artdolls are these surreal enough?

[Nita]

Hi, first post here.
Im a sculptor/dollmaker . here's my website
http://www.sleetwealth.com/
At this time I stick mainly to bread and butter nude fairy and mermaid peices. Ive had a few people tell me my work is mismarketed to fairy collectors because they are not doll enough, too arty,or not mainstream.

The art I admire most and am most inspired by are surreal ,symbolic, dark fantasy in sculpture,painting and photography.
Do you think my work is sureal or visionary? If not how might I nudge it over into that territory? I feel really stupid asking that question!

[jonbeinart]

Wow. Your dolls are incredibly lifelike. They definately have alot more artistic flair than your average Fairy sculptures

[dislatino]

I agree with Jon, i do honestly think they look fab, keep up the good work, in my opinion they are surreal, maybe a lighter surreal as opposed to a darker but still.

[LoKI]

Wow, they are AMAZING.

As a matter of interest, how big are they, what are they made of, and what do they cost?

[Nita]

Really quick replies I didnt expect that! Thank you all for taking the time to reply. lighter surreal..good enough for me. I'll have to work on drawing that subcouncious stuff out more. I guess I will just hang out here and see if the brilliance will rubb off!

The figures are 7" tall and made of polymer clay. I sell them from 260-400 each depending on complexity.
Im working on personal side projects to try and lose sight of the shore. Ill post those too when I get a chance.

[Mad Bob]

Hi Nita.

Whenever someone offers you advice that they're not doll enough, too arty and not mainstream, I suggest that you listen very seriously, nodding to show that you're paying attention, and then immediately forget what they've said.

Look around on the net - the fairy market has many devotees embracing many different media which not so long ago would have been unheard of. I'd be surprised if the approach, style and quality of your work doesn't endear itself to the fairy market. And what was meant by "too arty?" The quality's too high? And as for not being mainstream..........WHAT IS WRONG WITH NOT BEING MAINSTREAM? How many artists are mainstream? What IS mainstream? A style of art that lots of other artists copy? "Not being mainstream" is just another way of saying, "original." Art depends on the non-mainstream to develop, diversify, expand its consciousness, call it what you will. If art stuck to the mainstream, we'd still be painting in the style of the middle ages. Do your own thing and for as long as it works in your own mind, just keep on doing it.

As for surreal - my own interpretation of the word covers anything you're not likely to meet in everyday life. So yes, I'd say they are surreal. And visionary? Well, I suppose that depends on what the individual sees or looks for in fairies. I suspect that many fairy fans look for a gentler world, or maybe one that opens its mind to powers/attributes that we don't see in our own lives (or that aren't made enough of), or at least a world that's more logical than this - an escape, at any rate, and maybe one with a constructive end in mind. Whatever. That all sounds like a vision to me.

Uh, yeah, as you may have gathered I like your work very much. Just keep turning 'em out.

[Nita]

Thanks Mad Bob. You had some really good points for me to ponder. :)

Well, I think thier words were well meaning to help me get my work in a better nitche and get seen by the clients that would better appreciate me. I guess I do listen too carefully to what others have said because Im confused about my path as an artist.Theres very little guidance for such things. I dont quite feel fullfilled by fairies despite the fact that they sell well for me. Theres the rub.. I want my work to have more depth,impact..meaning.

I agree with what you say about mainsteaming. Of course its a good thing to not be predictable. However, the doll market is a bit differnt from the art market. Some of my more risky works didnt do so well , I had to adapt and tone down things I enjoy that really wernt embraced.As soon as I remove "me" from my art the prices improve ! Tool marks and staining for instance are not a preferance for doll collectors.They in general respond to flawless skin and surface,cute ,charming, beautiful subject matter and sacchrine themes. Realism and representational peices are more admired and sell higher than stylized or abstracted works.I feel somewhat stiffled by that.

Im a self taught artist and just started making dolls two years ago. I was thrown into it by the urgent need to make money! Not the most nurturing environment for developing vision! :roll: Its been a interesting experiance. A sort of tug of war between the desire to market and the drive to make something that I feel proud of and deeply satisfies me.

[Mad Bob]

I guess many of us on this forum will have the same problem: commercialism vs doing what you believe in. You say that removing "me" from your work helped sales - well, maybe you can put the "me" back in once you're better established?

You have my sympathy with being confused about your path as an artist, and the "advice" of others doesn't always help. In my case, that's often been along the lines of, "Why don't you paint a nice bowl of fruit?" ARRRRRRRRRGH! (pause as Mad Bob looks for a smiley to depict someone being strangled). I've known supposedly open-minded people who thought they were a "bit of a lad" to run screaming from the room at the sight of my work. No, I'm not exaggerating.

