SKGart

365/4

2010-01-11T21:49:00.002-05:00

I didn't work very hard on this today. I found it difficult to finish much of anything. Tomorrow I am sure will be better.

From 365:Body

365/3

2010-01-10T22:14:00.005-05:00

Today it was difficult for me to stay on task, so on a very large paper, I started two sketches. I decided that all this week, I would work on the same sheet of paper and try to create a nice composition from the week's work.
So these two aren't worked as much as my last two sketches, but they are still interesting to look. I think the basic lines are a great foundation for the completion of these two. We will see what tomorrow brings.

365/2

2010-01-09T19:09:00.004-05:00

I have to admit that I couldn't stop thinking about this project for most of last night. I was up nearly all night, so I had plenty to think about. I felt excited about art again for the first time in a very long time, for that I am already thankful for this project.

Only time will tell how long I will stay interested in my subject matter and I am very excited about the prospect of putting the drawings side by side to do a final once over and critique next year.

I chose to work on a larger paper today that was already toned. I chose a light blue 9"x12" charcoal paper. It seemed to work well for today's task. I changed the position of my hand and chose an open palm up pose.

I spent a few minutes looking at my hand and then started blocking in some basic lines. I had to stop and start several times throughout the day, there were many interruptions, including a sick Ms.V. Despite the day's challenges I still managed to finish and was happy with the result.

I enjoyed the challenge of the foreshortened fingers. It gave me some good practice at looking. I don't think I looked hard enough when I was working on the contour of the thumb and palm below the thumb. It doesn't have a very effective fleshyness. That is something for me to consider in the future.

I do think today's overall line quality is much more interesting than yesterday. I spent extra time at the end working in some thicker darker lines, making a few things pop out more. It did give some greater sense of depth.

365:Body

2010-01-08T15:27:00.006-05:00

In the last few years I have watched and seen the progression of the 365 project. It has come from blogs all over and covers many subjects, mostly photography, but more recently a recipe 365 even became the center of a major motion picture.

My inspiration came from one of my friend's who just told me over pizza that she is starting a 365 project in photography. Another friend of mine, Tim, he did one in 2008 (http://tm366views.blogspot.com/). I didn't want to do a photography 365, it seemed that it didn't focus enough on the direction I intend to take this year with my work.

I did some searches and came across a tutorial on why anyone would want to do this tedious project. (http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/) I knew that had made major changes in my life in 2006 to lead a more creative and productive life and here I am in 2010 and I don't have a better grasp of my style, I am no better at my craft, and I have not done a great job of marketing myself.

I know that this 365 project will help me accomplish all of those goals and also it will get me writing and thinking about art again. It will also help me work on two of the components that I feel make a good artist better: inspiration and practice, both which require lots of patience and time.

Here comes the practice: My plan for this 365 project is to create a piece of art about the human body everyday for a year. It sounds so daunting, but I don't think it will be. I can do mobile uploads of the photos I take of my projects from nearly anywhere.

Also, I greatly miss the idea of practicing drawing. I can't recall the last time I sat and did a short sketch of anything. I picked the subject of my 365 to be the human body because it is a dynamic and ever changing subject, which many people, including myself, love to look at.

There is also the aspect of getting in the process of writing about my work again. In the past, nothing helped me progress my skills as an artist than writing about my work. It made me actively participate in the critique process of art. When forced to think about line quality, composition, balance, line weight, etc, it engages the mind in how things can or should be changed. It also helps create a focus on what I love about my own work and eventually will help me prefect my own style.

I will be uploading and maintaining the catalog of pictures of my work here:

365:Body

Wasting no time and solidifying my commitment to my work, I started today. In the future I will be taking much higher quality photographs and also most of these works will be for sale in one of my stores.

Thoughts on 365/1:

I felt really rusty beginning this project. The pencil felt nearly uncomfortable in my hand. I procrastinated by sharpening my pencil several times. I used watercolor paper with a light silver wash over the paper. I started with a 4H and then layered it with a 2B for variety in line and tone. I have known for years that I need to work on my overall line quality and variety. This sketch really shows it. I can already see that I need to work on darkening the more interesting and important lines in the sketch. In the future, I will also lose the eraser, I used it very little, but I think I will eliminate it completely at the end of the week.
I also noticed that my brain was no longer trained to keep my eyes on the subject. I spent more time looking at the paper than at my hand. This isn't lack of seeing will surely slow down my progression in this project. For the time being I may start each day with a few minutes of just looking at my subject for several minutes before I get out any paper at all.

