The Not So Greatness of Alexander - A Story About Stolen Art

How do we handle the theft of our work? As artists, we face a constant threat of others stealing our work online? The worse cases of this are people who try to resell our intellectual property. 

I am not a believer in watermarks. I think a huge watermark over our work nullifies our attempts to promote our work online. I do believe in ID'ing our work with our logo, but a watermark that takes up the center point of an image does nothing except to detract from what we have created.

Immortality Has Arrived - The Artists Virtual Life

We are the first generation in the history of man to become immortal

The advent of the internet era has made a part of us impervious to death. What we perceive sometimes as a toy, as a method of communication, as a way to waste time when we are bored, has in its own quiet way turned us all into immortals. Its not because of the internet alone that I say this. Its because of the massive social networks promulgating the net now.

Before these came along in their present form, the internet was still a fractured place. Those using one service like AOL or a host of others, were still locked into a small part of the cyber universe. But now, organizations like Google, Yahoo and Facebook are unlocking the doors and expanding services to the point where we now have a doppelganger of our true selves living out there in cyberspace. 

Viewing Your Art Through the Buyers Eyes

Artists can be very myopic. We micromanage every piece of art we create and we fuss over every single detail incessantly. We see whats in front of us, but sometimes we miss the bigger picture.

The simple fact is that this is not how others view our work. Think about it, when you see another artists work for the first time, do you see every little detail about that work? Or rather do you take in the wholeness of the piece, seeing it as a complete structure and not as a series of small brush strokes?

Art Bloggers - Tips For Creating Content

Art bloggers make two common mistakes when they blog. These mistakes lay at opposite ends of the spectrum from each other.

At one end lays the trap of only blogging your art and nothing else. The result is that unless you can create new art daily, there are vast amounts of time where your blog sits unused while you create. No new content equals no new viewers.

The Spine is Strongest - Finding our Artistic Backbone

Creative people who share their views are often shunned. The Dixie Chicks come to mind as a great example of a group of singers who spoke their minds and had their careers nearly destroyed for speaking their minds on political issues.

What results is that anyone with a creative career such as musicians, movie stars, artists and performers have to think twice about whether they want to take the heat for expressing views that may go against their fans views.

The Art of Fear - The Nightmares Artists Face

I had a dream. I saw an abandoned house sitting alone in a field. The doors were open to the elements and the floor boards were cracked with gaping holes that were open to the dirt floor beneath. There were construction people with hardhats surveying the property. A large yellow tractor sat waiting outside. Several men walked through the house room by room until they came to the attic. At first view it was also empty, but one of the men noticed a small door to one side and opened it with some effort.

The Immense Power of Imagination in Art

As I work with emerging artists, I often see amazingly talented artists who have skills that far surpass my own. In every way they have the potential to become great artists and masters of the craft. But they are lacking one key element to move them from artist to master. 

Imagination. 

Choosing Your Artist Name - Standing Out From the Crowd

One of the things that artists don't think about when they are beginning their professional careers is their name. I think this is because many of us think "to change my name means I am not being true to myself". I respect that line of reasoning. But It is important that we at least consider alternatives earlier in our careers rather than later.

How Do We Make People Look? Name Recognition for Artists

One of the biggest questions emerging artists struggle with is how do we make people look at our work? What is the secret that some artists seem to find that makes people stop and actually look at their work. Is there a magical formula for it? My belief is that its simply word of mouth. The secret is in making word of mouth spread. 

I kind of see it in my mind like a set of scales. When we start out the scale is weighed completely against us. We are a completely unknown element. It does not matter how talented we are or aren't. The more people know about us as artists the more the scales start tipping in the opposite direction.

Using the @ not just the # (Twitter Science For Artists)

If you google the term "twitter tips" you will see in almost every article tips on using hashtags #. Hashtags increase your exposure, gain you a bigger viewing audience and allow you to zero in on a target area. 

What the experts don't talk about as much is the use of the other big symbol on twitter. The @ symbol. 

Critiquing Art

I get asked to attend a lot of shows and to review a lot of portfolios from other artists. No review of work is complete if you are only telling the artist that their work is good or their work sucks. I like to look at a critical evaluation of a piece of art like the building of a wall. One brick doesn't make a building. Many bricks do. Saying "good" or "bad" is the equivalent of one brick. 

I also feel like I need to make sure I am applying the same set standards to each piece of work I look at and give it as objective a review as I can manage. I feel sometimes that art critics and gallery owners do not use as impartial a set of standards as they should. I've seen professionals in the art world apply very personal standards and biases and I think this hurts the art world. Because all art is subjective. Its all the eye of the beholder whether they like a piece or not. So professionals should hold themselves to a higher set of rules and guidelines.

Artists Challenge - Shadows of Perfection (UPDATED 1--05-16)

Artists Challenge

Shadows of Perfection

This challenge involves reducing your available light by 75% while creating a work of art. The only rule is that you don't bring the lights up till you've completed it. If it takes you several days, then cover it over or hide it before you bring the lights back up. This will teach you how much we rely on our eyes and give your other senses a chance to come forward and take charge.

All finished pieces will be shown on the Immortal Artist site. When completed email a photo of your piece and some brief thoughts on how you felt the challenge went and whether you learned anything about relying on other senses and not just your eyes to create art.

Emails to: gcsartno@aol.com

Wall Vision Art Galleries (ART IDEAS)

Art Ideas is a series of conceptual ideas for changing how we operate as artists and how the art world functions as a whole. All ideas are freely given and welcome to anyone who might be able to pursue them. The Revolution Begins With Beauty.

One of the problems that a gallery owner faces is that they get inundated with artists asking to be seen yet there are only so many days in the year and only so much wall space to utilize. If you consider the average gallery may do twelve shows a year that does not leave much leeway to host a large volume of artists.

There is a hell of a lot of work that goes into showing a new artist. A gallery must, out of necessity, show that artist for at least a months period of time if they wish to have the work seen and the buyers become interested.

Mastering Symmetry in Art

One of the biggest problems I find that face people that want to become artists is symmetry. I spend a lot of time looking at other peoples art, evaluating it, discussing why one piece works while another one doesn't. And most often a bad piece of art is deemed bad not because the colors are off or the composition is unclear, but because there is no symmetry. 

There is a natural flow to a perfect piece of art. Lets look at the classic Mona Lisa.

No Photo is a Bad Photo

In this day and age, it is so easy to snap a photo that we forget the value of them. For the amateur any given photo means it is pretty much disposable, to a professional photographer the best images are precious and to be taken care of. To an artist who is also a photographer every photo should have meaning, whether poorly shot, hard to see or blurry.

I see more and more people calling themselves fine art photographers, but they think with a professional or even amateurish point of view. I teach to students and interns that no image is valueless unless it is nothing but one solid color.