If you wish to create texture and broken color in watercolor, particularly for foliage and grass in a landscape or hair and fur textures in a portrait or animal painting, you need to use a dry brush technique.
This technique is just what its name implies–painting with the bare minimum of paint on the brush so that the color only partially covers the paper.
You can use this technique with opaque gouache and acrylic as well. In all cases, the paint should be used with just enough water to make it malleable (or none at all). The best effects for texture are with bristle brushes.
Here, at my blog sight, visitors can see works in progress, finished works, and other artist’s works and read statements about it. My blog is as much visual as it is textual, with me being a commentator. It is a dynamic tool for me. I can post every day or several times a day if I choose.
CREATE A BLOG.
James Frederick: “The Empty Chair” Oil
A blog is a collection of postings of your art images with your written thoughts and generally hosted by a blogging site. It can substitute for a website or support one already developed. I recommend if you have a website you must have a complimenting blog sight. The website is static in nature.
A blog sight can provide status updates for your followers and new visitors. Your posts will appear chronologically. Viewers can sign up for RSS feeds, which will deposit new posts into a blog tracker.
R.D. Burton (artist doing preliminary sketch for Old Woodie)
HAVE A PLAN TO CREATE VISITORS TO YOUR SIGHT.
Yes, as everything else involved in your life, blog and websites need to be promoted to reach out to your planned community.
Join on-line art discussion sights (a great many are available)
Twitter
Facebook (create “fan page”)
Linkedin
Stumble
Digg
Google +
Write art articles for on-line magazines (Helps create expertise.)
Link back all possible to your blog site
Without visitors being promoted to your sight, they will not come in mass. The growth and promotion will be disappointing at first, but if you are patient and consistent it will graph upward. You can track your visitor growth through a sight such as Google Analytics.
My advice is to be very careful that you keep everything in perspective, however, or otherwise you’ll spend all your time promoting yourself and not doing what you love best…ART.
Can you utilize the internet to help get your artwork noticed? An artist has to have a plan, but there is no doubt that the internet can help get you noticed as an artist and give you a number of places where you can promote and sell your work.
R.D.Burton”Old Man Time” (Graphite Drawing) Private Collector
I do not profess to be an expert in this area, however, I can say in the few months I’ve been doing this blogspot that I have learned a tremendous amount.
For example, I began blogging in December of this past year. In the first thirty days I received 73 unique visitors and 323 page views from ten countries. However, in the past thirty days I’ve received 1989 unique visitors and 3069 page views from 79 different countries.
Some of you may feel this steady growth in the past six months is impressive. I am neither impressed nor disappointed. It is what it is, but it is what it is because I have a growth plan. After the first 30 days of blogging, I began systematically driving traffic to my blogsite. I have only been using some of the ways to do this. There are a great many ways to get more traffic to my sight and I plan to be using most of these in the future. At the moment I am on schedule with the plan that I have.
Tomorrow my blog will discuss some of the important steps you can take to utilize the internet to market and promote yourself.
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Many artists find it difficult to market themselves. However, if you are to reach people outside of your comfort zone of friends, family, and colleagues, you must promote yourself to a wider network.
R.D. Burton: Serenity in the Keys (Acrylic on canvas)
The kind of effort required for promoting yourself is different from the isolated creative energy most artist feel in their studio. Many of us find this to be the single most fearsome and difficult part of our jobs. It is demanding and requires developing a different set of skills.
It is uncomfortable because as artists we are used to being in control of our situation while in the studio, but when tempting to promote ourselves, we must depend on the decisions and opinions of others. Here are a few steps to help be prepared.
R. D. Burton: “Old Woodie” Acrylic on Board
Identify goals for your practice
Have a good amount of works to show
Have written materials discussing accomplishments
Use friends, peers, and colleagues to help promote you
Be prepared to discuss you work eloquently and with passion
Research venues
Research art professionals with whom you wish to be associated
Clearly define your place in the art world
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On Sunday, we review the posts of the past week. If you want to review the posts in their entirety, simply click on the picture posted in the paragraph referring to the post.
Lynn Burton: Chief and Skull (oil on Canvas)
On Monday,we said: As an artist, I know how frustrating it is to even think about getting your artwork shown. All you need to do is browse through the internet to see the tremendous amount of activity in the art world. It’s hard to understand where to even begin or know if your art even fits in. It seems that everyone is getting their art shown but you. It could be a frustrating long time waiting for someone to notice your talent and ask to exhibit your work.
On Tuesday, we said: Remember, your art is not ready to show publicly until you have amassed a serious body of work that shows a consistency of ideas. Of course, you must have mastered the medium used as well as all the tools necessary to finish your artwork. When you have accomplished this, then is the time to consider the path to being a known and respected artist. There are many paths to take, but you must have a goal and a clear understanding of these paths. Some will be for you and some will not. Only you can decide. Some artists paint for years before they feel they are ready.
On Wednesday, we rested…no Blog was posted.
detail segment of "Poppin' Johnnie"
On Thursday,I got news that my good friend and extended family member James Frederick past away and I blogged out of respect and I wrote: I feel it would be a dereliction of my duties not to re-post some of James Frederick’s artwork. He was best known for some of his graphite drawings. James passed this week. He was a loved member of our extended family (my daughter’s father in law). Below is a review of some of his masterful artwork.
segment of "Old Woodie
On Friday, I went back to blogging in my series to help artist get their artwork shown, and wrote: When attempting to show your art, there is no place like home. By home I mean the city you live in. Look around and use your “art” eyes to discover the art community around you. Make it a challenge to get to know every artist in your community whether their work is in the same medium as yours or not. They share the same passion as you do…art
R.D.Burton"Old Man Time" (Graphite Drawing) Private Collector
On Saturday,I discussed tips about artwork, and wrote: Before you frame your latest piece of artwork, study it as if you were an art critic. Once it has passed inspection, take another look at the negative spaces. Is there something in the space that you can detect?