I've stuck to doing what I believe in but fallen flat time and time again because others can't pigeonhole my stuff. I've been turned down by galleries because they can't identify the right "niche" for my stuff from a very limited number of niches. I guess they expected the figures to be doing something sexual rather than what they actually ARE doing in my pix. And it looks like you have the same problem - people expect fairies to be hollywood-with-wings, rather than with toolmarks etc (From your description, you might find a more sympathetic and open-minded reception at relevant festivals/gatherings/whatever they're called). I appreciate that your critics were trying to help you slot into markets that are already there, but it's a terrible shame if you find that you have to fit in to some artificial definition, rather than thrust your art upon the world and say, "THIS IS ME. THIS IS HOW I DO IT."

Neither are the preferences of the adoring public always very constructive - yes, I've found that they want perfection - which I suppose is surreal on its own, because the sort of perfection they want only exists on TV. However, I believe that the problem isn't with the art, it's with the marketing. With six billion people all stuck on the same planet, there HAS to be a market for just about any kind of art; it's all a question of finding it. I think that looking at the work of our fellow forum-members bears that out. So there I live in hope........after all, if a guy can make a stack of money by sawing a cow in half...................

I guess that if I had anything left to suggest, it would be along the lines of: If you have a choice between making what you want and not selling anything, and having to make what you don't want to just in order to sell stuff......................... do both, if you have the time. The stuff that doesn't sell now might just sell in the years to come, and at the same time you'll stay motivated better.

BTW what were these "more risky" works? Were they on your website?

BTW 2: if you've only been making dolls for two years I can only say :shock: Standard-wise, that's fast progress indeed.

Keep up the good work

MB

"If I painted people chainsawing each other to death, I'd be a millionaire."

[Nita]

Hi,
the bowl of fruit thing! Im sure Ive heard something to that tune before! Ive never had a person run from the room. Now thats a talent!

I was always facinated with anatomy and fantasy themes,seemed simple to just stick a pair of wings on. Thats how I got into this.
Not new to art,sorry if I gave that impression.
I was a whitler,oil painter,3d cg modeler and drew alot before I made dolls. So, I have more background art experiance than just two years.

What you are saying about pigeonholing is exactly how I feel.
Between nitches... I was looking I guess for a quick remedy.
Add this or that to push the work into one nitche or another.
That way I could more clearly understand choices I need to make about direction.

I think certainly perfection is surreal.
In fact I like the contrast of perfection with imperfection. Seamlessness is such a standard expectation though it makes me want to be contrary.

Risky for me in this genre is anything that may not sell or appeal to the majority..to sculpt a bit larger scale,leaving off wings,staining,toolmarking... things like that.For instance I sculpted a wrinkled elder sleeping beauty with a mummified looking skin. youth and sex appeal rules fairy art of e-bay.
No most of the stuff on my site is not particually risky as far as shocking vision..that type of thing. I wish I had that in me..dont know if Im that deep.

I probably shouldnt show but, you can see a wip of a personal project Im working on now.http://www.geocities.com/sleetwealth/DK.html
The engraved tattooing which is subtle on my commertial peices is taking over the surface of this one. I feel an urge to expand into distortion, peircings,tore away open areas revealing understructure
and grasping towards luminous angelic like beings with heavily marred skin. I tend to overcensor and chicken out on really doing what my vision suggests though.

Thank you. It helps just to talk about the process.

[Mad Bob]

Heh.

Not a talent I'd been aiming to acquire but I suppose now I can't say my stuff doesn't have an impact. She didn't just run, she ran screaming. And another "victim" almost wet himself and died of a seizure, spluttering something about preferring early 20th century German abstract. Oddly, it's often those with a more puritanical background that tend to accept my stuff as it is.

Aha. D'ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.............I should have realised you didn't acquire that sort of anatomical knowledge in a couple of years (although there is a Dutch artist who got hers by working in a morgue. Margot someoneorother).

If you're looking for a direction, and you can afford it, then go your own direction and leave the world to catch up with you. If you can't afford it.........well, 'nuff said. Most of us are in a similar position, and if it sells then good luck to you. We all have bills to pay. It does irritate me when I hear others try to shoehorn any particular type of art into a pigeonhole (most of them aren't artists themselves).

