Pre-work for next painting

I have started the pre-work for my next painting. I plan to do something new for this painting: have a completely smooth surface with no visble brushstrokes, like the paintings I saw at the US Artists expo.

I did the painting below to practice having a smooth surface.

Baking cakes / the butterfly wing guy

Picasso said about the average artist: "they've made their mold – they just go off and bake their little cakes in that same mold." I try not to do this - I try to repeat myself as little as possible and always move forward.
A book a read through recently advises against my strategy. Taking the Leap talks about an artist who liked to paint butterfly wings. He was becoming well known for this, to the point where people began saying - "Hey - I know you - you're the Butterly Wing guy!" The artist resented this, and moved on to painting other subjects. The author of Taking the Leap scolds the artist for "sabotaging" his career. She says that the artist should have embraced the "pigeonholing", and points to successes such as Warhol ("The Soup Can guy").
An article I read on about.com also recommends the repeat-yourself strategy. It says:

Decide on a style, subject matter, palette, and value range that you love, and are comfortable doing. Narrow it down. Dogs? Too broad. One breed only. Too broad. One specific dog only. ... Do that one dog over and over, in the same narrow range of colors. ... . Case in point -- Cajun artist George Rodrigue with his famous Blue Dog.

Consumers drive art

I am currently reading a book I got at a used book sale called Art After Modernism. It talks about how consumers dictate the the kind of art that is produced at any given point in history. Consumers buy a certain type of art, then galleries favor that type of art, and then artists make that type of art. Art that consumers don't like soon falls away into obscurity.

New American Paintings

I submitted an entry to New American Paintings magazine. It's basically a competition where the winners are shown in the mag every year. You may know that I was in the May 2004 issue.

I would like to talk about my process trying to get into this mag. What I do is:
- I continuously "audition" my paintings by submitting them to various small juried shows.
- I keep track of which paintings are accepted into the most shows.
- I then submit the "greatest hits" to New American Paintings.
- I then note which paintings I submitted and what the response was.

I wanted to mention this because people might think "just make great art and you will be successful!". There is this whole other "cheezy" part of the equation - figuring out what people like.

"All garden, no snake"

I was reading a free issue of Fine Art Connoisseur that I got at the US Artists expo. In it, the editor talks about how someone commented that his magazine was "All garden, no snake" - meaning all the art in it was decorative and viewer-pleasing, and none of it had any challenging or slightly bothersome aspects. I agree with the critic. The editor of F.A.C. responded to the critic by explaining how his entire next issue would be devoted to disturbing, violent, political art!
I am quite interested in this area about art being pleasing vs. disturbing. I always try to combine both pleasing and disturbing elements in my paintings to balance the painting out. In an issue of Juxtapoz I read a while ago, an artist talked about how it's better to have a painting that is neither entirely pleasing nor entirely disturbing.

Gallery interest

The Heineman Myers gallery in Bethesda, MD is interested in my paintings. I plan to visit D.C. and show the owner some of my art.

U.S artists expo

This past Sunday (11/20), I went to the US Artists expo in University City. It basically consisted of various booths where galleries were showing their paintings. I liked a couple of things, but in general the paintings were too "decorative" for my taste.

What's my best painting?

I am interested in what people think is my best painting. Check them out and respond to this post to let me know.

Latest painting done

I just uploaded my latest painting, "Good job". Check it out on my web site.

First post

Hi gang! Welcome to my art blog that I just started. In this blog I will talk about paintings I'm working on, shows, events, etc.