I am finished the twenty paintings for my July show at the Elliott Fouts Gallery. Above are five of the images I shared on Instagram, where you can find me as xmarksthestott.
Over the last year, I moved from the house where my family lived for a decade to a rented home in a new city, then to a new home of our own. Moving a family a couple times in a single year is serious work. It has been months that I worked amongst boxes stacked beside me in studio spaces that have felt temporary and really, really chaotic. Only today did I finally get the last part of my studio set up. I plan on being here for a long time and I wanted it to feel right, to feel like a space where I can easily focus and spend my days.
We had some misadventures over the last year. My wife and I honestly don’t think we would have relocated our family if we were able to peek in to a crystal ball and saw what was before us. But everything works out. We stuck to it. Our kids are happy. We are happy.
So now that we are settling down proper and good in our new home, I’m ready to get a little more ambitious with my painting.
In all the endeavors that we can undertake the options in art are vast. We can choose to make our work using countless techniques and methods and we can find inspiration in everything that is before us. In today’s art world, anything goes.
There are no rules, it would seem. Except one. There is one rule we agree on. In writing, music, film, design, and visual art, plagiarism is the one and only rule that cannot be broken.
When I stumbled upon Chidester’s painting called “Story Time” I was initially confused. It literally made no sense to me, it seemed impossible that I was looking at it.
I have had problems in the past with painting factories taking my images off the web and blatantly making forgeries of my work. In no way is it right for someone to literally re-paint an artist’s work and sell it. I work hard to make a living off my paintings, so when someone does this I cannot help but feel it is theft.
Chidester contacted me and provided a curious story, saying someone emailed her an image of my painting and she was unaware of the image was a painting.
When my paintings are shown to people on a computer screen they react by initially thinking they are looking at a photograph. It is realism and computer or smartphone screens flatten and miniaturize images. In “real life” my paintings are far more “painterly” than what you see on a tiny screen in the palm of your hand.
However, I am left a little confused as to how Chidester, who has been painting for decades, could work so long from my images and not once come to realize she was looking at a painting. Even “non-painters” eventually understand they are looking at paintings when they look close for a few brief minutes. Another painter will notice the markings of a painting much sooner and with more confidence than anyone else. Especially after looking long enough to be able to exact a composition and arrangement of books and titles. And this is where I clearly realize I’m only getting a fraction of the truth from the person who copied my work.
Did Chidester ask for the copied paintings back? Did she destroy them? Did she explain to the buyer what happened? Was the buyer refunded?
This blog post serves as an example that artists will find important and familiar. If you are doing commission work, research the source material given to you – find out everything you can. You don’t want to stumble into a career-threatening mess.
And if you are copying someone else’s work because you like it and want to learn from it, whatever you do, don’t sell the work as your own. In fact, just keep any copied work in your own portfolio and mark it as practice. Don’t even share it on the web. If you do, you might end up looking like a hack and a thief.
My paintings are built up on several layers, and the final layers are all about the details.
The satisfaction is in the details. Before I get to this point, the beginning stages, for me, can sometimes be frustrating. A bit of a struggle. I can sometimes feel like I lose focus on what the initial interest and idea and object was all about. In the beginning stages, things can seem blurry.
I’ll have 20 paintings for my upcoming exhibition in Sacramento, and the final six paintings are a bit smaller than I usually work. I like the way they come in to focus more quickly. I’m enjoying the more intimate feeling of these smaller paintings.
Work in Progress / Blue
Work in Progress / Kodak Cameras
Work in Progress / Yashica – D
Months of work-in-progress images — that’s what my blog seems to have become. Long hours in the studio. Enough time spent that I actually run out of podcasts to listen to. It’s time to make a trip to the library for some audio books.
The truth is, if you’re painting, it will always be a work in progress.
This is a closer look at the red lantern I’ve been working on. I shared a larger photo of the entire composition a few weeks ago. My technique for painting is several layers of glazes, applied slowly, closely looking at the subjects. But I do try to find a balance by keeping the brushwork delicately painterly. Daubs of paint, visible brush work — something that obviously does not translate to tiny jpeg images viewed on the screen on your phone.
Work in Progress / Yashica Cameras
Work in Progress / Antique Bottles
Couples — they highlight similarities and differences. Simple groupings like this add that ingredient in to the paintings helps push them a little further along. These paintings are 14 x 18 inches, the objects are roughly life-sized and I’m putting layers of details in to them. The cameras are in their second stage, and as I was working on them today I heard the voice that I always hear in the early stages of a painting — this is going to take much more concentration and time than you first thought.
It’s not purely a cerulean blue, I’ve muddied it up, added some more blues, a dash of some greens, earthy tones, to get the colour more accurate to the objects. But there’s enough cerulean blue in it to call it so.
This painting has several objects, all from an antique shop near my home. The only thing the objects have in common is their colour. I’ve arranged them in a way that makes the painting pretty much immediately recognisable as one of mine.
So I spend a great deal of time focussing on the tiny little details of the painting. I look at the painting inch by inch. By the end of the day, after I’ve worked my way across the entire surface, I leave the studio and come back and glimpse the paintings with fresh eyes. And the boldness of these colourful paintings is striking. I like the direction.
I post these in-progress images to Instagram. If you have an account, check out my work. I think a well-curated Instagram account is a great way to get inspiration.
Perhaps my paintings are more about the composition rather than the subject. Perhaps the paintings are about the simple satisfaction of organised thoughts and ideas — straight forward, made easy to understand. Represented as well as I possibly can.
Vintage Toy Fire Truck / 14 x 18 / oil on canvas / 2007
I use these old objects because these things have character built-in. Maybe the object doesn’t matter at all. Maybe the subject is the colour, the shapes, the design of the painting, the coupling of objects, the lines – all these other elements. Perhaps these are more about design principles than painting principles.
I painted a toy truck eight years ago. I sold the painting on eBay to a collector in Spain.
Where Steal Like an Artist is essentially a book about creative inspirations, Show Your Work! is about inspiring others. The two books are similar in format — brief with simple illustrations, but well researched and clever approaches to the subjects and ideas.
It’s about navigating the world of social media, creating a strategy and understanding for sharing your work to build a tribe, or join a tribe, of like-minded people. When done right, managing your online life can have meaningful pay-offs, instead of being part of the dreaded noise and deluge of garbage.
There’s great advice for people overwhelmed by the world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blogs, and whatever other passing or grasping media shows up and is forced upon us. If you’re curious and confused about how to balance an online presence as you build your career without committing to a huge tome on the subject, Show Your Work! is the kind of book you need.
I’m working a series of paintings based on color, not necessarily the subject being the focus. Initially, as I get the paintings started, I get little pangs of doubt, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is to persevere and see the paintings through. Finish what you start. It’s the only way you learn and grow.