Perfection doesn't really exist, and if it did, perfection to some would only be flawed to others. I've had my own stuff turned down by galleries because my figures don't conform to this mythical ideal ie I prefer to paint real people. Have you ever found that some in the art world even confuse an artist's model with a fashion model - you know, the skeleton variety? I reckon the one decent thing Oliver Cromwell ever did was to insist on his portrait painter leaving all the boils and warts in (hence the saying, "warts and all").

I take your point about having to target the majority. But having seen your site, I'd say the most shocking thing about your fairies is that they have human qualities and feelings - most people expect them to be cute and harmless or at the worst, mischievous, as if they're supposed to be above the sorts of things that make humanity tick. If I had the time I'd run two websites - one as I have it, and the other to show what some would call a more realistic side - pics like Tony Blair wearing a court jester's uniform, beheading Britannia with block and axe, that sort of thing. You never know - it might get me into trouble, but they do say there's no such thing as bad publicity............ :twisted:

I saw your WIP page - the texture is marvellous, almost like marble (I take it it isn't marble, is it?) but the thing that stands out isn't the scarring, but the eyes. They're very penetrating, almost pin you to your seat. BTW that wasn't a criticism - leave them be, unless you were going to change them anyway. It's a pity you have to overcensor your vision. I know you're anxious to reach the commercial markets but do leave the "me" in now and again, even just to see if it works on the public or at the very least to give yourself the satisfaction of having done it.

I thought about adding a WIP page to my own site; it might at least encourage me to get my lead out and finish things faster, but I keep chickening out. I keep changing my mind about things during the course of a pic, so I couldn't really see a WIP page as "showing the growth of a work." More like showing the world the awful mess I make until I finally think something's worth signing off.

You're welcome. That's what fora are here for

[Nita]

Getting a response like that is sorta flattering. What is more damning... and that I used to get often is disinterest! over the years I guess the apathy has eaten a hole in my ego. Id rather scare em then bore them to tears!

Substitute "perfection" for "seamlessness". Thats what I really mean. No visible faults or uniformity.Ah I sorta disagree about perfection not existing not much is flawless when nitpicked ,but if its perfect to the naked eye isnt that enough to call it perfect? Isnt light perfect? what about an egg,machined parts? I know that a knife looks perfect and when magnified is scored with deep grooves and its point is dull , but we call it sharp none the less. we never say "nothing is sharp" ... oh well.

Yes I do see that people expect artists figures to conform to contemporay media standards. drives me crazy. when I started sculpting I got a few unsublte remarks that my gals were "big" or amazons. really they were what I see as average in build. And just try to make a female with sagging breasts! gah you will get so much helpful feedback!

Two websites might be a good idea. bad pubicilty yeah.. Ive seen the power of rumor and word of mouth. If shock value is your thing ,do it. probably would work. especially with bloging. If you do something perverse someones bound to blog your site!
I think people like to see wips..really. Sometimes mine are far left field of what they started out as . Getting to be involved in an artists process is stimulating. It inspires me to see it and non artists have told me they like it too. It also helps me to see WIPs of my work. I flip them in ifran veiw to see in a new light.Sometimes you just get too close to the work to see the overall picture and it helps to see am image with the option to resize alter color etc.
My WIP is in polymer clay(uncured) its suposed to be faux beeswax.The eyes are glass. No I wont change them ! in fact Im glad to hear you feel emotion from them.

[Mad Bob]

Flattering? No, just trying to be honest. I wasn't trying to patronise, certainly - that gets my dander up as much as cliches or pomposity masquerading as expertise, although running out screaming does not irritate me - it's simply another way of discovering that you were right. :twisted: But if the apathy's got to you - that's precisely what I mean about keeping doing something with "me" in - even if just occasionally, even if it doesn't sell (yet). Again, that's where a forum like this scores. You find a host of others in much the same position and that helps you keep going. But I agree - if you have to decide between scaring folk and boring them, scare them every time.

Ah, you meant perfection with the technique itself - no joins visible etc. Right. Point taken. Well, in that sense, I'm not sure I've ever painted anything that's perfect. No matter how good a job I think I've done, I always go back to it later and find it full of bugs that introduce the "seams" you mentioned. I suppose the trick is knowing when to stop bug-hunting and just sign the damn thing off. Perfection in the sense of the models themselves - we all have our own ideas of that and even our own individual preferences sometimes change with time. I gather even some folk in the fashion industry have had to admit that their stick-insect preferences are just so much fantasy (surreal? :twisted: ) I've no in-depth argument to hand on why I prefer to paint "real" people, it would just feel wrong to me if I only conformed to some fictitious ideal. Having said that, have you ever seen some of the full-length portraits of the aristocracy from the early nineteenth century? Huge pigeon chests and tiny heads - and those were just the male ones!

