Common Misconceptions About Art

I have a lot of friends that are well cultured and go to the occasional art show and appreciate a few artists. But I consistently see well cultured people make the same mistake about art. You probably think it's pretentious to preach about this in a post, well people don't like being corrected and maybe someone will read this and save themselves the embarrassment. 

  Self-portrait

     So many times I've seen people call a portrait  someone drew of them  a 'self portrait.' It's only a self-portrait if it's a portrait of you drawn or painted by you.

You know, cause you paint it yourself!

Modern Art

  No one makes Modern Art anymore, they only make Contemporary Art. The modern art period ended around 1965, some say 1970. All art made today is Contemporary. I've read that art started to get really weird and avant guard after the 80's art boom. The economic boom of the 80's caused a amazing time in the art world where people invested a lot of money in art, but then the bubble burst at the end of the 80's and it caused the art dealers to disenchanted with the art at the time and that's when they started to take risks on the really weird art out there, so now you have Lady Gaga getting puked on with the 'Vomit Artist,' and it's 'art,' because it's 'weird.' 

What Do I Really Think Of Bansky

  People ask me what I think of Bansky like I have some expert opinion. He recently opened that theme park in England- Dismaland. My immediate opinion of Bansky is- I really wish the public had about 10 living artists in their ongoing contemporary art conversation, the way they talk about Bansky's work. When I first realized that's what I really wanted I thought it was a bit far fetched scenario to have 10 artists that the public was aware of. But would it really be that hard? Thinking about it more - that's not too much to ask. I think it's very sad the quality of art out there and he gets all the attention, like cultural tunnel vision. Technically, I know that's not 'My opinion of his work,' but that is how I feel about him.  Below are the artists I wish were on the radar of the general public. 

Dabs Myla

The Yes Men

Joram Roukes

Murakami
William Pope L.
Nam June Paik (deceased but awesome enough to make it on this list)
Frank Stella  

That's 7, technically 9 since Dabs Myla are two people and so are the Yes Men.
I really don't want to just pull artists from earlier posts, give me a few days to really get a longer list out. 

Painting Flesh Tones With Proper Lighting

           As a working artist there are challenges that are a continual problem. Most of my artwork is figurative (they have people in the work). The main problem that causes is I can only paint flesh tones during day light hours. If I paint flesh tones at night they don't look natural and always come out too cold. It's a bit easier during the summer with the longer days, but is still very challenging. I had to get around it because of deadlines for art shows, so I started doing some internet research. I ended up calling a lamp outlet and they suggested asking a photographer. Then I called Blick's art store to see if they had any suggestions. They did but it was an extremely expensive suggestion. It really is sad how greed and creative marketing rears it's ugly head. They carry this product called the Daylight Easel Lamp. I went in to Blick's and it was by no means a small store. I called other stores in the area and they all had those lamps for about $120. Screw that. So I bought a replacement bulb for $20 and went to target to get a lamp for it for another $20. 

          After a day I hear back from my photographer friend and he tells me about these other bulbs you can buy at Target that work really well. They're GE Reveal bulbs, the 2 packs sell for $5-$7. Shit.

Picture of the special bulbs I needed in really bad lighting. 

I Finally Have A Command Of The Velazquez Palette. Finally.

It's Diego Velazquez! 

I've been practicing art seriously since the age of 10 and properly executing the Velazquez Palette is by far the most challenging thing I have taken on in adulthood. This isn't counting the hundreds of hours as a early teen trying to draw realistically, that was extremely challenging, I remember when I was young being constantly frustrated with my limited skills. I've spent the past year growing a lot technically as a painter trying to master the Velazquez Palette. It's been really hard, and I found myself repainting an image at least 20 times. I found a boy to use as a model for my VHS series and had pictures taken of him at a studio in the Valley. I had the guys that worked there do the lighting and I was really into Caravaggio at the time with his dramatic lighting, so the model has dramatic shadows on half his face. 

        My first attempts didn't come out the way I wanted them to and I've talked to enough art dealers to know that I won't get anywhere if my art looks less than perfect. The tones in the shadowy areas were kind of like a cement gray and looked very unnatural, too cold. I knew it wasn't good enough. What cause the biggest challenge at first was the fact that I was working from a picture, and it's nearly impossible to get the accurate tones in the shadows. I don't think it helped that I had them developed at Walgreens though. 

      I never had a problem executing skin tones before this, but the shadows weren't as dramatic as in the VHS series. The only way I really grew and was able to execute the Velasquez palette properly was by staring at my legs for a significant amount of time and only when the lighting was really dynamic like in Caravaggio's paintings. I found myself staring at my legs (and sometimes my arms) and memorizing the tones present in the shadows. Then I would paint what I remembered. The major changes that came of that was deeper reds in pockets of the shadows. It really made the painting feel alive. The red could only be used sparingly though. I also added a lot more yellow to the shadows, making the colors less cool and more warm. It really was so much trial and error in the process. 

 I also realized that shades of a certain color in the shadows should be small, for example if the cheek was in a shadow it looks best when it has more facets of closely related shades, a lot of the time with more yellow in the tone if it's closer to an area which is well lit. Before I used to clump up a whole shaded area in one hue and it just didn't look right, and I learned the shadows looked a lot better with multifaceted tones that are closely related.  

 

    I never thought the Velasquez palette would be so challenging. I had no idea it would be this challenging, it was 5 times harder then the painting I did of the metallic optical thingy in Macular Generation. I guess you could say I'm glad I grew as an artist, but it really slowed my progress down because I literally had to paint it over 20 times. Ce la vie. 

    The reason I don't have art work from gallery visits is because I had a really fun summer traveling and hiking on weekends. I hope you had a fun summer too.