Some Knowledge

Yesterday I set up my art blog here on WordPress.  There is a link to it on the blogroll.  I have been waiting a while to do this, but I think now is the time to set up an online portfolio for my work.

I will continue to add pictures to this new blog on a day by day basis as I have many complete works.  I have found out how to take acceptable pictures of my work, and will write a short paragraph describing each as they are posted.

If I do not post here to this blog as often, it is because I am working on other things.  I have been doing art for many years now and think it is time to show my work to the world.  Of course, I will need to look into doing some promotion for my new blog, but there is endless information about this online.

Once again, my new blog is live and running, and you can get there by clicking on a link to the right in the blogroll.

I am thinking of starting yet another blog to display my art work.  I think I need a blog with a coherent theme.  I would post pictures here, but they really don’t fit in with the general nature of this blog, which is mostly text about various things.

In a lot of ways this blog has changed over the last year.  I used to write things based on how much interest I thought people would have in the topic.  Right now, I am using this blog to post my thoughts and opinions on things.  It is becoming yet another personal blog of no interest to the general population.  I think I need to move on to a new project that has a focus.

I like WordPress for blogging because it has a lot of cool features.  I can track page views without installing any scripts.  It has a directory structure so posts are listed for people to view.  There is a lot of storage space for posting pictures.  The comment structure allows me to get in touch with people directly through their emails.  Overall, WordPress seems to be the best free platform I have used in my years of blogging.

For now, I am going to evaluate other art blogs to see what people are doing.  I do not have to get approval to set up my own online gallery of art, and I do not need to sign any contracts with real galleries.  I think a blog is the way artists will go in the future to promote their work.  As I have just learned how to take decent pictures of my paintings, I think it is time to set up a gallery.  If people are interested, I may be able to make something of this opportunity.

I took a walk through the University of Michigan campus yesterday afternoon and took some photos of some sculptures outside Randall Laboratories.  The sculptures seem to be about the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron and the cyclotron.

Gyromagnetic Sculpture

I suppose you could figure out what this is supposed to be about by blowing up the plaque, but I probably should have taken notes or something.  The sculpture is located between Randall Labs and West Engineering, in a walkway between the buildings.  They were in shadows, but I got reasonable pictures of them.

Cyclotron Sculpture

I don’t know why they’ve let the bushes grow up around this one.  It’s probably good that I shot this picture in winter, as in the summer it would be totally hidden.  Still, I thought it was interesting enough to take a couple pictures.  Perhaps they will clean it up this year so people can actually see the thing.

You don’t see too many works of art with themes of particle physics.  These were interesting enough to post here on my blog.  Perhaps later I will take more pictures of some of the art that can be found around the U of M campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I’ve been doing some reading on the net today about marketing art.  There is no shortage of sites that will sell you a page where you can post your work.  There are thousands of online galleries that will take a percentage from your sales.  This is the price of publicity.

Then there is the blog.  I found several sites that were artist’s blogs where they had pictures of art posted, with a PayPal button where you could purchase the item.  This seemed pretty simple.  Take some pictures, write up a blurb, and have some way to take a payment.  I did not notice any of these blogs running an auction with comments.  It would be a simple thing to implement.  Leave a comment if you want to bid on this item.  Email the winning bid with an address where they can send a check, and you cut out the PayPal middleman.  Simple.

The old way to market art is to put together a portfolio and approach galleries.  When the gallery accepts your work, you will have to pay for framing, and then wait for the work to sell, at which point the gallery will take 60% off the top of the payment for their cut.  What’s the point?  With a free blog you can show your work to the entire world and not have to pay anyone a commission on your sales.  I think I will look into setting something like this up myself.  I have a lot of art I’ve been making piling up in this house.  Maybe it’s time to take some photos and set up my own online gallery.  This is the modern world.  There’s no need to mess around with thieves and middlemen.

So, you want to paint like Vincent Van Gogh.  How do you go about achieving this effect in your paintings?

First, you will need canvas and an easel.  Set up your canvas on your easel.  Squeeze out a lot of vibrant colors on your palette.  Use plenty of yellow, red and blue.  Get a square brush about half an inch wide.  Be sure to have a little black on your palette for contrast and outlining.  Now think of a typical Van Gogh scene.  This will probably be flowers, a garden, a field, people eating potatoes, or the night sky.  Now, not too carefully, apply bold, vibrant brush strokes to your canvas.