In the case of the second website, I wasn't so much out to shock - plenty of others are already doing that and it's so obvious that all they're trying to do is shock. More a case of getting things of my chest, and maybe - just maybe - selling something. After all, you can mangle human beings as much as you like, just as long as they keep all their clothes on.

I take your point about wips, but most of the ones I've seen progress in a logical sequence from start to finish. I know there's probably a lot of frustration that we don't get to see, but in my case that's precisely what you'd get. For example, I've just left some trees drying and I know I'll go over the damn things half a dozen times before they look like real trees and not like an accident with a heavily overloaded brush and a sneeze. Most of my processes go on in my head; that's just the way I work. For the same reason (hold onto something solid here, shock coming.........) I don't work evenly over the whole canvas. I tend to finish one thing, comparing it with the ideas in my head, before moving onto the next. Most of my time committing rough ideas to paper are spent writing them out in words, rather than drawing them. That's not to say I don't change things after I've done them; I start with an idea, sketch it out, making sure everything is in the right place, and then get on with the painting, but I do get second thoughts about things and re-do them.

Ah, the eyes were glass. That's probably why they shook me a little - the hard surface. It wasn't so much emotion, unless you count shock - it was the sort of feeling you get when you've been talking about someone, you open a door, and there they are on the threshold. Those eyes dominate you. But to me, that's how they work, and work they do. I'm glad to hear you won't be changing them.

[Nita]

My work isnt perfect either. Its simply an observation.

I like the very thin ,medium as well as the fullbodied figure. I think all have their place and look right according to the mood of the art. fashion models are mannikins..never meant to be objects of desire or average. Just as the clothes they wear on runway are art and not meant to be streetwear.

No I have not seen the fulllength portraits you speak of. Sounds freeky. My goals are the oposite of yours. My goal is not to make humans ,but to make humanoid representations. I want to make them sublime visions tangible. Dont know if Im even accomplishing that goal! I want to push farther away from human. Real people are probabaly a vehichle for your goals as well even if you arnt aware of why.

I used to paint. I had no instruction and few books available to me... I simply scetched with paint in layers. I had no sence of right or wrong way to paint. So painting one segment at a time doesnt faze me. whatever works right?
Pft!well if you cant bring yourself to do WIPs why did you even mention it?? Im sure many people work haphazardly. Hell I would be encouraged to see the salvage and transformation. Chicken! *bawk* heehee teaseing. Really if it would help to get you trurning over work quicker..why not?

[Mad Bob]

Well, the trouble with the fashion model look is that so many don't realise they're just clothes hangers and accept the look as something to strive for. In the art world, the "ideal" seems to be more the traditional tapering figure - but again, without too much or too little in any one place and with little tolerance towards deviations from this. The portraits you describe as freaky were the ideal of their day although - yes, they do look freaky. Definitely distorted. Probably the best example I can think of is a full-length one of King George IV - I can't remember who painted it, but I'm sure you'd find it on Google. But if you thought they had strange ideas about painting people, you should see the way they did animals! The ideal cow carried two tons of fat and had legs like thimbles.

I'm more into making my visions "real" by suggesting that anyone could have been in them, and yes, I'm very aware of it. That's the whole idea. Sublime visions, as you say - but with humans instead. What I try to do is to bridge two worlds by suggesting a workable alternative. As far as the human figure goes - well, I've recently been lucky enough to have a willing model and I'd have accepted her just as she is whatever her shape and size.

In your case - yes, you are accomplishing it, as I said, by endowing the figures with human emotional qualities. And don't scream that I've missed the point - I know you want to push farther away from human, but it's just as much those qualities that make them tangible as it is the skin texture etc. That isn't meant to imply that you're failing your vision in any way - even if you wanted your representations to look like omelettes with eyeballs on top, they'd still need the same emotional qualities that you're putting across now.

Yes, doing one bit at a time works for me or I wouldn't do it although I only got into that habit - well, partly through ignorance (the habit was already well entrenched by the time I learned what you're "supposed" to do) and partly just because when I work at something I tend to keep at the same bit until it can't go any further without first working on something else. My own education was from books and through trial and error. The errors have been fun as well as instructive and not all the trial has been error - when I painted a portrait of my great grandmother I used cigarette ash to help colour her hair. It worked. It sounds as if you started with even less outside influence and that obviously hasn't held you back.