Blogging My Way into the New Year!

2010-01-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

After a long spell of introspection and a deep search for inspiration, I am ready to tackle this year head on with a long list of projects and products!
I am expanding my online presence and creating better branding and categorization of my products by opening up two additional Etsy Stores. I will list then names and links in separate blogs as they are opened in the near future.
I also plan to expand my business to a new venue: 1000Markets. I've been reading over their policies and taking a look at other sellers and I think it may be the right niche for me. I like that they don't have suppliers or vintage sellers.
In addition to these other online stores, I began my own dotcom in September, I should be finishing that and launching it later this month.
Also, I have an idea 3 new blogs which should keep me working, drawing, painting, creating, and writing all year long.
The 365:Body blog is a daily project, which will include sketches and studies of the body.
The Art History:Know my past is a weekly or bi-weekly project that is going to trace my current art loves back in time through their inspirations and stylistic counterparts to hopefully uncover more about my own work.
The Abstract Violet: crayon collaboration, will be a monthly project that will include discussions on abstraction through line drawings done by myself and my daughter together.
Stay tuned!
2010 is going to be a great year in life, love, art, and inspiration!

Facebook Fan Page

2009-06-12T11:31:00.008-04:00

Recently, I've been doing more research on the art industry, art business, and art marketing and that includes reading a great number of blogs. It seems that the new way of getting personalized information and advice is from scouring the web, instead of asking a colleague directly.

To keep up with the ever changing times and broad range of customers and friends who lives all across the nation, I've decided to join the crowd and create a Facebook Fan page. I already have a personal page, but a person who is interested in my latest painting, may not be interested in reading a status update about my latest weight loss accomplishment.

Being all too unfamiliar with Facebook's Fan Page set up, I did some mandatory exploration. I found that getting to where you set up the page to be the trickiest part, but once I got to the create page function it was quite simple. I am only going to give step-by-step instructions on getting to the creating a page, the rest will be up to you. Facebook has useful information on how to edit the page.

First, sign into your own personal page.

From your home page, scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen and click ADVERTISING.

Once the Advertising screen is available, click the button on the top of the screen that says PAGES.

After you've arrived on the PAGES screen, take the time to read the overview, prepare, step by step, and find new fans tabs.

Once you've done all that, click on CREATE PAGE!

It seems quite simple once you've found it. This should be enough information to give you a start on creating your very own Facebook Fan Page! You can never learn enough or try too many things when it comes to new technology and your business.

Now that you've considered starting your Fan Page, please post yours in the comments and also become a fan of mine!

New Organizated Area

2009-05-04T14:28:00.007-04:00

I finally got a new arts and crafts area set up over the weekend after cleaning the entire house from top to bottom.
I moved all of our furniture and rearranged everything, except Violet's room.

After I finished cleaning the apartment, I opened up space for a brand new craft/drafting table that came with a very comfortable chair, organizer, and lamp.

Once it was all set up, I began working on a commissioned painting that I was asked to do of a restaurant in San Antonio.
I will write more about that later.

I was so excited to have space of my own, that I worked nearly all weekend. I made 6 new pairs of earrings and got some ideas for new mixed media paintings. I even organized my paints in warm and cool color bins!

I've been Indie Spotted!

2009-04-27T09:30:00.003-04:00

Check Here!

There is nothing more encouraging on a Monday morning when you're feeling so very discouraged, and having no beginning direction or motivation, than to see your work on the front page of Indie Spotting.

This should give me the willingness to persevere through the day.. . .

Flickr

2009-04-25T10:53:00.001-04:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Spring is IN!

2009-04-21T21:58:00.003-04:00

I've decided that Spring not only brings green beautiful plants, somehow it renews creativity.

Over the passed several weeks, I've been working on new and different ideas to round out my store. I thought about what things I would buy. A less juvenile key chain is something I would buy.

