Oil Paintings in Studio

here is some artwork that i had on display in my studio just over a week ago. posting them here because i lost my compact flash reader, but now i've found it you can see the oil paintings and polymer clay sculpture in all their miniature glory.

nothing sold but i left my studio open and went round other studios in the building. no artwork was stolen either. i tend to open the door and use the annual open studios day as a social event, seeing other artists and what they have been up to. i find that a lot of members of the public are scared to go into artists studios, especially if the artist is there at the time. one or two just sit there waiting for passers-by to make eye contact and quite honestly it freaks some out. one artist in particular, i'll mention no names, freaks me out (and i know the guy). he's actually a very nice chap but his stare can send would be customers/interested parties onwards onto the next studio. if people really like your work they can always get back to you. leaving your contact details on your door is a good idea.

i've downsized to painting small panels lately, usually i work a little bigger but my wrists have been aching so the small format is easier to handle. included are a couple of light bulb paintings, japanese rice cracker, redcurrants, and sugar-puff paintings. this open day was also the first time i showed a sculpture, my first polymer clay effort. the model was internet marketer Jeremy Schoemaker /Shoemoney (from photos). i posted a pic before when Shoemoney's head was still soft sculpey pre baking. sculpey is easier to use and less messy than regular clay and is a lot of fun to use.


is small the new big? do you like to be dwarfed by a canvas or be able to hold an artwork in your hand? what is your ideal picture/artwork size and why?

Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Recovered in Glasgow

an artist friend of my told me her exciting news a little while ago. yesterday morning she happened to see a chap with a case that seemed one of those heavy duty bombproof types for storing important documents. she had seen lecturers and people holding talks using them before. the chap seemed to be struggling with getting it out of a car, but then went into a building in west regent street, Glasgow.

a little while later undercover police seemed to be all over the place, went into the building and fished out the man, his case and a few other people, one with his head covered with a coat or blanket.

what was in the case? drugs?bombs? firearms? no, apparently some artwork that was made by Leondardo da Vinci. the Madonna of the Yarnwinder turned up in the city centre where it's believed it was going to be sold. this painting was nicked from Drumlanrig castle in Dumfries & Galloway, the thieves pretended to be tourists before stealing the valuable painting. it's not the only Madonna of the Yarnwinder though. there are 2 other versions of this painting in private collections but i'm sure it's still worth a bob or two. well, enough to warrant police from 4 anti-crime agencies working at retreiving the painting for 4 years. it even made it onto the FBI's 10 most wanted art crimes list.


other important art news: wasps studios is opening it's doors this weekend. visit our studios in dennistoun and get artwork that is a little bit more affordable than £37 million.
:)

Shoemoney Head Sculpt

being primarily a painter, sculpting doesn't come too naturally to me. the first thing i made from sculpey was a baby head so i thought i'd continue with a head with no hair. working in 3 dimension requires more than one photo of a subject so i thought i'd use Jeremy Schoemaker, a.k.a Shoemoney, as a subject for my second head sculpt. Jeremy has a shaved head so that deals with the hair problem, and there are a lot of photos of him online so that helps with the 3d aspect. plus he has pretty cool ear shapes.


it's difficult to work on such a small scale. goodness knows how the toy sculptors do it. i imagine they end up cross eyes before long. :)


unfortunately the eyes are not very well worked in, as all of the pics of Jeremy have him wearing glasses. any sculptors out there with help when your subject has specs?

Dumbest Thing I've Done

pencil drawing

selling 70 artworks in one night is the dumbest thing i've done. you might think to yourself: wow, 70 paintings in one night, that's pretty good. no it wasn't. noticing that self-representing artists didn't seem to do so well on ebay, i thought that people had to really see fine art in front of them, and appreciate the quality before it sold well. also i had read an article on selling well online, saying that 1 penny auctions did much better and therefore attracted more bids. whereas those with a high reserve did not fare so well.

so a couple of years ago i did an ebay style auction but in a physical gallery, and started the bidding at...yeah you've guessed it...1 penny. big mistake. it cost me about £1000 to stage the event including framing, hiring of the gallery space, printing and sending out flyers etc. and after selling 70 paintngs, i made roughly ...£1000. not a good night. it's a cliche when they say artists don't have the best business sense in the world, i had no business sense.