Actually, it was YOU who first mentioned WIP's. (Oh yes you did) In my case - yes, salvage, if you can imagine the artistic equivalent of raising the Titanic. Sounds like a dare to me.......... well, it'll have to wait until the weekend so I can get some decent natural light for a photograph (which gives me time to iron out the worst of the bugs in it) As far as turning work around quicker goes, the biggest way I could help that would be by putting more than 24 hours in a day. And in case anyone's tempted to say anything about spending my time on fora - I'm sitting here waiting for paint to dry, ok?

[Nita]

Exactly.
You know how anatomy book teach and artist to sketch out a figure to be 7&1/2 or 8 heads tall other wize they will look dumpy? Gosh stretching a figure even 9 heads tall is good. On the other hand if you squashed figures would people still see the beauty in them or would they be reduced to grotesqueries?

I love to sculpt my ladies with a fleshy lil tummy. I love to show gravity pulling the weight of their breasts or stockings cutting into the soft tissue of thier fat. haahaha that sounds pervish,but I am drawn to soft contorted curvelinear forms.
I checked google to see King George IV didnt see any odd pictures really,but I supose the fashion at the time is just so much more distortion and emphasis.
Yeah I think I see what you mean about real figures. Maybe the observer can feel themsleves in the figures place. Rather than just looking and admiring idealism and sublime beauty they can indentify and project. to where ever you want to bring them.Well being female I project into female figures easily.

Although I dont want human I do want real physical forces,belivable life and emotion in my figures. Yoda said it best " luminous beings are we not this crude matter" Thats the reason why I chose non real,but that could change.

Uhuh I started with very little influence. I was extremely rural and didnt have access to internet or art instruction. I guess you could say Im an outsider artist without the outsider look. I had a few anatomy and old master books ,but that was about it. Held me back , no becasue I was too obsessive to let it stop me. But a little yes. I never was happy with any of my paintings. I destroyed alot of them. A little help or encoragment would have been grand..even helped me evolve. Instead I became stuck. I havent painted in years... I switched to sculpting. I have to make something yes?

OK I admit I brought WIPs up..but only becasue you wanted to see my other work. Dang!
Ok get to work slackard!

[Mad Bob]

Yes, I got most of my basic anatomy from books although now I tend to watch people in the street and learn from how they move. That's easier in the summer months as they don't wear so much, although I do have to make sure I don't look as if I'm staring. The best anatomy books will also say that ~7.5 heads tall is only a working average - even height and build aren't precise guidelines as to how many headlengths tall a figure might be. There's one guy I see a lot of who is about six foot four tall, and averagely-proportioned in all ways but one - he has a tiny head.

Ah, I could chicken out of that question and say that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder............seriously, I personally would find the beauty in their expression and in what they're doing and how they're doing it. Whatever their size/build.

Pervish? No, realistic and observant. Straps do cut into the flesh of well-fleshed folks. I can understand why you might prefor soft curvilinear forms; to me, they invite - spindly ones, I find threatening. Maybe it's the thought that that is how people look after a few years in a coffin.......... (or maybe I ought to rein in my imagination)

You didn't find George IV? Hmmm, maybe it was painted when he was still Prince of Wales.

Yes, identifying with the figures is precisely what my work is about. That's the whole message. My "visions" if I can call them that are for everyone. I'm not female, but as my site explains, natural female curves lend themselves more readily to what I'm trying to put across (be they concave or convex). I suppose I could use male figures in most of my pics, it would have just been harder to put the message across.

Mhm. Some influence, you might have found helpful, as you'll have had a harder struggle without it. Having said that, I wonder if you've found it more constructive to start with the clean sheet that you wouldn't have had, if you'd been too heavily influenced by the work of others and had been forced to struggle? On the downside, if you're too original, people find they can't pigeonhole you, and your work doesn't sell.......................

It's a pity you destroyed those paintings. If your sculpts are anything to go by, they would have been worth looking at - whatever you might think. I wonder if you just had a greater affinity for sculpting and might be tempted to go back to painting at some point in the future, even just to diversify? It might just be a matter of confidence. I started with pastels recently and ok, my greatest achievement was to wind up with a floor very messy with powder, but it's all part of the learning process ie my pastels were crap but that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Heh. Well I got to see your WIP so

YES BOSS! (tremble shake.........................)

[Mad Bob]

OK you win. See the painting forum. Happy now?

