Hooked on a Feeling

If you are in the zone as an artist, you can lose yourself in the creative process. Art is like a drug that you are allowed to take as often as you can. There is a high when you are doing it, and a low when you aren't. The only solution is to jump right back in and create something else in order to maintain that high. 

Careful Consideration of all the Angles

When we create a piece of art, we have to consider the photography of that art if we want it to gain any traction in today's social media environment. What good is art if its never seen? The online art world has opportunities rarely afforded artists in other centuries. We have the chance to bring a piece of art to life and then show that life in all its glory immediately upon completion. We no more have to wait until its seen in a gallery or art studio window. Its instant gratification on crack.

Short on Space

The problems with big art is that space fills up quickly. Here are 4 of the Dystopia sculptures, with the 5th just getting started. We will be moving the studio to a new location in about 8 weeks, but it may be that I need to find temporary storage for some of these. If you can imagine rather than these 4, that there will eventually be 20+, its understandable how quickly space will fill. 

Do you have problems with space and storage? We'd love to hear about it below! 

~Grey~

Dreamstate

A lot of the art I create comes directly from the dreamstate. For most of my career as an artist, I've worked hard to train my mind to remember specifics of dreams and translate them into imagery. It doesn't always work and sometimes it can be very disruptive to getting really good rest. But if its done right the imagery that comes from it can be much more intense than that obtained just from creative thinking. 

The piece above is a bit different because it did not come from deep REM sleep but from daydreaming. This is a good way to brainstorm new ideas, but it happens very quickly. When I grasp an image I have to act on it very fast or I'll lose it completely. In this case I was working on something totally unrelated and suddenly saw the image for just a brief micro-second. I stopped and tried to keep it focused in mind and immediately shut down what I was doing and tried to tackle it before it was gone. I knew I needed two faces of the same person in order to create not just the image but the concept of the different faces we show the world. 

The model is a good friend of mine who I have photographed many times in years past. So it was a given that I search my archives for him first. The face with the eyes closed was actually taken in the very first photo shoot I ever did with him. The face with the eyes open, again coincidentally was in the very last shoot I did with him just before he moved out of state. It wasn't planned that way, but most good art is inspiration both at the moment of conception and within the details. 

The hard part of dreamstate art is not having the dreams, but in retaining them afterwards. But the rewards, especially for an artist that focuses on surrealism is priceless. 

This piece will be added to the Phantasm Portraits series. 

The Temple of Lost Light Series

The Temple of Lost Light is a sculpture created and laid out in the dense underbrush of my backyard. It was placed in the spring before the plant growth had begun to emerge. There are about a dozen Buddha's laid out around and amongst the sculpture along with temple walls and pieces. As I find new pieces to add to the structure I add them. Over the past months I've monitored the setting to see how the growth around it is maturing and how its effecting the sculpture. The intent was to create a setting that could be photographed at different times of the day and night in order to create a digital art series around the photos. Tonight was the first time I braved the mosquitoes and other creatures of the night to take the first set of night photos. I will continue to do this periodically throughout the coming months as the growth gets larger and the temple is lost in the underbrush. The first finished piece is seen above. For those curious S̄æng thī̀ h̄āy pị means "Lost Light" in Thai. I will add more as it is created. 

Digital art can be so much more. I see so much more potential in the technique than just sketching something out on an IPad. When incorporated with sculpture, art, photography and even nature, the possibilities are unlimited. 

This Is How Artists Can Establish a Profitable Side Gig - By Brittany Fisher (Guest Writer)

While there are many careers in the art field, a true artist has the drive to make money from their passion projects. There’s no reason why a hobby can’t turn into a profitable side gig — quite possibly growing into a full-time business if all goes well. If you’d like to make it as non-starving artist, considering being open-minded about channeling several revenue streams. For example, you could blend web sales, commission projects, grants, and gallery showings to make ends meet while pursuing your artistic goals.

Even though you’re entitled to making your own selling strategies and creative decisions for your business, you’ve also got to prepare yourself for occasional criticism of your work — especially anything that’s custom. If you think you’re up for the challenge, just make sure you’re setting yourself up for success. 

Confidence!

I see way to many artists post a piece of their art social media and then immediately apologize for it. If the piece is not ready to be seen, don't post it. If it's a work in progress then put WIP on it. If you've done your best then show it proudly with no apologies!

The Art of Kela

"In Shadowland"
Artist: Kela 
Twitter: @Art_by_Kela
Email: artbykela@icloud.com

Process: IN 2015 I started a photography project which took on a life of it's on and morphed over time into PhotoLution. Starting point is always 1 or several of my photos - end result is a new different image based on perception, my emotional state, mood and creativity. 1. Photography, 2. digital  rebirth, 3. print, 4. if print on canvas I finish with adding texture and paint (acrylic) which makes each piece one of a kind.