So I found the hooks and decided that adding some pretty beads would do the trick.

Additionally, I will be adding 3 more mixed media pieces and 3 more pairs of earrings in the next few days to my Etsy Store.

The art of writing an ARTistic (Auto)Biography.

2009-04-19T11:43:00.010-04:00

If you look up the term Biography or Auto-biography in the dictionary you'll see the following:

bi·og·ra·phy (b-gr-f)

n. pl. bi·og·ra·phies

1. An account of a person's life written, composed, or produced by another: a film biography of Adlai Stevenson; an oral biography.

2. Biographies considered as a group, especially when regarded as a genre.

3. The writing, composition, or production of biographies: a career entirely devoted to biography.

au·to·bi·og·ra·phy (ôt-b-gr-f)

n. pl. au·to·bi·og·ra·phies

The biography of a person written by that person.

In the basic sense of a concise definition, it does the trick, but there are many subtleties to biography, (or to be exact autobiography), writing that I have recently begun to re-examine.

A few weeks ago, after many hours of Etsy and Blog research of my contemporaries; I realized that I must sit down to the task of writing a new biography. I have of course evolved since my last edition. There have also been many life altering changes; i.e. the birth of my daughter.

When my focus was as a gallery artist, the biography that I wrote sounded much like an over-intellectualized organized bit of artistic jargon. Is it me? Well, I do consider it to be a representation of ME, but no it's not me. The reasoning behind that type of writing was to capture the academic or professionalized aspect of my work to increase it's saleability. It has a purpose, but not my current purpose.

This is the moment during the process where I sit blankly staring that the blinking cursor with not an inkling of where to begin such a daunting process.

I could go back to where I started and rework this bio:

Isaac Asimov once said, "I write for the same reason I breathe-because if I didn't, I would die." I couldn't describe my passion for art any more adequately than with that very same quote. The desire to express myself is so strong that it no longer resembles a passion or a desire, but supersedes it and manifests itself as necessity. To live without it, I wouldn't have a life.
All of my work begins with observation and life experiences that have shaped my judgment and point of view. I describe the observation first with the lens of a camera or the line of pencil or charcoal. The subtleties of light, form, line contour, and color all interest my mind and imagination. Working with the photograph or drawings as reference, I use interesting angles and sketches to describe the intricate nature of my subject. Then through the process of abstraction, I eliminate color, shading, and detail. I break the image down into linear forms, shapes, and line. I extract the sense of dimension and shadow.
After I have de-constructed my subject to a pure and essential form, I determine the overall composition with cropping and manipulation. I determine size and point of view. Then, I translate it it onto canvas with abstracted linear forms. Working from that linear translations, I build up my emotional reasons to the existence of my subject with paint. I use color and texture to describe feelings, instincts, and moods. I create a sense of tension and movement with bold colors and thick application of paint which is often left on the canvas with visible brush strokes.
Color takes precedence and it is the propulsion that actualizes the personal expressiveness displayed in my work. Attention to detail is now re-introduced into the composition with layers of pigment. The linear strokes are manipulated with paint and pigment to articulate ideas, thoughts, and expressions about my subject reinstalling detail, shadow, light, and dimensions.
Describing subjects in an entirely realistic manner does not interest me. I leave that to the photographic lens. I am more interested in the psychological responses of my viewers to the emotional and bold expression of my interpreted subject. I create my work with a deeply personal ardor that explores the humanistic process of judgment. My altruistic intentions are to illicit a response from the view regarding interpretation, emotion, and belief.

But how do you add soul to something that is so pretentious and academic? Again, just another question that I cannot answer, but I feel is directing me to the right place. I know that I started my career with the intuition to know that I wanted art to be for ALL people, somehow that idea got jumbled.

So listing my raison d'etre is a starting point, or I could begin with an outline of what I feel is a long list of accomplishments, but then again I have an even longer list of unaccomplished wishes.
Another fight between ego and intuition begins: one side nearly begging me to list off my amazing achievements, the other humbly encouraging me to concisely speak of how art affects my soul.

