Next Art Goal: Get Paid to Make Art

Dear Reader,
I've been spinning around thinking about what to do next with my art.  I got a into a bit of a mire recently and haven't made more than a few sketches in the last couple of weeks.  Part of the problem is I'm not sure what I should be making.

Today I think my next goal should be to get paid for making art.  Right now I make art and I show it in a few galleries.  I can keep making art to show in galleries.  I pay to put my art in the galleries but that doesn't necessarily mean people will pay to buy the paintings I make.  There must be jobs out there that will pay me to make art; perhaps paint, illustrate, design. Now it's time to see if I can find some.

Social Media and Indecisive Art

Ah, it's time for another weekly installment of the art blog that does not have a readership.  It's actually kind of nice to think about this being out there in the public space of the internet but nobody reads it because there's just so much floating out there that people don't care.  It's a bit like going to the grocery store in ones sweatpants.  You're out in public but nobody really cares.  It's not as if I say anything that's deeply life changing on this blog anyway. If you're not me and you are actually wasting your time reading this right now, that's also fine with me.

Now that I'm done saying that - on to this week's art topic.

Now that I am thinking about how I use social media I am thinking about how there is this pressure to have something really cool to post and to consistently have something really cool to post.  Lately, I feel like my art is floundering around a bit.
I got started in November thinking about getting back into painting.  It had been so long since I had been consistently creating art that I was just happy I could still paint half way decently.
Then I started thinking about what I wanted to paint and how I wanted to paint it.  I felt like I really hit something when I painted "Carver Street Pine" so I wrote down the steps I took when I painted it. The idea was that I could recreate those steps and that could be my painting style.  So I created my next painting that way.
 At first I was happy with it.  Then I decided that idea of applying the same steps to all paintings wasn't working.  Something was missing.  I thought maybe it was the composition.  At that time I just happened to be teaching the rule of thirds (a type of composition) to my students.  Then I found an old booklet at school that I think it meant for high school aged students that talked a little about composition.
I really started thinking about how I am using light and dark areas and where I am putting things in the picture.  I feel very unpracticed in this area.  I think it's setting me back.
I started creating composition sketches and I made a few imaginary desert landscapes.  That seemed to start going in a direction that I wanted to but now that doesn't seem good enough either because working out of the imagination doesn't give me enough to work with although it has something.
Now I'm trying to tweak what I already see with what I am learning about composition.  So it's a combination of real and unreal.  I'm not sure what to make of it.
Here are the current results:

And here's a completely different direction to - hands - in part inspired by the recent drawings of hands by Tayen Kim and one other sketch artist who posts on Instagram.

What am I using social media for? (in relation to art)

I use several different social media sites.  I use Pinterest, Blogger, Instagram, Steller, Facebook, Etsy and Wix.  Often times a social media site will count the number of views, likes, comments or shares on a particular posting.  I begin to get sucked into the idea that these numbers are important and that I need to have as many likes or shares as possible.  The idea is that if a post has more shares or likes it's more popular and this popularity means I am more successful.  Now I want to question this idea.  Does chasing "likes" and "shares" lead to success?  Also, what kind of success am I trying to achieve?

I realize that social media can take up a lot of time in my day if I let it.  In a day I might spend an hour each on Facebook and Instagram and another half hour on my other social media sites.  That means I could be spending two and a half hours a day trying to accomplish something on social media while getting sucked into the idea of counting my "likes".

I need to think more about what I really define as succesful in terms of what I want to do with social media.  In order for me to feel like I'm not being manipulated into wasting my time by the instant gratification of social media I need to first think about what it is I am trying to accomplish.

Here is what I currently would like to use each site for and what I should stop using it for:

Pinterest
Use it for:
- pinning useful ideas for my job
- pinning references for my art work
- pinning books I should read or reference
Stop using it for:
- pinning stuffed animals for other people to repin
- pinning art work I think other people might want to repin

Blogger
Use it for:
- writing down a record my thought processes on the subject of art
Stop using it for:
- writing down what I think other people want to read about
- writing posts that make me sound like a know-it-all

Instagram
Use it for:
- finding artist community
-posting my pictorial meanderings
Stop using it for;
- trying to collect lots of "likes" on my posts
- trying to figure out what is popular

Steller
Use it for:
- (I may decide to stop using this all together)
Stop using it for:
- trying to collect "likes" and "views" on my stories
- trying to figure out what people want to see

Facebook
Use it for:
-Sharing my art with family and friends
Stop using it for:
- A source of world news

Etsy
Use it for:
- possibly as a way to connect with other artists. ( I may stop using this)
Stop using it for:
- Selling crafts and craft supplies

Wix
Use it for:
- A professional website to display finished quality works of art
- A place to direct people to who want to view my professional art
Stop using it for:
- mediocre paintings

Imaginary Desert Landscape: Round 2

Dear reader,
I recently decided I needed to do something about the composition in my artwork.  I decided that my composition skills are holding me back from making better artwork.  So, I gritted my brains and decided to grab composition by the scruff and shake it.  The results we're (long pause) not what I had hoped.  Instead of improving my painting I seem to have tensed up my creative muscles and made something choppy and garish.

