Hi all!

Art is amazing. Being able to make Art is even more amazing. If you’re an Artist then you belong to a fantastic subsection of society that should be heralded more than it currently is (grumble, grumble).

Recently, while working with a gentleman (Jim) who is actually well versed in the ins and outs of artwork and its creation, I was asked a question about my painting that seemed quite poignant. He asked, “Do I plan out a composition to the last ‘T’, or do I give a painting a bit of leeway to take on a life of its own?” Good question.

(more…)

Hi all!

In my experiences of painting I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve done realistic work. I’ve done abstract work. I’ve done multi-media work etc. etc.

Some of it has been really good. Images of the ones that I care about are viewable on this blog. Those that I don’t care about, paintings, drawings and multi-media artworks alike you’ll never see because quite frankly, I destroy them.

That’s right, I destroy them. Gone forever. Ripped up, torn up, painted over. Gone.

You may be wondering, “How can I do this?” Well, it’s easy. It comes down to one simple rule: Don’t show anything that you don’t want to be known for. To learn more about this idea please have a look at the companion article to this one, “Put Your Best Artwork Forward”.

(more…)

Cath and I recently watched the movie The Midnight Meat Train. The story was written by Clive Barker and originally appeared in the Books of Blood. Outside of being a writer, he is also an accomplished painter. On the DVD for the movie was a little vignette about Clive and his artwork. As the film crew toured around his home looking at all his work, you’d swear that he lives in a storage space, not a house.

He had hundreds of four foot by four foot canvases stashed everywhere!They were in his studio, stacked in the spare bedroom, leaning in the hallways — he even had what seemed to be a lean-to built onto the side of his home that housed a hundred more. The man is prolific!

I found it quite amusing to hear Clive chatter while cycling through some of his old canvases predicting whether or not they could possibly be revisited and reworked or whether they’d never see the light of day.

As an artist chances are you’ve done a lot of work too; God knows I have. You’ve probably worked in a variety of mediums and a variety of styles and you probably have copious amounts of old work laying around your studio or your home. We all do. That just seems to be the way of things. Personally there isn’t a spare piece of wallspace in my apartment anymore.

I could easily stage a one man show with all the artwork that I’ve got hanging around. In fact, some friends of mine have pushed me in that direction, their thinking being that any show is better than no show at all. It’s not a bad idea — it’s a terrible one, and here’s why.

(more…)

When I was a younger artist, I was hell bent on acheiving professional success. Even then I knew that making a living at being an artist was what I wanted to do. I would spend my summers running my landscaping business and then, in the evenings or on weekends I would be in our old horse barn, painting, sometimes a little, more often late into the evening.

With this kind of work ethic I was able to produce quite a bit of artwork while I was away from University. It allowed me to be part of a two man show in my third year and gave me a solo thesis show at the end of my degree.

At the time I was working in a more expressionistic style, sometimes employing patching trowels and other hardware implements to bring my work to life. This gave me a lot of work, paintings of various styles that I realized I could shop around if I felt so inclined and that’s exactly what I did — but poorly.

(more…)

Realism. Necessary or not? Good question. I’ve often pondered this question myself having tried many styles of artwork throughout my life. Now that I’ve embraced realistic form and lighting in my artwork,  I often question whether or not I made the right decision.

When visual art first came on the scene, one of its primary functions was to record persons, places, things and events that were going on at the time. Lack of education was rampant. People relied on pictures to help them understand their world. The current King had his portrait painted. Stories from religious texts were brought to life. The latest land war was commemorated in oils.

Photography didn’t exist yet. Interpretation by an artist was the only way to keep a record of what was going on. In this regard, Realism could only help the cause and, if you know your art history, you’ll see how artwork progresses basically from pictographs to the beautifully fleshed out, fully formed masterpieces of the high renaissance. This was not an accident.

For years High Realism dominated the world of Art. Chances are, if you couldn’t produce artwork in a realistic fashion, it didn’t get taken seriously and was probably never seen. In fact, this penchant for Realism is what turned artists away from it around the turn of the 20th century.

(more…)