We hope you had a great week and spent a lot of time painting and pursuing your passion. The important thing is have fun and enjoy.
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Before you frame your latest piece of artwork, study it as if you were an art critic. Once it has passed inspection, take another look at the negative spaces. Is there something in the space that you can detect?
R. D. Burton: Winter Kindling
Negative spaces creates dimension in your painting. How you paint something in the negative spaces should be well planned. If it is too much, then it can take away from your composition and if it is vacant it loses dimensional value.
Assume that you see a table and your view is at an angle where the front legs and the back legs are visible. Is there something in the space between the two legs? Perhaps, they are set on a patterned carpet. You really don’t want to ignore such a detail.
There are many good artists, especially watercolorists, that paint in the negative spaces first and then paint around them later.
Tip 1:When attempting to show your art, there is no place like home. By home I mean the city you live in. Look around and use your “art” eyes to discover the art community around you. Make it a challenge to get to know every artist in your community whether their work is in the same medium as yours or not. They share the same passion as you do…art.
R. D. Burton: "Old Woodie" Acrylic on Board
Tip 2: Make a long list of every possible place where your art can be publicly seen. Talk with all those you meet in Tip 1 (above). And then think outside the box and take it much farther. There are different municipal art spaces, artist societies, festivals, park departments, and art exhibition programs.
Consider any business that has a wall space–restaurants, bookstores, barber shops, beauty salons, banks, lounges and coffee bars.
R. D. Burton Painting: "The Red Truck"
When I painted The Red Truck (left), It was a corner building salon and next to it was a restaurant. Think about it, what a great place to exhibit it on the walls. Not everybody paints businesses or street scenes but, if you do, take advantage of the situation. Again, be creative and think outside the box.
Tip 3: Be an organizer now that you have personally met everyone involved in art, from promoters to societies to peer artists. Create your own community art shows. Make a plan, find a space (utilize empty commercial real estate), invite peer artists to join you. Divide up the expenses and the tasks of organizing, installing, publicizing and promoting.
Malls tend to like promotions as long as it helps the public and brings in people to the mall. In other words, give them something back to help barter the price they may want such as quick art lessons timely scheduled in the mall for invited groups such as young children (organize visits with schools as a field trip). The kids go home talking about how they got their drawing posted at the mall. The parent’s have to go back to see. It’s educational and good for the public and it is a great promotion for the mall. Just a thought.
I feel it would be a dereliction of my duties not to re-post some of James Frederick’s artwork. He was best known for some of his graphite drawings. James passed this week. He was a loved member of our extended family (my daughter’s father in law). Below is a review of some of his masterful artwork.
James Frederick: "Poppin' Johnie"Artist: James Frederick (Graphite on paper)
James Frederick: J-3 Piper Cub (Graphite pencil on paper) SmithsonianJames Frederick: Stearman (graphote on paper) SmithsonianJames Frederick: AT-6 (Texan) (Graphite Pencil on paper) Smithsonian
P26A(Peashooter) (Graphite Pencil on paper) Smithsonian
Remember, your art is not ready to show publicly until you have amassed a serious body of work that shows a consistency of ideas. Of course, you must have mastered the medium used as well as all the tools necessary to finish your artwork. When you have accomplished this, then is the time to consider the path to being a known and respected artist. There are many paths to take, but you must have a goal and a clear understanding of these paths. Some will be for you and some will not. Only you can decide. Some artists paint for years before they feel they are ready.
Lynn Burton: American Indians (Oil on Canvas)
I actually had a number of opportunities to show my work and I chose not to until 1968 and that was a very conscious decision that had to do with the work. I had a very strong–I still do–strong belief that the act of going public is a very important decision and everything you do from the point in which you go public is part of the public record and is out there and you cannot get it back. anything before the time you go public is nobody’s business and you don’t have to talk about it, you don’t have to show it, you’re not responsible, you can destroy it, you’re not responsible, you can destroy it all or whatever. But there is something about that decision. “OK I can put my neck on the line for this work and I feel strongly enough about it that I will live with however I feel about it later. This is now part of the public realm.”–
Snapshot of Mark (1978–1979), acrylic on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York . Detail at right of eye. Mark, a painting that took artist, Chuck Close, fourteen months to complete.
–Chuck Close, quoted in Joe Fig, In the Painter’s Studio: Artist Joe Fig Interviews 25 Contemporary artists (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009)
As an artist, I know how frustrating it is to even think about getting your artwork shown. All you need to do is browse through the internet to see the tremendous amount of activity in the art world. It’s hard to understand where to even begin or know if your art even fits in. It seems that everyone is getting their art shown but you. It could be a frustrating long time waiting for someone to notice your talent and ask to exhibit your work.
Is this you? Never fear, because taking even the tiniest steps toward increasing the visibility of your artwork can have a powerful effect on your perspective. It can change your whole point of view.
Lynn Burton: “Adam and Eve”
Step#1 You must be ready and confident to show your artwork.
Taking the time to decide whether you are prepared to enter the world of art exhibition is a time consuming and important step. The question whether to keep your art work to yourself or share with others will be with you all your professional life.
Being ready means having a body of work that shows a consistency of ideas and control of the medium.
Confidence means inviting outside opinions, comments and criticism of your artwork without allowing them to effect the delicate balance of your attitude or determination.
Determining whether you are truly ready to show your work is a critical first step to getting your work in front of the public. There are many steps of consideration. I will be blogging about these in the future. Until then, just keep producing your artwork and have tons of fun.
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