All posts by santhony

Included in AcrylicWorks5

Publicity

Last year I submitted a number of acrylic paintings to AcrylicWorks, a competition for inclusion in an annual book-format collection of paintings centered around a common theme. This year’s theme was “bold values” where value, for artists, specifies the lightness or darkness of the paint, whatever medium is employed.

From the book introduction:

“What is the value of value? This question is commonly posed to artists
when beginning their creative journey. And value is so valuable!
For many artists, it is the number one design principle required for
a successful painting. Value creates interest, mood, contrast and
helps artists express what they want to say about the subject. Value
provides an underlying structure to a painting; without a solid value
plan, you don’t have a plan at all…”

https://www.artistsnetwork.com/store/acrylicworks-5

I am happy that two of my acrylic paintings (below), now in private collections, were selected along with 125 other wonderful paintings by over 100 artists in this, the 5th annual, AcrylicWorks5. I received my contributor copy of the book last week and it is beautifully laid out and edited and, regardless of my inclusion in it, it would grace anyone’s coffee table.

                        

The book and/or e-book can be ordered directly from the publisher at ArtistsNetwork AcrylicWorks 5

Artwork Is Not A Commodity

Uncategorized

I just received a curious email request from a visitor (let’s call him “Fred”) at FineArtAmerica.com. Fred found one of my very early watercolors from 1970 at the Salvation Army and wanted to know if it was worth purchasing it to “make money.”

Aside from the slightly insulting but nevertheless humorous thought of my work winding up in the “gallery” section of a Salvation Army thrift store, the idea that my work could be used by someone else to “make money” is alarming. Additionally, the ignorance and insensitivity of asking the actual artist whether his/her artwork is “worth purchasing” is offensive. For the last few years at least most queries like this that I have received have been couched in a request for the “insurance value” of a piece someone might have inherited or purchased. If the query is accompanied by a statement of enjoyment or love of the piece, that removes suspicion and I am happy.

The point of this rant is that I am increasingly appalled that artists’ work has been commoditized and to many people its only or main value is monetary.

I may have sounded a bit snotty to “Fred” with the reply, “I don’t recommend anyone buy any artwork whatsoever to “make money” (whatever that means), unless you own a gallery. If you like the artwork buy it, otherwise don’t.”

And “…as a living artist trying to make a living at painting I have no idea what the “investment” value of my work is or will be” nor do I really care. My only real concern is that a purchaser or collector of my work enjoys seeing it hanging on their wall.

Comment to let me know what you think!

Local Art Is Better

Local Art

We are in the process of putting some of our stored and undisplayed artwork (not mine) up for bid on eBay. Many of the items are framed prints that were, we are positive, purchased at cruise auctions long before Karen and I were together. I will not name the main and practically the only cruise line auction company, but anyone who has been on a Holland America, Celebrity, or other cruise will know the “gallery” company name.

Since the mid-1980s we have been fortunate enough to have been on over 30 cruises, most of which have been as part of JazzSea.com for me to perform with Bob Schulz Frisco Jazz Band. All of them have been wonderful experiences except…

As a serious artist I always cringe and my stomach tightens up when I see and hear of people spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on “art” of often very questionable authenticity and quality at cruise auctions, from the on-board “gallery,” or, for that matter, at the big tourist area galleries found in most large cities (like those at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco). In most cases these folks are “paying for a Mercedes and getting a Volkswagen Beetle” to quote a reputable online art registry director, especially if the artwork is purchased as an “investment”.

Why not find and support a local artist whom you like? Just like produce, local is better.

Scam Targeting Artists

Scams

Artists Be Careful!

I received a comment here the other day purportedly from a person in Luxembourg interested in purchasing “a few” my paintings. A number of points in the comment shouted, “SCAM!”.

The scam reuses variations of the details of an old email based artist scamming scenario. My first exposure to this scam was by email about 10 years ago, purportedly from one “Tracey Coey.” This name seems to have been one of the first used, but now is one of over 500 additional! Since this first attempt, I have had only two or three others, but by providing the ability to comment here with my new art website format, a new potential avenue for thieves and scumbags has opened up.