Just having resolve to do something better doesn't always mean the results will really turn out better. I think I may have to revise my ideas about how to work on composition in my paintings.  I think I have to go about it with a softer touch and use some of my intuition that I've built up from creating paintings over the years.

Here is some of my current process in creating imaginary desert landscapes:

This is my first attempt at an imaginary desert landscape before I decided I needed to work on my composition.  I'm in the process of revising this one.  The mountains on the left are too dark and draw too much attention.  The dirt and shrubs at the bottom are too light.  They look too minty.

Here's my "grit my brains" painting.  It's obviously worse than my first attempt. The colors look garish.  The red mountains in the foreground are awful. The composition looks terrible. 

So I decided to sketch out a new idea.  This sketch reminds my of some of my older paintings with the way I drew the sky.  The rocks remind me of how rocks are painted in Chinese paintings. The sketch is to work on an idea so I'm not concerned about whether I like everything about it. 

Today I started this painting.  it was going to be based on the sketch but it only partially references the sketch I made. This one is changing as it is being painted.  The end result may be similar to this or it might be quite different.

Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe: Desert Landscape

I'm going to start off this post in a seemingly off topic way here by saying that yesterday I went to an art reception in which I have one painting.  I got a chance to look around at a lot of art that had made it into the show; and there was a lot of it. There were some pieces of exceptionally well made art as well as some mediocre art.
Awards were given at the show; and when awards are given it leads me to think about why the art that won awards won them.

Then, today I was reading a booklet written originally in 1948 entitled " Secrets of Famous Artists: How you can make the most of your creative talent".  Despite a somewhat tacky sounding name it's actually quite insightful.  The wording sounds like it was written for high school aged students.  The booklet goes over a few basic ideas about composition within a work of art.  When I read it I thought , "Ah ha, that's what I've been ignoring when creating my paintings." I've been concerned with brush strokes and colors all the while leaving my composition to a matter of chance.  I realized that I need to think about and plan out my compositions more.

Recently I was creating a painting of the ocean and some part of the sandy cliffs reminded me of the desert.  Paintings of the desert in turn remind me of Georgia O'Keeffe.  Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the artists I really admired when I was in high school.  For myself, when I think of her paintings I think of her desert paintings in New Mexico where she lived when she was older.  I also think of the way the color values transition smoothly in her paintings.

This is my most recent painting of a desert inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe.  I like the idea but I think the composition needs work. 

So now I have a desire to compose mental deserts and create paintings of them.  Maybe I wish I was in New Mexico because of the way I think New Mexico feels.  Maybe I feel that there are mentally dry places in life.  Maybe I want to paint the way I think Georgia O'Keeffe paints (which is not the way she actually appears to paint when I look at her work).  Whatever the case may be imagined desert places is my next jumping off point.

Working as an Artist - Next Work in Progress

Dear unknown reader,
Now that I have been making paintings as well as having the opportunity to show some of my paintings I really feel like a working artist.

I have not sold any paintings recently so I'm still not currently able to make a living as an artist.  However, my other job is covering my expenses and allowing me to create.

Recently one of my students asked me if I was a real artist.  I think those were her words.  I told her that I am.  It's nice to know that I can honestly say I am an artist and that I am making art.

Here is what I am working on in my tiny studio right now:

This is the first couple of layers of my current painting.  I started with a few colors as an under layer.  Then I sketched out the parts of the painting using dark brown paint and a thin liner brush.

This is after I've added more colors with a medium sized round brush.

I'm painting in my small studio space at home. I keep my paints on the left because I'm left handed. This canvas is 20 x16.

Making Serious Art

I dropped of my piece of art at the gallery today.  I'm proud to have been accepted into the art show.

When I was there I took a peek into a room where some paintings were being stored.  I assume the paintings I saw were going to be hung in the upcoming show.  What I saw looked impressive.  I feel honored that my work has been chosen to hang alongside of these other works.

This makes me feel that my art is a serious endeavor and not just something I play at.

Another of my paintings was recently accepted for an annual show at a winery.  Although I have not seen the location I have a feeling that the show will equally impress me as a professional one.

I'm grateful to God for being able to find these opportunities to create and show art.  I have spent many hours painting to practice my skill in art.  I believe that through hard work I have improved in painting but I also believe that painting has come more naturally to me than many other people because of the skills God has given me.