Becoming an Artist Despite Support (A Struggling...)
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Learning From Monet's Impressionist Sunrise
By JC 7 Yrs. Old |
For most every painter there is some support. You have for instance Vincent Van Gogh's Theo, Michaelangelo's Medici and Monet for Pissarro, but how does one live as an artist without support - a day job? Painters beleive painting is their day job. Even while he is hard up, if he is confident, dare I say cocky, the painter deems daubs as dollars saved? This particular dauber has his doubts and thinks he is better suited to some by gone era or lost or found paradise. Claude Monet persistently painted with his family close by before he found and could afford his garden at Giverny. Does a painter really need to foresake everything and everyone for his art, or does he sacrifice self, then paint for everyone else, and does this eventually make him a better artist, even a better person? Today painters past and present are still loved when romanticized but in reality loved less. So, how can one progress in a paradox? Even with rich patrons, parental or family support upstart painters found contentment hard to come by; so, how much more difficult is it to paint without mollycoddlers. What risks are too risky, how can the lone painter advance when the world is so made to order and treated like a meal deal, super sized combo with refills? Yes, even fine artists expedite their work because the market moves so fast. How does true success take root in today's climate? Has oil paint seen better times or does it still stand uniquely placed amidst all other mediums? Today ink and RGB vy for prominence, ecspecially in media, but how well do they translate as fine art? It seems there is a lot to write about on the subject. This blog chronicles the mishaps and misadventures of a middle aged burgeoning painter who has perhaps misplaced his period. It also offers ideas and some sage and not so sage ways to live as an enth century artist in the year 2011(heretofore unless otherwise indicated the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries will be refered to as the enth centuries). If you should stumble upon these thoughts and desire to comment, please understand the writer is impaired as he is inflicted with a pervasive oil paint partiality.
Written by George Tuber
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Three Children in a Landscape
By Robert G. Coffin IV |
As the work just to the left developed two styles came into view, that of John Constable and Claude Monet. Also, on the horizon of the painting, I began to understand, just a little, the difficulty with which Inness and Whistler created such smooth surfaces, so consistent in color value. The need to find color equilibrium is daunting, but worth the effort. Isolated color, which is less harmonized with the majority of the piece can add the touch of realism and discomfort neccessary to ground a work. If one is able to pull off harmony and isolation together, it may be just what is needed to ground the painting without using black or brown. Therefore, I tried my best to use the white on the figure in the middle to ground, center, and create focal point.
The focal point might then be relied upon to send the eye to the view in front of and behind the three figures. An effort to only use color was challenged by the patches of dirt and mud in the picture. Not a drop of black or brown was used in the entire work.
Written by Robert G. Coffin IV