Grey's Notes on This Piece: Kela's work is fascinating. She realizes that a photo is only the beginning of an amazing process that can produce so much more. By blending disciplines she creates a totally unique piece of art which captivates the eye and makes you search deeper into the piece to find hidden meanings. ~G~

Kela Says:

This is piece #7. The entire series reflects my emotional state of mind during that time period, sort of a visual story ...the names of my pieces are carefully chosen and give clues. However, I believe that everybody has their own way of seeing and understanding which will always  lead to individual interpretations which I welcome.

Mother Please!! The Dystopia Project (UPDATED 05-26-18)

This is a first look at the fourth urban ruin being built for the Dystopia Project. For those not familiar, the Dystopia Project is a series of lifelike urban ruins, each with a specific theme placed throughout each building in the form of street art and graffiti. 

"Mother Please!!" is an abandoned warehouse filled with graffiti and street art that involves the AIDS epidemic. Please be warned that the subject matter contained in the images can be disturbing.

The images you see here shows the inside of the warehouse and the graffiti being added on each floor. Once the inside is complete, a front facing will be placed on the building and then the outside walls will be filled with graffiti. 

Emotionally charged art propels both the artist and the viewer to new levels of understanding of both themselves and the world around them. 

Art Improvisation

As an experimental artist, I am often challenged to come up with a new solution to an art problem. Here is an interesting solution to a recent sculptural problem. 

The raised paints I am using to create some of the graffiti on the Dystopia sculptures, was shiny. Too shiny. It worked well for doing the lettering, but it did not seem real to me. It didn't have that aged quality that I needed it to have. Instead it looked like it was painted on the walls yesterday. That wouldn't do. I tried a number of things to lower the gloss without losing the letters completely. Nothing seemed to work except using a high end phosphorescent spray which dulled the paint and made the sculpture glow in the dark. But this was an expensive option. I needed something cheap and at hand. 

The final solution was a wet mixture of corn starch mixed with a very small amount of gray paint. This tinted it just slightly so it didn't look glaringly white when it dried. It was then applied over the lettering while wet and then dried quickly using a hair dryer. The hair dryer was necessary because I would get a bit of flaking if it was allowed to dry slowly. The end result was a system that allowed me to age both the lettering and any other part of the sculpture I felt needed it. A super simple solution to a complex problem. And a solution that as an experimental artist I will use in other work later and probably adapt over and over again to find new uses. Here are before and after showing the changes. It will need a couple more coats to get the perfect aging for it, but I think you get the idea. 

Before

After

A Not So Typical Day in My Studio

This article has been updated, because in the 4 years since I originally wrote it, I found that even my daily routine had changed dramatically. Circumstance, new skills, new ideas, all work to change even the most steadfast routines. This currently is mine. ~G~


I'm asked every so often to describe a typical day in my studio. Its a simple enough question, but it always gets me to thinking about what habits and routines I have and what habits other artists might have.

For me no day is really typical. Each shares a certain routine that I try to stick to, but with art, every day can also be very different. My routine is mixed with multi-tasking. I rarely work on just one thing, but move between projects and daily tasks with ease.

My work days, are really nights. For me the day starts around 1 in the afternoon and ends around 2am. Email is checked before I even get out of bed. A quick meal is taken in my studio.

The Art of Niloufar Farzam

"Tenderest Mood"
Artist: Niloufar Farzam
Twitter: @niloutableau
Website: http://niloufarfarzam.com
Specs: 24x24x1” Mixed Media

Grey's Notes on This Piece: One thing in particular really caught my eye in this piece. The subtle use of blue. By using the blue she created a depth to the piece that I doubt would have been there without it. With abstraction its very easy to create a flat one dimensional image and lose the opportunity for multiple dimensions. Niloufar shows a particularly adept hand at recognizing dimension through not just texture, but color. 

Additional Artist Information:

Niloufar notes that part of the inspiration for the concept was from reading Eckart Tolle’s book “A New Earth”. To see more of her work, check out her website above, or her Saatchiart site at:

http://Saatchiart.com/Nilou

Watermarking

Weigh the benefits of plastering a watermark on top of your art or using something more discreet in a corner of the work. In today's online art environment, the cost of covering up your art in order to protect it can mean the cost of losing a sale.

Consider if you will that as a digital artist I can remove a basic watermark in seconds. In today's environment, visual watermarks do little good against someone seeking to steal your work. 

The Bones of Old Buildings

As the Dystopia project continues, the studio is filling up with Urban Decay sculptures. Its a strange scene when entering the space to see the bones of these old buildings rising up. Work has begun on building the next sculpture while the graffiti and street art is being added to the previous piece. Its taking me about two weeks to complete each one, but as the designs get more complex, the construction time will get longer.