Adjusting for Changes

Things change. And art is no different. There have been huge changes in just mediums available. And platforms. When I was majoring in Fine Art at the University of New Mexico watercolors were always done on paper. Canvas was for oil. And we stretched our own as well as learned to prepare the surface with rabbit skin glue and gesso. Acrylics were very new toward the end of my studies.

Little did I imagine I would one day be using intensely colored watercolors on canvas platforms prepared specifically for the medium. I can get the colors once only available in acrylics. And I can float those colors across the canvas. It was an amazing change for me from the pale colors of watercolor carefully applied on hot or cold press paper. And it was a change for the art buyer.

As I educated myself I found myself also having to educate my public. This is especially true on social media like my Facebook page, Binford-Bell Studio.  And as galleries began to fail and fairs no longer attract buyers like they once did, social media became more of the market place for artists and clients to interface. Art buyers want to know the artist. And so I began posting progress photos which ultimately became Creative Process blogs here.

But then things changed again. I blame the iPhone. And the tablet. So quick and easy but if I take a progress photo with my tablet and you see it on your iPhone it is not a true representation of the work. And viewers began to see cats and dragons in the skies. It belittles the work. And it puzzles me because I will look at the painting and not see it. Something fails in the translation. So no more progress photos taken with my tablet. I do after all have a great DSLR camera.

And I will post less progress photos. I will still take them to put into a Creative Process blog, and to judge the status of my own work for me. Some aspects of this new mixed media I work in is very fast because it is poured. But progress slows down as I edit that; refine the accident as it were. And lately I have added another medium to the equation; oil sticks. I joke at exhibits that I will use whatever it takes to achieve what I want.

I just don't want to confuse the viewer with what may be just a transitory dragon created by and iphone and a ipad.

I Will Always Paint - A creative Process Blog

Painting is for me a journey which began in my preschool days with watercolors on Mother's Italian Linen table cloth. She was not always that thrilled with my early artistic expressions but did contribute to an endless supply of coloring books, paper, and crayons. It kept me away from the walls and the tablecloths.

I will always paint and draw and fill sketch books and canvas.

I did not begin photography until seven when my father gave me his old Kodak Brownie camera and slipped me extra in my allowance to develop the pictures I took. When, because of living conditions I could not paint, I took pictures. And when I had studio space and could paint I took pictures as a basis for paintings.

Currently my photography seems to be in ascendancy. That could be due to the economy. Or that I showcase it better on this blog and my Facebook studio page. Obviously it easier to come up with a post per day in photography than a post per week even in paintings. And I view my photography as just another artistic medium like watercolor or oil sticks or Mother's table cloth. Photography is just a digital painting with light and pixels. When printed on canvas people even think they are paintings.

Sold another digital painting last week. And was also offered the opportunity to hang my photographs in another venue in a town with no art galleries.  The economy has not been kind to art galleries. And I have not done a weekly review of my photographs on this venue for a month though I continue to post a daily photograph on my studio page.

I am going through a reassessment of art and my life as 2018 winds down.

I will always paint. I will always have to get my hands (and clothes) covered with paint. But photography currently pays for my painting supplies when once my paintings used to pay for my photography equipment.

I will continue to blog on this platform but I am giving myself more freedom on the subject and the timing. Sidetracked Charley, my more freestyle blog, has a greater readership than this one. But this one still functions as my web page for paintings and photography.Hopefully you have looked at the other pages behind this blog.

I will continue to blog. Just giving myself freedom to blog about what is moving me at this moment in my artistic journey.