oil on canvas

some friends told me i was mad, that i should put a reserve on things, but then it would be like any other art auction. this was going to be different. such amazing works starting off at 1 penny! unheard of. of course i have a biased viewpoint. the idea was to get more people through the door, who might not normally come to an art auction,


the worst part of it was i trusted people to bid what they thought the works were worth rather than trying to get them for as cheap as possible. i was right there watching after all. imagine spending hours and hours of time on a pencil drawing, then spending £55 on a frame for it, and then imagine watching someone bid £5 and winning it. that's what happened to the pencil drawing of the melon and frog at the top of this post.

oil on canvas

not having a huge mailing list of potential buyers i tried to get some publicity in the local press. i wasn't looking for a major picture spread, not even a little picture spread. all i wanted was to get a little mention in the what's on this weekend section, but it never happened. my reporter contact let me down. instead of taking 10 mins to send out to his contacts (he had all the info about the show) he contacted another reporter friend who phoned me when i happened to be sleeping and never left a message on the answerphone. they obviously didn't really want to do it. what kind of reporter doesn't leave a message? i had to sleep sometime and although i was only getting about 3 hours a night in the run up to the show, it was better sleep than this disturbed pattern. result: i don't trust reporters now. i was actually helping him move furniture about 3 days before my show, expecting a little help in return, but what are you gonna do?

another thing that hurt was overhearing an extended family member saying i'm not bidding that, that's too much. the worst part was that i knew they had money, what they were considering too much was just covering the frame, and i also knew that they had invested in (crappy) art in the hope that it would rise in value. one consolation i can think of is that they don't know anything about painting technique.

oil on linen

do you have any super abilities? i have the ability to devalue canvas by applying paint to it. think i'm joking? look at the image above. it was painted on a stretched and primed linen canvas that is 100cm x 80cm. to buy that blank could cost you up to £80. final bid at auction was £30. not counting the weeks of work in that, you'd have thought that the stretcher and linen would go for more. i had sold a couple of A3 prints for more than that. oh, well.

all in all i sold half of ten years work for basically no money. what's the dumbest thing you have done?

Audrey Hepburn Painting

when i quit my day job, and left where i'd worked for nearly 6 years, i auctioned off 3 paintings for a good cause. when Christine died she was cared for by the staff of the southern general hospital's neurology ward. another colleague, Katrina, ran a half marathon and donated the money to them, so that gave me the idea to post an auction just for staff to say goodbye, to remind many of the staff how young Christine was, and do a good karma thing.

there were 3 paintings, one Jimi Hendrix image, black on gold background, a black on white Brando godfather image, and one black on beige 30"x40" Audrey Hepburn image. the first 2 raised £230, but the bidding sheet for Audrey went missing so it looks like i'll have to run that again.

I made a Baby!

i made a baby.

not a real one, goodness no. i can barely take care of myself let alone another human being. cats are my limit. they kinda take care of themselves anyway, or just tell you what they want (sit by the food bowl, sit by the tap).

after thinking i'd try my hand at sculpture i ordered prosculpt from eBay to try modelling a few figures or suchlike. prosculpt is a plastic modelling clay just like super sculpey or fimo that you can model with. unlike using regular clay, instead of firing it in an kiln for hours, you can 'bake' it at home in your oven. it's also a lot less messy than using regular clay.

bulbgirl and i visited my family home, 4 of us sat around quietly playing and having fun with this fantastic stuff. more than an hour must have elapsed as i sat trying to model a baby head (trained as a painter not a sculptor). everyone should try it. time whizzes by as you get into it.


my dear old dad came into the house and checked out what we had been up to. he had barely touched my model when it fell from his grasp (in slow motion of course) and splatted on the floor. "my baby!" exclaimed i, but he just laughed. hopefully he was a little more cautious when i was a bairn. to suggest a sore cheek i quickly fashioned a hand and joined it to the head which he found funny.

"ooyah, my face hurts"

not sure i should give him a father's day present now. =P

Happy Couple

on friday 13th Bulbgirl and i went to a wedding. it was in Fife. St.Monans to be precise. my friends Steven and Susan were getting hitched in a place that is dear to their hearts. they don't come from that area but have been there often enough on holiday to fall in love with the place. i can see why. the town has a very dream-like quality.

they are both talented artists and are well matched. here are two paintings by Susan. one is a portrait of Steven, and the other is a selfportrait:

Oil on board

Oil on canvas