[Nita]

"Ok you win" those threee lil words a woman loves to hear

I find soft curvelinear forms nourishing and comfortable. Like a hug from a well rounded person. Spindly forms I like too but for diffenrt emotions they evoke. Namely my gangly youth,insects,tree limbs..that sort of thing.
I dont find them threatening. How interesting that a shape has so much emotion in it.
I found George just not any odd looking pics of him. whatever.. I believe ya.
I love a well done male figure. Ive done very few sculpts of them though. Its harder to use a male figure without him doing something actiony..work,warfare etc. Just graceful repose is hard to pull off without looking fruity or unbelivable for the average male. Female is so flexible. She can be any thing from stark to decadent without the general veiw coloring itt. I suppose it would I could look at it as an added challenge or an oportunity to push peoples expectations as well. but nah ..theres also the challage of all that muscle detail!
I still have some of my paintings. You can see some that I had published in Spectrum. 4,5&6
I think I do have a greater affinty for sculpture. I was always trying to achieve some solidity in my paintings and just geting a very flat cartoon. People buy my work so, I guess I dont suffer from being too original.
You cant help but be influenced by other art work even if you live in a cave! Early on it was the old masters. Greek statuary and Pre Raphielites. Now I admire too many artists from too many differnt catagories to really have a domineering influence.

I am tempted to go back to painting now that there are resources from the net to draw knoledge from.
I did some very rough playful oil pastels. Nothing really representative. it was too messy. I cant fathom how some are so adept at them!

[Mad Bob]

The little riposte that a man loves to make!

I suppose all forms - spindly, curvilinear etc have their place in art, it's a question of what you want to put across, although I can't help but associate soft curves with warmth. I suppose people only find certain forms threatening because they represent "non-perfection" that we're all supposed to be afraid of. This fictitious perfection does change over the years, I think the 1920's were the first time spindly became fashionable (their beads had to hang straight).

It is possible to use male figures without them appearing warfary, think of ballet dancers. I just feel that I'd get a better effect using the female form with its natural curves. As for muscle detail, you've hit on one of the reasons I paint my figures with nothing on. A "normally dressed" figure gives you two hands and a face to work with, and possibly two arms and lower legs too. Paint the figure as it is made, and you have four hundred muscles to put your message across, not to mention any fat layers or the skin which you've obviously capitalised on in your own work.

I'll have to come back separately on your paintings; it depends on how much luck I have with google and the criteria I know. You have a clear affinity for sculpture; I wonder if the problem with painting was that common one of portraying three dimensions on a 2-D medium? All artists have that trouble at some point; look at the hair people tear out over foreshortening. I even figured out a way of calculating how to paint foreshortening mathematically, if you're interested. It does work.

There again, I've seen some artists just say, "ah, what the hell" and go ahead and sell their stuff with the most glaring mistakes in it. A guy who lives near me got a seven-figure sum for a pic of Tiger Wood giving out a triumphant yell, and he hadn't given enough thought to the shadow between the upper arms and the body when the arms are pulled in to the side. It looked like Tiger had a huge wide chest, with two tiny arms sprouting from just above his hips. A-hem. Your stuff obviously does sell, do please don't take the self-criticism too far. You are NOT suffering from being too original. You've found your direction; the only problem is public acceptance of it.

Yes, I'm with you on the question of influence. Even the monks who produced those wonderful illuminated manuscripts had their influences. I used to love those eighteenth century paintings of Greek legends although I now chuckle at them - the most mundane actions performed by the hero/heroine were always witnessed by an armada of cupids, satyrs, shepherdesses all pointing and gaping in wonder. Reminds me of today's headlines - "FOOTBALLER'S WIFE SCRATCHES NAIL VARNISH!!!" etc.

Give into the temptation and do it! Your experience with sculpture will only help. I got the basic techniques from books, but the rest was trial and error. I came into painting relatively late, so it's difficult to say what external influences drove me regarding art, although the non-art influences were really just mother nature, the human form and some wonderful architecture that I've seen. Oh, and the music, as you can see from the WIP. I've been experimenting with pastels lately but am still at the stage of learning what they can and can't do (and yes, I get a very messy floor as a result)

BTW I'd almost finished my reply when there came a powercut, so I've had to try to remember what I put. If what you see here has come out a little disjointed, that's why.

[Nita]

but I go there first.

Uhuh sure. Not sure what I wanna put across.
I feel comforted by natural figures. Comforted that its alright to be human,flawed, average and relaxed,but Im also drawn to classic idealized figures.
yeah its" possible" to use male figures,but its a challenge is all .Think of ballet dancers uh..hmm ..ok that was suposed to be an exception? heehe Have to admit I admire Barishnakovs lines!