Here is the comment:

“To Whom It May Concern:

I browsed your website and visualized the beautiful collection and could you please confirm if it’s possible to place my order with you for few of your products?
My store located in Luxembourg, and I know the difficulties people encountered shipping international as I do a lot of international shipment.
I have a reliable courier company that handle pickup and delivery from anywhere in the world, so shipment shouldn’t be an issue.
Payment will also be made in full once everything is in order, and quotation and invoice​​ are received for this order.
let me know when you are in office and ready to take my purchase order. ​​

Sincerely yours,
12 Rue Wiltheim
L-2733 Luxembourg (L?tzebuerg)
LUXEMBOURG”

Some scam tip-offs:

  • Biggest tip-off: They wanted to use their own “courier” shipping service, that would pick up the artwork directly from my studio because of “problems shipping internationally.”
  • They used an email address matching the name of an internationally known artist from England, not Luxembourg, but provided no actual first or last name in the shipping address.
  • The “whois” server address of the source of the posted comment was in Nigeria!
  • Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are usually pretty awful (although this one is not too bad).
  • No mention was made of prices with this one, but usually the scammers asked for prices even though prices are already clearly posted on the website.
  • Usually they want to pay with a money order (that turns out to be bogus after the painting is “picked up” by their experienced “shipping service.”) despite the fact that I very clearly only accept PayPal payments from buyers (unless I happen to know them personally).

Be careful out there people!

Some other references to this scam genre:

http://www.artscams.com/

http://stopartscams.blogspot.com/2010/06/scam-email-tracey-coey.html

 

Watercolor Paper

Tools, surfaces and mediums

Vintage watercolor paper problems

A few years ago, after quite a long layoff from painting, I got the back room in our condo set up as my new studio and took up the brush again. It has felt great getting back my watercolor “chops” (as they say in the music performance business), but a few major, alarming problems became apparent almost immediately.

The first problem was anticipated and was fairly easily remedied but moderately costly. Watercolors in tubes, no matter how tightly capped, dry out over a few years and are almost impossible to rescue. Sometimes the tubes can be cut open and the pigment removed and re-wet, but this is a messy and tiresome process so purchasing new paint was easier.

The second problem was something that I could not have imagined and I am still working on solving.

First, some background: During the mid-80s when I was still represented by a couple of galleries and had some moderate art income, I purchased a couple of hundred sheets of great, handmade French watercolor paper: D’Arches 300 lb. cold-pressed. The D’Arches brand (now just “Arches” for some reason) was and still is one of the leading fine watercolor papers. At the time, in hundred-sheet quantities, a 22″ X 30″ “full-sheet” was about $3.50, making it a great deal then. I still have 75 or more sheets that now retail for $15 to $20 each.

One more piece of background: All good handmade watercolor paper has a substance, usually gelatin, called sizing that is either applied to the surface (external) or part of the liquid in the “slurry” (internal) that eventually dries into a sheet. The sizing controls how hard the paper surface is and how fast water and paint soak in. For example, blotting paper has little or no sizing.

Normally, when I paint a watercolor landscape, I start with the sky by first wetting and soaking the sky area of a fresh sheet of paper with a sponge before applying various blue and gray washes. This “wet-in-wet” technique allows the cloud colors and “blue-sky” areas to have soft edges. To my initial horror, areas of the sheets of my old stock of fine paper behaved like blotting paper, leaving ugly, impossible to fix, dark areas where the color soaked almost all the way through the sheet! It was obvious that the sizing had disappeared from these randomly sized (no pun intended) and positioned spots on the sheet.

As I mentioned above, I am still trying to solve this problem so that I do not have to just throw away a stock of valuable and, under normal circumstances, great paper. I have tried brushing a very diluted mixture of acrylic matte medium and water onto a wet sheet of  paper, but I have yet to get the dilution correct so that the surface is not too resistant to water.

Stay tuned…