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| The Tortilla Lady, 9×12, oil – $150 – contact Michael |
- Over 87% buy landscapes. I am, after all, a landscape painter! But each of the other categories – abstract, figurative and still life – had approximately a 20% share. (You’ll note that some questions end up with more than 100%; these allowed for multiple responses.)
- Over 62% buy impressionistic work. Half buy “somewhat realistic” work” and and nearly a third “expressive” work. A tiny percentage, 4%, buy photo-realistic work.
- A strong majority of 73% purchase work that evokes a mood. A little over a third buy because the work evokes a memory of a particular place. Nearly half buy work that they want to study in order to improve their own painting skills. Whether a painting had bright or muted colors didn’t seem to matter so much – 15% or less responded positively to this question.
- More than 82% of respondents are 50 or older. Twelve percent are 70 or older. Only 2% are in the 21-29 age group.
- Over 70% have only a bachelor’s degree. Over 30% have a graduate degree.
- Nearly 70% are employed. About a quarter are retired. Of those employed, over 70% are self-employed. Surprisingly, nearly 75% of those employed are either full-time or part-time professional artists.
- Slightly more than 86% of the respondents buy one or more paintings a year. About 14% have never bought a painting. Two percent say they haven’t and probably won’t.
- The average painting could be described as an impressionistic landscape that evokes a mood.
- The average buyer is over 50 with at least a college education and is self-employed as a professional artist. He or she buys at least one painting a year.
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| 9×12, oil. – $100 – From Uptown We had on iffy-weather day. This is the view out the window of the Uptown Sedona studio. |
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| 6×12, oil. – SOLD – Munds Mountain Vista There’s nothing like Schnebly Hill for some good panoramas. |
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| 6×12, oil. – $75 – Thunder Mountain Vista I’m really liking these 6×12 pieces. Quicker to do than a 12×24, but they still give you the panorama. This one is looking down the ridge from Thunder Mountain to Coffee Pot and beyond. |
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| 5×7, oil. – $60 – Up the Canyon I like backlighting on the Sedona rocks. This is a view from the Sedona Heritage Museum. |
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| 6×9, pastel. – $60 – Camelhead Another Schnebly Hill view, looking toward Snoopy Rock and Camelhead. This is another backlit scene. |
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| 6×9, pastel. – $60 – Snow up the Canyon One day we headed up Schnebly Hill Road to the Cowpies area. There was still some snow up in the shadows. |
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| Backlit Clouds, 9×12, oil – $100 – contact Michael |
As many of my students will tell you, I enjoy painting backlit subjects. It seems like I’m always positioning myself so I’m looking into the sun with some nice rimlighting around a mountain. (It makes for a nice tan.) Sometimes, we get clouds in Sedona, and I like to paint those backlit, too.
Here’s an example. For this one, clearly it was the clouds that drew my eye. They were incandescent and fiery around the edges. I could almost feel the heat.
One thing I observed was the curious progression of warm-and-cool from the clouds nearly overhead to the ones on the horizon. The ones closer by, and thus most overhead, had warm, shadowed interiors and a nimbus of cool light. The farther away the clouds got, this reversed, so they had cool, shadowed interiors and a warmer nimbus. This change in contrast of warm and cool quite striking and contributed to the sense of light and heat.
I got a few of Judson’s Art Outfitters new plein air panels this week, and I thought I’d take one out for a test drive. They are acrylic gesso on hardboard, and the gesso has a nice, eggshell finish that takes the paint well. It has just the right amount of absorbency for plein air painting alla prima style. When you lay down that first stroke, it stays there, and you can easily lay down more over it. The price is right, too, a little over $4 for a 9×12 board.
For the test drive, I went out painting with my friend Christine Debrosky. She drove, and I was happy to let her, since our destination was some distance out on a rather washboarded gravel forest road. We headed toward the Palatki ruins, where you can get some really nice closeups of the red rocks nearby. A storm was moving in – they were predicting an inch or less for Sedona but several for Flagstaff – so the clouds were building. We managed to get in one painting each before the sun disappeared.
My painting is at the top of this post. I really went for intuitive color and rapid brush strokes. I’ve been reading the new biography of Van Gogh by Naifeh and Smith, so perhaps Vincent’s approach is affecting mine.
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| H.L. Mencken |
That old curmudgeon, H.L. Mencken, once wrote: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” Not true, of course, since there are many teachers who do, and many doers who teach. (This might be grist for a future post, perhaps.)
These days, we can take Mencken a step further: “Those who can, do; those who don’t, live in Facebook.”
Or, instead of Facebook, substitute your favorite social medium. We have many now, including Google Plus, Twitter and Pinterest. And tomorrow we’ll have more.
I’ll be the first to admit that I spend time on Facebook. I’ve found it great for reconnecting with friends from whom I’ve wandered over the decades. Originally, though, I signed up hoping to increase my presence as a professional artist on the Web. I did the same with all the other social media sites. The other day I even signed up for Pinterest, but mostly just to test some HTML code that will prevent people from “pinning” my copyrighted images from my blog and website. (Thank to Katherine Tyrell for that tip!)
So, as a professional artist, how is social media working for me? Frankly, it’s not.
I’m sure I can hire a consultant who might suggest ways I can improve this situation, but honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the effort. Social media takes away valuable time from activities that can have a bigger impact on my professional life. These activities include meeting potential buyers face-to-face, working my mailing list of already-proven buyers and students and, yes, even painting.
