make things flash and zoom.  The fonts!  The clip art!  I'm giving a presentation to the Greater St. Louis Art Association later this month.  I'll be talking about my colored pencil process and how I sell art online.  I have an hour to fill, so I thought I'd talk for 30 minutes about  colored pencil technique and use the rest of my time for art marketing.
     When I think about all the internet sites I've shown my paintings this past year, I'm amazed.  A year ago I didn't even know what Pinterest was (was Pinterest around a year ago?).  I'm going to encourage the audience to consider, if they haven't, the importance of having a website.  I have a terrific website created lovingly by my computer savvy daughter.  It has the main ingredients: home page, bio, artist statement, contact and link information.  She added a page for me about commissions.  We tweak it from time to time.
    I thought about calling my presentation, "Twelve Ways To Sell Art In 2012."  I have an Etsy Shop where I sell original paintings, prints and note cards.  I also have a shop on DailyPaintWorks where I can set up affordable auctions.  It's sort of like Ebay except it's all original art.  I'll tell them all I know (listen to me, now I'm a know-it-all) about social media, since I have a Facebook page, Twitter account, Flickr page, StumbleUpon page and - oh yeah - a Pinterest account!  If anyone wants to know about my newsletter, I'll tell them I use Mad Mimi.  (if you'd like to sign up for my free monthly newsletter, you can do it from this blog - upper right hand corner, just takes a minute).   I'll tell them about my blog and all the nice people I've met.  I think that's only nine ways I'm selling my art online, but it's still a lot.

Original mini canvas painting, 3" x 3" colored pencil by Susie Tenzer Buy it on Etsy $25

The Secret To Staying Young

Be honest, the title grabbed you, right?  I do have a secret to staying young - try new things.  For example, I love to move my furniture around.  (My husband is always looking for something that I've put in a new, better place.)  I love to try new art techniques.  Right now I'm using a lot of gray/neutral tones with pops of color in my colored pencil pieces.  I'm getting further along on my painting with ducks and fish.

                                                                 Any title ideas?

 I've been trying new cooking ideas.  My daughter sent me a Tajine, a middle eastern cooking pot.  It's ceramic, so I had to season it before I could cook anything.  The directions said to soak the bottom and the lid in water for 24 hours.

 

Now I'm ready to try chicken tajine.  Some recipes look a bit complicated, but I'm cooking chicken legs with onions and garlic.  I bought a stove top heat diffuser so the ceramic pot doesn't crack.

Hey, not bad!  Have you tried anything new lately?  Anyone else have a tajine?

Playing With Paintings And Children

Ahhh...the sound of silence.  I love my grandchildren, don't get me wrong, but after a week of preschoolers, I'm happy about my silent house.  My two grandsons from Seattle visited over the Martin Luther King holiday (no school) and when they returned home, it snowed (no school again).  My daughter turned her house into a mini art studio!  They painted on the glass patio doors and made cookie crayons.  So adorable!  I think they had a great time playing with art.
Meanwhile, I'm playing with my own painting.  Awhile back I took a lot of photos of ducks and koi fish at the Missouri Botanical Garden, so I had one enlarged.  I usually try to take excellent photos and pretty much draw what I see.  This time, though, I'm changing things around because the photo is awful and I think I can do better.  I cropped it so it will be 10" X 10".  I'm kind of into the square format lately.  I want the water to be grayish blue (not yucky green).  I'll make one bright orange fish as the focal point.  The two ducks are Mallards, but I'm making them male (mating season) so they have more color.  I found some nice reference photos online so I can get the colors right.

                                        I'm using my photo (above).  Here's my drawing (below)

                                             

I tend to work all around the paper, doing some background, then some of the focal point, adjusting values along the way.  So far, I've done a bit of the upper left corner of the water, with some of the orange fish.  I've laid in some blueish green for the Mallard's distinctive head.  Back and forth it goes.  What's your process?  I'm off to check my inbox, maybe there are more photos of my grandkids playing with art...

What Makes A Painting Remarkable?

I've been thinking about this one.  A lot.  It seems to me that for a painting to be really great it has to have a certain "something", but what in the heck is it?  I found this terrific website written by artist Robert Bissett, "The Secret To Better Painting".  He says, "You must first have an idea, an artistic concept."  To me, this means finding a vehicle such as sharp contrast, unusual texture, drama in lighting, etc., that will help make the painting stand out.  There are plenty of paintings with apples, but what will make your apple painting look remarkable?  Speaking of apple paintings, mine is coming along.  I decided to use strong color along with the absence of color as my artistic concept.  One of my favorite artists, Frank Serrano, gets this just right.  I love how he infuses atmosphere into his landscape paintings with the use of neutral grays and pops of color.

Ok, I'm off to eat an apple :)  Really, though, do you use a technique that sets your art apart?