Good Start On New Portrait

After work yesterday I set up my exhibit in the High School library. The display turned out very nicely. The only concern that I had was that the tabletop display easels that I chose couldn’t be opened fully to their designed size due to the depth of the shelf. Fortunately they had rubber feet on the legs which should prevent them from sliding and falling off the shelf. The librarian commented on how nice the paintings looked in the easels because it raised them off the top of the bookshelf making the paintings more visible. She even liked the idea enough that she might order some so that she can display student art in the same manner.

This past weekend I was able to get a very good start on a new portrait. I completed the sketch and began the base painting. Trying to not get carried away with the background. The reference image that I am using is very busy, having been take in a bar. While I want the background to be recognizable as a bar, I don’t want that to compete or draw attention away from the primary painting subject matter. Always a challenge when using a digital image for reference. Using the squinting technique as a way to blur the background.

Base Sketch

Base Painting

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Exhibiting At Kingswood Regional High School Library

I am pleased to anounce that I will be exhibiting six paintings at the Kingswood Regional Highschool Library in Wolfeboro, NH. I am not sure how long the exhibit will run as discussion in this regard has been kind of casual and still evolving. My wife who teaches in the Middle School, which also uses the library, made the connection for me. Towards the end of January, she approached the librarian and asked if some of my works would be a good fit for the space they were trying to fill. The librarian was intrigued by my connection to a teacher at the school and thought it would be neat  they could learn something new about my wife; being married to an artist.

I had my wife take a few photos of the place so I could get an idea of how I would present my work. Because the library is a part of a new facility upgrade, and the fact that the ceilings are so high it was my thought that they would be reluctant in having me drill into the new block walls to place hooks so that I could hang the paintings. I decided instead to obtain small inexpensive table top display easels, sized appropriately for the corresponding paintings. In addition to the display easels for the paintings I also was able to purchase small easels to support an artist bio card and painting information cards. The paintings and the cards will in turn be displayed on the tops of the book cases. The larger easels were obtained from Dick Blick and the smaller from Amazon.

The six paintings in this exhibit are all acrylic paintings and includes three figurative and three landscapes. The three landscape paintings are are local and part of a ‘drive by’ series I did; “Driving by Cornish, ME”, “Driving By Repair” and “Driving By The Corner.” The three figurative paintings on exhibit include; “Self Portrait 2018,” “Michael And Riley,” “Mr. Mojo Risin.” The latter was on of a series of fan art that I did as a triptych that include a pointing of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. With the exception of “Mr. Mojo Risin” the paintings on exhibit are done with a grey scale pallet. The painting of Jim Morrison is done with a limited infrared pallet.

"Driving By Cornish, ME"

"Driving By The Corner

"Driving By Repair"

"Self Portrait, 2018"

"Michael And Riley"

"Mr. Mojo Risin"

 

Distractions, Distractions! How I Got Here 001

Been plenty of distractions to get to this point. I have been wanting to do a blog for quite a while. The business of art blows. Finding time to paint, or print, is hard enough without the making time for self promotion, framing, etc. when you have a day job. This blog is really for me. A place where I can document process, and notes on my studio, and my art. I offer it publicly so that maybe someone might find my struggles of becoming an artist helpful in their own plight.

I looked at a lot of other artist websites, to see who they used to host their sites and how they used the sites they created. It seemed, from this review, that most artists felt the need for a static repository for information about them, and there works; a sort of virtual resume. In addition, they used separate social media or a blog sites to reach out for self promotion purposes. I found that, with the exception of only a few very successful artists, websites were not used as a sales vehicle. Setting up a blog means having a website and a blog account. I had neither six months ago. So I thought that I would start by creating a website on one of those free sites that you read about.

I did some research and found my way to 000webhost With experience in web design I put up my sight and within a month I found myself dealing with a whole host of issues like, limited bandwidth, storage limits, and very inconsistent up-time. So very quickly I found myself looking around for a permanent solution. What I found was that 000webhost was really a company operation under hostinger I couldn’t export the free website that I had spent a month designing in a format suitable for porting over to a new pay for hosting site. If I went with a new host I would have to redesign the website using their templates. I reluctantly decided to use hostinger and save myself having to rebuild a website that I was happy with. The final salt in the wound came when I went to register and pay with hostinger I did so on a weekend. My credit card was locked because hostinger operates out of a foreign country, Cypress. Banks find dealing with business in this part of the world unsecure, so I had to wait until the following Monday to authorize the my bank to make payment to this company. Whew… Since that time I have found that this hosting company has been surprisingly responsive and I have zero down time. Have a look!