To be honest, it’s been awhile since I did the show circuit and all I can give is my opinion. At one juncture, it used to be an important, if not the most important way to garner an idea of public opinion of your work. It was also a way to guage what they liked, what they didn’t and possibly pick up contracts, do some networking and meet important people in your field.

But over time, the art shows saw some drastic changes. Some good, some not so good. Gas and oil prices went so high that the affordability of the shows was affordable no longer.  Because show producers considered it a great way to create exposure and a source of additional traffic for their area, many created shows for their town as a way to produce revenue. This created, over time, almost too many shows forcing artists to find out through trial and error what and experience which were the best ones, the tried and true ones, the ones with the best reputations and the best networking capabilites etc.

Over time, many of these shows also got too expensive for an artist to afford the fees. It wasn’t entirely the show/producers fault. In other words, though it’s easy to make the assumption of greed here, actually the producers use much of the fees toward advertising costs, funding the printing costs of flyers and much more.

Online, you have fees as well, but the overhead cost is so much lower, and the overall outlying exposure is so much greater. Your audience can reach into the millions with a click of the button. The drawback is that many people really love the up close and personal ability of looking at a painting or photo in person; meeting and talking to the artist directly.

Which one do you choose? Do your homework carefully. Select the ones you can afford. Pick the shows you think will do your art career the most good, pick your best artwork and enter.

Then sit back,  and enjoy the show!

I’ve been told that the human eye can distinguish approximately 256 different colors and differentiate between 10 to 12 different shades. And that the computer can distinguish between millions. However, you’ll probably get a much different estimate on what the human eye can actually see, one that will vary into the millions, depending the the sources that you consult.

And shades and values, as well as color, will vary not only from computer to computer, but from human eye to human eye as well. So how can you use shades and values in your artwork to complement a painting? And why is it important?

More than just what the human eye can see…..it’s what makes art really art. It’s what enhances a flat piece of paper and makes it something worth framing. It’s what makes a mother place cherish her child’s first attempts to reach reality in her son’s drawings and what motivates the young artist to achieve perfection. It’s what drives us to buy that perfect painting for our home. It’s what makes each of us see something different in each and every piece of art we come across, the perceived sense of reality that each artist is trying to convey with their pencils and brushes using their colors and pigments, their array of shades, values and tints.

When direct light hits an object, several things happen. Not only to the object, but to the human eye as well. Relected light comes into place, and refracted light. Mixed colors on the color wheel and with the addition of white we now have tints. (Confusing, isn’t it?) But our world is a colorful place and without it, less beautiful I think. So you need to give color its due and treat it carefully when painting.

It’s easier to begin in black and white with a simple chart of 10 shades beginning from black to white with 8 shades of gray. Once you have mastered those, and understood the values of grays, it’s easier to move on to color

In fact, from the emails I’ve gotten, many of us all over the U.S have in fact gotten a late start this year for spring and summer and have really some really rocky spring weather and an odd-ball summer. Cold weather, strange winds, and unpleasant rains have made for late blooms, or just plain odd summer flowers so make the most of whatever kind of photos you can get this year; either your own, your friends or whatever you can find on your travels if you are even doing any at all.

Remember that with the wonderful type of photo graphic software we have today, there is so much that can be done with compositing and you can combine your photos to create some really fantastic photos to create that once in a lifetime painting.

Digitals are a lifesaver, too. While I”m still a fan of the traditional old fashioned photography, and still believe that there is much you can do with film that will never be quite accomplished with a digital camera than you can with film, digital will be able to snap something much faster that you can’t with film. If you can, do both

That being said, don’t let you summer slip away from you like we all have a tendency to do! Get those special moments on film so you have something to work with when you get your fireplace started up this winter!

But when I first started painting, I have to admit I was always intrigued by a painting that I fell in love with even if it was WAY beyond my skills. Doesn’t matter if a person thinks it is or not, that is what challenges and stretches a person. And I would never discover someone and say, “No, you can’t do that.” or “No, you shouldn’t ever even try.” Personaly, I think it’s great if you do!

In fact, this is probably one if the best lessons to try as a beginner because there are so few colors to work with, the perspective is very simple and it’s actually a basic silhouette. Nothing is really more fun that these style of paintings. They come off really well, they show off your own style and always look great.

Give it a shot Have any questions, give me an email at info@armchairpaintclasses.com

Visit http://www.armchairpaintclasses.com/lesson-info/elk-mountain.html to see the lesson

And since I”ve lost so much ’stuff’, (gosh, what a hard way to do ‘online’ housecleaning I must say!) it’s maybe the best way to start over. It’s painful in a way because one likes to look back at the things that they’ve done, what their student have done and see how they’ve improved. But no use crying over spilt milk and all that.

Anyway, I can find some of the old graphics and some of the other things that I can put back on; however, in the meantime, it’s back to the drawing board to continue to fix things and add new lessons.

Anyone interested in an online live classroom?

Painting pieces can be time-consuming, yes. Stopping to take photographs and sometimes even small videos. But the process of putting a lesson together can be even more so.

Often, I can be engaged in the difficulty of trying to describe something only to find out that I’ve really not done it well or efficiently enough. Or maybe I’ve assumed too much. Maybe I’ve left something out! Sometimes I want to throw in a small audio file.

Either way, it takes more time than one would think to put these things together but I do have this one coming up. Not exactly ‘coming right up’ but on it’s way :). Questions? Just email me or give me a call at my store.

Thanks.

I also tried to leave in room for your interpretation as well. I gave you my choices of watercolor, but in places in the lesson plan, I might use the term “blue’ or ‘green’ for the color.  The truth is, often people with either have already developed a palette of colors that they already like or they already have colors on hand and I just don’t see the need to go out and buy an arsenal of expensive paints if you can make do with what you have on hand.

After all; the idea in my mind is to paint for fun. Paint to relax, paint to give your paintings away. Life is too short for perfection and who wants to be perfect anyway ?

When my host deleted my files, everything was gone. I do mean everything. There was very little left that I had managed to save. Years of newsletters, many lessons, files, comments froms years of students  that I had worked with personally, pages and pages of work showing what many of my students had accomplished, lessons plans and so much more.

In between we had started another business, Rawhide Gifts and Gallery (www.rawhidestudios.com) that took up enormous amounts of time. We started it  with only $3000as a brick and mortar from a building that had been gutted(what were we thinking!?) and tried to put inventory in it and repair it all while doing this on a shoestring.

Add this to being overworked and throw in a bit of ill-health on the side and poor ArmChairPaintClasses really suffered as a result!

I emailed many people who were kind enough to send me so many of the files that they had. Some I’ve been able to work with and some I just haven’t been able to re-produce with any results. Others, I’ve decided are probably just too old.

So, here we are, here I am and here you are I’ve started putting up some of the old articles I could find, have started trying to write new ones and have just begun to put up new lessons. They take time though!!! The painting doesn’t take as much time as putting them together. It takes time to explain how its done. And sometimes I go over and over to just check my mistakes….and I still miss a few LOL

But here I am….starting over. Hey, starting over isn’t as bad as I thought it would be!

I really don’t want to post a webboard and don’t think I’m going to have the time for it. But if you have questions about art, or about your particular artwork, maybe something you’ve seen in a museum or an artbook? Maybe you need help with something and someone out their might be able to help you with it and asking here might help? Who knows?

But try to be specific so that when someone, even you, does  a search, your serach can turn something up worthwhile. A few gems might we worth your keystrokes.