Van Gogh was not a realist.  He was not an impressionist.  Van Gogh was Van Gogh.  Build up a scene from bold, beautiful strokes of the brush.  Do not be afraid to outline some of your elements in black.  Make sure you put in highlights of yellow.  Make your brush strokes move in patterns across the canvas.  One stroke should contrast with the one next to it.  You want to have clearly distinct patches of color that fit together like a puzzle.  Your lines should swirl and there should be a quality of light to your piece.

Once you have painted your masterpiece, sign your own name to it.  You are not a forger, you are emulating a famous artist’s style.  Step back from your work and notice that as you get farther away the picture comes into a kind of focus.  Get close to your work and notice how it resolves into seemingly meaningless patterns.  You have accomplished your goal.  Now, wait for the paint to dry and sell your work on Ebay.

There are a few different ways to make art with string.  In the first method, you take a board.  You cover the board with some black cloth or paint it black or white, depending on the look you want.  It is best to use plywood or particle board for this as it will not split with pounding many nails in it.

Once your board is covered with cloth or painted, you will lay out a pattern for the nails.  These are usually arranged as straight lines in some geometric pattern.  Squares and crossed lines are common, but so are line segments at various angles.  Circular arrangements are also seen often.  When you get a pattern for the nails worked out, pound the nails into the board to the same exact depth.  This can be done by cutting a small notch in a board that is the same thickness as the height of the nails you want to put in your board.  Set the notch over the mark for your nail, then lay the nail into the notch and drive it in with a hammer until it is flush with the board.  Now, every nail will be set to the same depth.

After you have nails in your board driven in your pattern, it is time to start stringing the art.  Tie off the end of your string to one of the nails at the start of your pattern.  Then, go from nail to nail, winding the string or thread around the head of the nail so it will be secure.  Run your whole pattern with the color string you are working with, then tie off the end of the string to the last nail.  It is a good idea to use a small paintbrush and some nail polish or shellac to secure the string to the nail so it will not untie or slip.

Continue making patterns with different colored thread.  Sometimes a pattern will be built in layers.  There may be different levels of thread or string wound on each nail.  Come up with an interesting design and your art will look unique.  Once you have completed your art it should be framed and perhaps glazed over with glass to keep dust off of the string.

Another way to make string art is called curve stitching.  In this method you start with a piece of illustration board.  If you want a black background, paint the board with black ink.  Once the ink is dry, lay out your pattern with a pencil.  Take your illustration board and a nail and a hammer and a backing board and punch holes with the nail at each spot that is marked on your board.  Then, take a needle and thread it with the color you want to use in your design.  Thread the string or thread through the holes in the board to form your design.  Tie off the beginning and end of your thread as before, but this time form a loop between the first hole you go through and the second.  Alternatively you could glue and tape down the beginning and end of each length of string.

String art forms very interesting patterns.  Mathematicians call these patterns bezier curves or envelope curves.  You do not have to solve the differential equations that describe these curves to make them with string art.  The pattern you follow with your string does all the hard work.  String art can be very interesting to look at, and makes a nice decoration when hung on a wall.

Over the years I have occasionally done some wood carving.  It does not take a lot of complicated tools or hard to learn techniques to do a decent wood carving.  What is needed is a piece of wood and some basic carving tools.

While many people start carving in very soft woods like basswood or pine, I suggest the hardwoods.  Hardwood is going to be a bit more difficult to cut, but you will end up with a nicer and more interesting carving.  Colored woods like black walnut or cherry work nicely and show an interesting grain when carved.  Many professional carvers look for burls, which are gnarly growths on the trunk of a tree with highly-swirled grain.  I suggest looking for a decently sized piece of straight grained wood.  A good place to look for wood to carve is firewood.  Firewood is often available in large pieces with fairly straight grain, and it is inexpensive.

