This post was written by Alex Blaelock, good friend, moral support and an independent writer. Alex is full of wisdom about how to do the grown-up stuff we have to do to keep ourselves functioning as small business – which is what independent artists really are. I hope you enjoy this post, and take away
Why This Painting is Wrong
“Why just copy a photo?” “That’s not art, it’s just copying.” We’ve all seen comments like this. I’ve had more than a few on this blog I don’t mind telling you. And more by email. There’s one in particular that sticks in my mind, when I posted a photo of a sight-size still life set
How to balance the light between your painting and your subject
This is something I don’t see talked about much, if at all actually, but it can save you untold hours of frustration if you get it right. A basic problem of painting realistically is that we can’t often replicate the full range of values we see in our subject in our paintings. Truth be told,
How Many Tubes of Paint Do You Really Need?
I know, I’m asking for trouble. Of all the controversial subjects artists like to argue about, one of the most tempestuous is tube pigment choices. People adhere to their chosen palettes with an almost religious intensity at times. Whether it’s the split primary or the Zorn palette, I’ve seen discussion on palettes descend into name
How to Loosen Up Your Painting (and Why You Shouldn’t Do It)
As much as it surprises me, even within realist art I notice a tendency for people to see painting loosely as something desirable and painting “tight” as somehow restrictive and undesirable, limiting in some way. Even the word “tight” seems to have pejorative connotations in connection with painting. Why paint loose? I do think there
The Problem with Warm and Cool
When I was a beginner, I spent a lot of time doing warm and cool studies. I thought warm and cool was a thing, and it had to be understood. But I really struggled with it. The studies I produced didn’t look very realistic. I had an incredibly difficult time judging whether colours I saw
When to Take Off your Training Wheels
There was an interesting comment on this blog post on the colour of shadows recently that really gave me pause for thought. Here’s the comment: Do you think of matching colour this way as a sort of training wheels that you get to take off at some point? It seems quite labor intensive to paint
How The Secret to Chess can Help You Mix Colour
John Healy is an ex-alcoholic, ex-boxer and for 15 years lived homeless on the streets of London. He’s also a chess master and a prize-winning author. His best known book, the autobiographical “The Grass Arena”, is a penguin modern classic. When he was a vagrant in London, he begged to survive. At the time, begging
Threads: Art, Suffering and the Meaning of Life
There are times when things just seem to be stacked against you. No matter what you do, no matter how you try to hold yourself up and keep going, life just keeps pushing you back down. I’m sure everyone will find themselves in a time like this, at some point in their lives. I’m sure
Why Do Artists Find it Hard to Sell?
I felt like a complete fool. The year was 1989, or thereabouts, and I was sitting in the rather swanky office of an interior design firm. I’d just given them my quote for a large mural in a night club that would take me weeks to complete, if I managed it at all. I was
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