As for the reader; I can't image either form of (auto)biography would lead to greater interest in my art. So again, I think that I could write it solely on your behalf; although, that may sound quite odd: "I love to paint just knowing that this will get hung on a long ago plastered wall in a dingy smoked filled unfit apartment, realizing my worth is about $2/hr after having figured in my time, self promotion, material cost, and the little bit of soul that gets taken away anytime I work." If you understand sarcasm you've also quickly realized that approach will not at all be conducive to this exercise.

Another idea forms and I think now that I am a blogger I can take the "One-a-day" approach. I could add a new fact or interesting tidbit of informative verbiage to this blog everyday, but that would not have a lasting effect on the reader. It could end up being confusing and boring, neither of which describes me at all. How long until my ego would be exhausted of irrelevant self fulfilling bullshit; one day?; one week?; one month?

Maybe, I shall scrap the entire idea and put my ego away for safe keeping. I know if it wanders out too far, it will probably come back damaged. In no other profession, but that of an artist, do we really truly let our essence wander for such public and often harsh criticism. So often the damage is sustained for eternity, forever impacting our present and future working selves. How can that be worth the price we're paid?

Knowing that to pursue art as a business I must try to represent ego, accomplishments, and my humble and reclusive nature. This sometimes incomprehensible juxtaposition is exactly what buyers, collectors, and lovers of art latch onto. This personal and revealing description of the very essence of human nature, which so many of us cannot fathom let alone describe, is what makes art appealing.

So it seems I was able to redefine (auto)biography, but has it gotten me closer to my objective? I could answer that by immediately saying it was a great task in rumination and procrastination; just what an artist does.

The day is never done.

2009-03-17T21:48:00.003-04:00

Becoming a mother has been a bigger batch of life lessons than I had initially expected. There are numerous little things that are added to my memory nearly daily, but one of the lessons that is repeated is that the day is never done.
I start off the day with a clear and concise list of objectives. It usually consists of the normal house duties: dishes, laundry, vacuum, Etsy shop duties: new photographs, renew a listing, participate in the forums, ChaCha or _kgb: which means I spend at least 2 hours on the computer answering questions, etc, etc. The list goes on and on.
The smartest thing I decided to do about 10 months ago was to realize that my daily list didn't really ever get done in a day. I keep trying to complete it in 24 hours, but now when I don't finish it I don't beat myself up about it.
I just smile and look over at how my blossoming daughter is now feeding herself a banana and that successes can be measured in smiles.

I did make some new earrings and I think I've begun to reach the formula for creating good Etsy photos.

Searching

2009-03-15T18:03:00.003-04:00

It seems that today was really an official start to our searches for a new bigger house. We moved already in Dec of 07 and it seems that I have a trend of moving nearly every year. If I told you I have moved 9 times since 2003, would you think I was crazy?
I had a gallery space and a 3 bedroom house in Buffalo, which I took both for granted. I guess you live and learn. I wish I could have that space back, but here in Philadelphia!
We narrowed down our list, but I am sure it will be an uphill battle from here on.
Committing to a house is one thing I am not afraid to do.

My desire for a larger organized work space, which I don't have to pick up for dinner time, or clear off the coffee table and vacuum like a madwoman thinking Violet will choke on a bead, is really a huge motivational factor.

I am sure I will have LOTS more to post about house hunting.

In the mean time, check out these spectacular new earrings I created in my living room.

Imagine how great my work will be when I do have my own messy space!

StyleHive Link?

2009-03-14T16:15:00.001-04:00

Title: Etsy :: skgart :: Turquoise Spring Egg Drop Earrings by SKG - spring - drop - earrings Stylehive BM 598657
Tags:

spring

,

drop

,

earrings

,

hot

,

turquoise

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Blogged By: SKGart

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I'm a follower.

2009-03-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

There were many times in my life where I had considered myself to be a leader, today I am a follower.
This will be my first official blog post. I have been using other social networking media sites for sometime, but never had an official blog.
My current reading material has consisted of numerous online marketing blogs, websites, and newsletters, all leading me to believe that blogging is the new black.
I am sure this was true 2 years ago. So, I guess I should re-phrase that and say that blogging is the new brown?
I will welcome myself to this new world of online mental voyeurism.

Please join me on Twitter as well.