And if you don’t paint, you have nothing.
Besides my website, which I use as an online portfolio, I’ve found the blog most useful. I’ve sold from both the website and the blog; and both have pulled in new students. When I post to the blog, I make sure a link to the post also goes to Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter. This doesn’t take much effort. I’ve also made sure I have a professional page on both Facebook and Google Plus that encourages new visitors to visit my website and blog. I use Youtube, too. Although it isn’t exactly a social medium, I encourage visitors to my channel to visit my “real” sites, too.
All of these social media sites require time and energy to evaluate. Time and energy I’d rather spend painting and doing my old-fashioned social networking.
About four times a year, I spend a few days preparing panels for oil painting, maybe 40 or so at a time. I have enough tables and other flat surfaces for the prep, but once the last coat of gesso is laid on, I like to move them out of the way so I can embark on other projects. Although after a day acrylic gesso may feel dry, it really takes several more days for it to fully harden. If you don’t let it cure long enough before stacking, the acrylic will stick. When you separate the boards, some may be blemished.
One way around this, I’ve heard, is to interleave waxed paper. But here’s a system I’ve come up with. It doesn’t require drying racks and doesn’t take up table space. I find a little corner somewhere in the house where I can stand up the boards. You might start building a house of cards in the same way. Below is a photo of the arrangement. That’s my usual batch of about 40 boards. You can see how this arrangement saves space. It may not work, though, if you have a dog, cat or small children. It is, after all, a house of cards. Still, you can make a surprisingly sturdy construction.
Someone asked me how I make my boards. I wrote on article for The Artist’s Magazine on this very topic (December 2011) issue. But here’s my favorite recipe. I start with hardboard (“Masonite”), and if it’s the tempered variety, I rub it down with alcohol first to remove surface oil. Next, I brush on a thin layer of Gamblin PVA. For most of the boards, I follow this with two thin layers of Golden Acrylic Gesso, randomly applied with a trim brush, the kind you use for painting houses. I also put a coat on the reverse side to even out warping. Finally, I sand just lightly at the end, as I like a bit of surface texture. This makes a semi-absorbent surface that works for me. I always save a few boards, though, to treat differently. After the PVA size, I apply a coat or two of either Golden Heavy Gel or Golden Matte Medium. These dry clear, allowing the hardboard’s natural golden tone to shine through.
August 20-24, 2012: Lubec, Maine. Doug Dawson Mentoring Workshop. All media. Price: $600. Class limited to 8. Visit http://dougdawsonworkshop.com for details. Contact: Doug Dawson, (303) 421-4584.
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| Sunset Glow, 12×16, oil – contact Michael |
I’ve been working in the studio on what may be my final Grand Canyon painting for the season. Although this is a studio piece, I used a variety of photo and plein air references from my last couple of trips to the Canyon. The reference photos don’t do the scene justice, but the plein air sketches, thankfully, give me lots of accurate color notes that I was able to use for this project.
What I’m finding particularly fun to play with in these paintings is the way rock colors change from foreground to far distance. The sunlit passages, for example, go from hot cadmium yellow deep and cadmium red in the closest rocks all the way back to a cool mixuture of white, cadmium red, ultramarine blue and a touch of chromatic black. The shadowed passages go from mixtures of alizarin crimson, phthalo emerald, ultramarine blue and chromatic black in the closest rocks and then back to a mixture of white, alizarin red and ultramarine blue. There is a lot of variety in these mixtures, though, and sometimes I mixed more intuitively than with thought. It’s possible to do that when you set your palette exactly the same way every day.
I also enjoyed working with the knife again. Here’s what my palette looked like when I was finished, followed by detail shots of the painting.
Faithful blog readers will have seen these two images before, but I am posting them again because they have been juried into the annual Sedona Arts Center Juried Member’s Show. The show will run from March 2-27 at SAC’s main (upper) gallery. SAC is open 10-5 every day.
There’s also a reception where you can meet me and the other artists on Friday, March 2, from 5-8. If you’re in town, I hope you’ll stop by!
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| Grand Canyon Gold, 12×24 oil |
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| Precipice at the Grand Canyon, 16×20, oil |
My friend, Tony Donovan, is here in Sedona now with his Rubicon. The advantage of having a painting buddy with a Jeep is that we get to go places your father’s Oldsmobile – or your average low-slung rental car – can’t. Many of the forest roads in Red Rock Country require high-clearance, heavy-duty tires and chutzpah. Jeeps have all that, and lots of chutzpah.
Sometimes students get a treat and get to go, too. Last week, we headed down Vultee Arch Road, which snakes around the backside of Thunder Mountain into some very pretty country. The road is more washed out than it was last year, and the catclaw and mesquite seem to stick out more; the Rubicon now sports some brand-new “Arizona pinstripes.” We drove to a little platform near the historic Van Deren cabin and painted the view overlooking a very dry Dry Creek.
It was a good week over all. We had snow at the higher elevations the first day and cool, overcast after that, but the last two days were just spectacular and Sedona at its best. I’ve put a few photos up for your vicarious pleasure. I should also mention we have a few spots left in this season’s Paint Sedona workshops.
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| Somewhere behind Thunder Mountain (sketch), 9×12, oil |
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| Schnebly Hill area (sketch), 9×12, oil |
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| Munds Mountain “fin”, showing bounced light (sketch) 12×9, oil |
A Plein Air Painter's Blog 