Part of the problem with my painting was not being able to capture the 3d look. I didnt use models or draw from life..because of that my work never was realistic or beyond childrens book illustration in stlye. Foreshortening wasnt a problem I just avoided it. Perspective, color theory ,values all that was trial and error and sloooow agonizing progress.
Here is one of my paintings someone posted online.
http://owl.irkutsk.ru/PICS/ART/PALANTIR ... d_thee.jpg
Horrible quality! *cringe* I was just a teen when I did this!
Thanks for the offer but, I dont think I will need to start with mathmatical equations for forshortening..quickest way to scare me off! Maybe after I get up the courage to pick up a brush again!

[dislatino]

You are also a great painter, very nice work.

[Mad Bob]

Well, there's not much I can say to that except (I love that smiley)

You're not sure what you want to put across................would I be right in guessing that you want to see where you're going at the expense of appreciating what your head/heart are telling you now? If so, go with the NOW. You WILL know what you want to put across, even if you only know it for a moment before uncertainty creeps in, and that's the thing you wanna capture. The NOW. Before uncertainty starts to hold things up. You'll discover the tomorrow when you get there, and by then it could well have changed anyway. Who knows; in a year's time I might get sick of painting people and go cubist?

Regarding the figures, you've hit the nail on the head. All types of figures have their place, including the "perfect" ones, I just don't believe in idealising those. I prefer my figures to be human, flawed and average; I suppose it's my way of bringing the art to the viewer, by saying, "You don't HAVE to be perfect; this could be you too............" Having said that, I like to think that I'd paint whatever type of figure the context demanded, be it an Arnie Schwarzenegger or a leper.

Yes, male ballet dancers were supposed to be an exception, since they are well-muscled without being Arnie Schwarzeneggers - the Arnie look has its place, too, but not in the sort of stuff that I do. They also have a very highly-developed sense of balance, so I suppose they'd be natural models if you needed a male one.

What you said made me wonder about the 3-d look, but don't give up. I didn't have a model at all until a couple of years ago (although previous works featured my own arms and legs, suitably remodelled to match the rest of the figure) and from what I could see, you did well enough without one. So DON'T PUT YOUR STUFF DOWN. The one you posted is excellent. Honest. Dragons and shiny steel aren't my genre, if I can be said to have one, but I can tell when someone has made a good job of something, and you have. I don't know if you deliberately avoided a lot of foreshortening for the reasons you suggest, but you have a good eye for judging light and shade, and that's the most important part of painting something 3-d using a 2-d medium. As for colour values etc, you can read up on those until the cows come home, but when you get down to the painting itself, a lot will depend on the medium you use, as I discovered when I tried pastel. In other words, you can only really learn by experiment.

Don't put off by what I said about foreshortening in the previous post. It's not as mind-bending as you might think. Assuming you know the true length of something, and the angle that it's turned away, then the foreshortened length will be:

true length x cosine of angle of rotation = apparent length.

In other words, if your shiny sword was three feet long and you turned it away by sixty degrees, it would appear to be eighteen inches long. Don't be put off by the dirty word "cosine" - in practice, you only need to carry a few key figures in your head and here are some of them.

Turn object away by 30 degrees = 7/8 true length; 45 degrees = 7/10 true length; 60 degrees = 1/2 true length.

You very rarely need to know the precise length/angle; approximations work fine for me every time. Of course, if you rotate something in two planes rather than one, things get a little more complicated, but the principle remains the same. Like all things, it comes with practice (in this case, surprisingly little); it's a trick I developed before I had a model. I still do it a lot if I need to paint a musical instrument; there's no way I can get a piano or church organ in my study (it's not easy to get myself into my study, come to that)

There. That didn't hurt, did it? (ducks as Nita throws something) And yes, I was gonna tell you all that anyway. Now reach for that brush. Or if you haven't got time to do that, at least show us some more of those early paintings of yours. I don't care what you say, someone can nit-pick with their own work until their hair falls out; I do that myself. All you need to know is that the dragon one WORKS.

[Nita]

uh I think I know what you are saying. My head/heart wants alot of things.. I hardly trust my nutty creative urges anymore. I dont have the resources or time to follow them all. I dont like the feeling of being lost and not knowing where this is leading. Ive already traveled some blind alleys and it makes progress and building a body of work hard. Always starting over always resteless and feeling your missing some obvious clue.

Well I dont mean to put mystuff down I just was never satisfied with my painting,but they are ok for what they are.*shrugs* I mainly build up the painting in mono tones and adding the colors over top. That helps me deal with the color and not get confused.The background is black so it helps to visually drop it back.
I may have done a good job ,but its trial and error and redoing by just fixing what looks wrong as I go..not from a foundation of solid art education. On account of that I spent months on paintings.
Id like to attend the L.A acadamy or figurative art someday. I admire traditional figurative skills.
I think I gottcha with the foreshortening..that sounds logical. I had to look up "cosine" 6th grade education here.