For tools you will need at least one decent chisel.  Most carvers use a gouge, which is a curved chisel, for roughing out the work.  The smaller the gouge, the finer the detail you can work into your carving, but it will take longer.  You might want to buy a selection of gouges.  Carving tools can be very expensive.  I have a set that cost me over $100, but the sky’s the limit when talking about carving tools.  Get some that suit your budget.

If you are very poor you might get by with a carpenter’s chisel that you can buy at any hardware store.  You will have to learn how to use this to remove material.  In the past I have made tools out of scrap metal.  These can work surprisingly well.  A lot of the primitive wood carvings done by tribes in New Guinea use nothing more than a thin-bladed hatchet.  Once you get your tools, keep them good and sharp with a whet stone.

Carving wood can be dangerous.  Be especially careful with knives.  If you use a carving knife it is a good idea to get a carving glove to protect your free hand.  Razor sharp chisels can give bad wounds.  Always cut away from your body and keep the tool under control.  When using a mallet on a chisel, do not pound on it like you are trying to break rocks.  Use controlled thumps to drive the tool into the work.

Carving takes a considerable amount of time.  It generates a certain amount of wood chips.  You will want a nice bench to work on, or at least a chair.  A bench with a cleat screwed to it is helpful for holding your work.  You might consider some kind of arrangement like a bench screw for holding your work.  Work from the outside in and slowly remove the material that is not part of your finished design.  What you carve is your own business and is where the art comes into the equation.

Once you have your carving roughed out you may want to go over it with a straight chisel to smooth it out.  You might want to sand your carving with progressively finer grits of sandpaper.  You may want to apply a nice satin clear finish to your piece to protect it.  If you have carved something that you think should also be painted, go ahead and add color.  It is a little known fact that even marble sculptures were painted in the ancient world.  How you finish a piece is determined by how you want it to look.  Personally, I favor a nice clear finish that accentuates the grain of the wood.

Wood carving can be an enjoyable hobby.  It takes strong hands and patience to do a decent carving.  Be careful with your tools and be gentle to the wood, and it will reward you with years of pleasure in what you produce.

Artcyclopedia has a list of the thirty most popular artists as deduced by web links.  As you can see, Pablo Picasso tops this list of artists, and is given a mindshare rating of 100 to compare his popularity with that of other artists.

Next to Picasso on the list are Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, and Claude Monet.  While it is interesting to see how different artists rate on popularity today, this really says little about their work.

To find information on many artists and something about their lives and works, try the Artnet site.  Here you will find an alphabetical listing of all kinds of contemporary and historic artists.  There are links to the different works these artists have up for sale as well as listings for galleries that sell their paintings.

There are a lot of artists in the world.  What makes one artist famous and another unknown often has little to do with talent and a lot to do with marketing.  The high prices of some of the work of famous artists is in itself enough publicity to make them even more famous.  What becomes popular is often a matter of style or taste, and what gets publicity in the press.

If you are looking for art on the Internet there are thousands of sites where you can find information and art for sale.  You might try browsing through some of the paintings on Ebay when you have nothing better to do if you want to see how much some art actually sells for.  There are a lot of paintings that you can probably get for little more than shipping charges.  On the other hand, if it’s something by a famous artist, you might have to sell your house to buy it.

Photofiddle is a website that will take any photo and process it into a piece that looks like it was painted.  They have various styles of processing available, like oil painting or pop art.

Once you have finished cropping and processing the photo you upload to this site you can email the resulting picture to friends and family.  All this is free.  The way Photofiddle makes money is on selling custom canvas framed prints of your artwork.  They have a turnaround time of four days on making up your print.  Prices range from $15 to $3500 depending on the size.

The Photofiddle website has been very busy this morning due to exposure on the Today Show.  If you send them an email you can get a 10% discount coupon while their site is busy.  There is also a gallery of images produced by this company that you can view.

Fantasy Fine Art Gallery is a collection of fantasy art by various artists.  The work here is very professional and well-executed.  There are links to many paintings and drawings, as well as links to the different artists sites where you can buy the art or just see more examples of their work.

There are paintings here that were used in various video games.  There are a lot of different artists to check out and you can set up the page so it displays thumbnails of all the work.  If you enjoy looking at pictures of strange worlds and interesting characters check this out.  There is a lot more to art than what the New York critics review.  You might find something here that inspires you to work in this genre.