If art sales are coming back, is the economy better?

I have heard, from many different artists, that art sales seem to be coming back. The Southeastern Wildlife Exhibit in Charleston, SC had some good sales, and several galleries I am familiar with have had some recent success. I sold two small paintings today myself, and I see the ability of people to buy things other than necessities as a good indicator of comfort with the economy. People are seeming to not be so concerned with buying things that truly are optional purchases.
As I sell real estate in a resort market, (buying a second home really means you have confidence in your ability to pay for it!) I am glad to see it. I also love the fact that perhaps the many artists I know that are self supporting, will be able to eat something other than rice and beans or Ramen noodles!
Are the rest of you seeing the same thing in your area? Hopefully it is a national trend.

Getting ready to go to New Zealand

This painting sold this week....yaay! It seems that art sales are picking up again. I have heard good things from a lot of different artists.

I have been too long delayed in posting something new, but I haven't had much time to paint. My sister Adele and I leave in two weeks for New Zealand and I have been on full speed trying to get everything done before I go. We are doing our scouting trip for the watercolor holiday that she and Joe Garcia will be conducting a year from now, in February/March 2012. I get to go along as chief cook and bottlewasher :)

The trip this year is to make sure that we like the cabins we have selected for our lodging and want to be certain we have alternative places to paint if (or when) it rains. We also want to check out the restaurants and bakeries that we are planning on using, to make sure that they are still in business and still serving good food. Yum! We have to check on transportation as we think that we will hire a small bus rather than driving two vans ourselves when we do our daily trips. That is undetermined until we talk to the bus company. It seems that New Zealand businesses just haven't got the hang of doing business on the internet. They are bad at answering emails and websites often are pretty sketchy. But that is ok, I don't mind checking it out in person!

We will have 18 to 20 people on the holiday; just over half being painters and the rest spouses and partners wanting to also see New Zealand. Deposits are due in by the end of the month and we have a waiting list, so if some drop off, it looks like it will still be full. We will probably do another workshop the following year, in 2013, and may bring in guest instructors too, so we can cover both oil and watercolor. New Zealand is a fabulous country, and so paintable!

Finding another gallery

The willows are amazing colors this time of year. Today is just this kind of day. Snow on the ground, abundant sunshine and blue skies. We call it a bluebird day.

I would really love to find another Colorado Gallery in which to hang my work. I know most galleries really aren't looking for more artists, but this spring I am going to make a concerted effort to send some portfolios to a few and see if I can't get into another one. I am painting enough these days that the work is beginning to stack up and I need another outlet. Any suggestions anyone? Any thoughts on making the best presentation possible?

Thanks for your help!

Painting from a photograph

I am taking another art class at our local junior college. This six weeks the name of the class is "Painting from a Photograph." I was curious about exactly how our instructor would treat it, and she started out giving us all the same photo, and telling us to try to paint it exactly. This will all lead up to editing the photo to make a better painting, but I was happy with the photo she gave us to paint, and didn't mind painting it exactly. It was interesting to see 14 different versions of the same photo.

If I had a choice, I would have passed over this one as it has a lot going on, and it is complicated. The mountain I can handle, but the ski runs on it, the sign, buildings and cars are a lot of detail. I don't usually paint cars! I paint bushes and trees because it doesn't matter if you get the shape exactly right or not, but when painting a car, you had better know how to draw a car to look like a car. The good news is that if you just paint the shapes you see and don't worry about painting a car, somehow it magically comes out looking like a car!

Sorry about the quality of the photo. The paint was still wet when I took the photo and it made for glare. After it dries I think I will repaint the back of the red car a little longer so it doesn't look squished into the edge of the painting, but for now I am happy with how this turned out.

Winter can be colorful

Willows are so gorgeous with no leaves on them! They change color as the season progresses and seem to be the darkest red, almost burgundy, in the early winter. As time goes on they get brighter, until they end up almost orange by spring. I love to watch them. Of course, they like wet feet, so you always see water around them. The title of this piece is "Thawing" as the creek is beginning to show up again and is not snow covered. It is hanging in our "Winter lights" show at the Arts Alive Gallery in Breckenridge.

Getting adventurous!

My last post was a painting of an animal and in this one, I have people! This painting is only 6x8, so they are actually just a couple of brushstrokes, but I don't often put people in my landscapes. This painting is a study to work out the composition for a larger piece, and yes, I know the fishermen are right in the middle! Does it bother you? I look at the people, the yellow bushes to their left and the colorful tall tree behind them as a triangle that is the focal point, rather than just the fishermen. I may change my mind when I do it larger and I might move them over a little bit, but why not break the rules?

I see other artists who do it all the time, and it works, so hopefully this will too.

Working out problems in paintings

I seem to have a three step process for fixing a painting. First, I have to figure out what is wrong with it. Often, I don't know what the problem is, but just have a nagging feeling that it isn't quite right.

I usually will leave it for a few days and let it dry while I look at it occasionally to see if it hits me. I can always see what is wrong with other people's paintings! I should be able to see it just as easily on my own. With a few days space between actually painting it and looking at it again, it often does jump out at me. I also find that photographing it makes it more obvious, looking at it on the computer screen. Looking at it in the mirror sometimes does it, but for me, a photograph is better.

Once I realize what the issue is, I have to decide how to fix it. That often takes me time. I am a relative newbie to painting, and still have lots to learn. I often work it out at night, thinking about the painting when I should be sleeping. The problem I had with the painting above is that the mountain goat and the background were the same value, and they blended in with each other. I could have lightened the goat, but on his shady side, he really was quite dark, even though he was white. I could have darkened the grasses around him, but then it wouldn't have looked like the summer tundra he was munching on. I finally realized at about 2am one night that color temperature rather than value was the way to do it. The grasses had been yellow green and I had used an orange toned board so some of the background warmth was coming through. All I needed to do was cool down the green by adding blue to it and suddenly the warmer, sunny side of the mountain goat popped out. Where he was shaded, I had to still keep the green warmer.

This whole painting was an experiment and was just done as a study to see if I could paint an animal and get the drawing right (not my strong point) and it was nice to be able to work out some of the other issues as well. I still wonder if the pile of rocks isn't too strong, but there aren't many darks in this painting, so I left them.