Ok I will see if I have anything else to post here.

[Mad Bob]

I doubt if any of us get the time to do all we want to do; we just do the best we can. If you're hoping anyone has an easy answer about what to trust or what not to - I doubt if anyone does. There just comes a point when instinct has to take over (I think that's a part of the creative urge you're describing). I've had to learn to trust that, and accept mistakes as inevitable. Even the big ones, like the blind alleys you mentioned (and I've been down enough of those). If you DON'T know where you're heading - isn't that all part of the fun? The feeling of never being satisfied is perfectly common. I find I can tweak a painting this way and that, but eventually there has to be a time when you just call halt and sign the damn thing off.

I wonder if you're trying too hard to find your direction? I suspect from what you wrote that you suspect that too, although you have already pointed out that commercial pressures keep you from producing the sort of thing you'd really like to. Yeah, that won't help.

Your technique works, and that's all that matters. I doubt if I could paint the way you do, simply because I use nothing but acrylic, for purely practical reasons (uh, that dragon wasn't acrylic, was it?)

Trial and error can be frustrating but if you feel that relying on it has undermined your confidence, there's really no need. When I first started painting, I read somewhere that painting is about 90% correcting mistakes (even amongst those who have had a foundation of solid art education, unlike me). I found that to be true straight away, and ten years on, I still find that painting is 90% correcting mistakes (BTW even the most famous pianists play bum notes ). I'm not trying to sound a smartarse - honest - but the important thing is to see the mistakes as learning experiences. Besides, some of those mistakes come in useful later on when you're working on something different. Example - I learned early on never to let acrylic get too dry on brushes or it can ruin them. Yep, you guessed it - I let that happen (I think it was a hot day at the time, the stuff was drying like ink) and discovered by accident that you can get a marvellous blending effect by applying the paint when it's dried to a waxy, near-solid consistency using extreme force at great speed. It took a while to get the technique right; the paint must be at precisely the right level of dryness, and it only works on top of freshly-applied paint. Now I do that all the time. It just gets expensive on brushes.

Again, I was put off using black in the early days because I kept reading that "real artists don't use black because it doesn't exist in reality." All I can say to that is COBBLERS. Remember the trees in the foreground of my WIP? Black was the only colour that worked.

Many of us spend months on paintings for precisely the reasons you give. I've tried cutting corners and calling things finished before I should have, and the results were crap. Truly embarrassing. Now I prefer a pic to drag on and on, rather than have to admit to myself that I'd painted crap. As I said above, it's hard to know exactly when to stop. Painters keep themselves from getting "stale" with a pic by keeping several on the go at once, although I don't have the room to do that.

I sometimes wish that I'd trained formally in art - I'd have acquired connections that I don't have now, for a start. But if I had the chance to do it now - well, let's just say I'd be very picky about where I studied. If the LA academy teaches figurative art in the way that you'd like to learn it, then I hope you get there and good luck to you. Unfortunately, many of the establishments here in England give priority to conceptual art; many students ditch their courses because they'd been hoping to learn to draw and paint, and found themselves very disappointed half way through the course. I wouldn't deny conceptual art its place, of course, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

Heh. I knew the cosine business wouldn't give you a headache. I had to go back to my schooldays maths too, when I realised that there had to be a mathematical relationship between something's true and apparent lengths when foreshortened.

Yeah, keep 'em coming. I liked that dragon one.

[Nita]

I posted another pic in the painting forum so others can look without scrolling through all this shtick. Yes all my paintings are oils.
Well an easy answer would be cool ,but I dont expect it . Ive searched within me and without me. Next thing I guess is to find a really good opium supplier! Trying too hard? Possibly .That comes from desperatly wanting some intangible thing that I cant define. I dont find it fun I find it frustrating.

Well you come off a bit preaching the obvious,but I know what your saying. Paintings dont just click together simply because you have an art education. some struggle is natural etc. My paintings wernt fullfilling me, it wasnt about perfectionism or perceived flaws.Though I see plenty of those I kept it up for 14 years. it was draining . I was not encouraged,had no educational stimulation,no peers,poor supplies...inspiration was not coming out, my work hit a platuea where it wasnt improving and motivation just dried up.

Um real artists dont used black?

[Scrybe]

I don't really care about catagories. Those fairies are great! Much better than avarage. I'm also making stuff just to sell, and cooking on more freaky stuff in the background. It's a hard balance to strike. Especially when you already have a full-time job.