Last night I attended the Bay View Arts Guild at Bayview Public Library, 2466 S. Kinnickinnic Ave, in the LLewellyn meeting room to listen to a talk by Pastel Artist Colette Odya Smith.
Check out their website at www.BayViewArts.org . One of their members recently took a trip to New York, created 30 postcard paintings, which he then put up with string as free art with his info for random people or tourists to take home and enjoy. Sounded like a lot of fun.
Colette Odyn Smith, coletteodya.smith.net , is a very reflective painter. She did attend art school in the 70s but then became a teacher. When she hit 40, she decided she wanted to pursue and art career and then 14 years later or so, here she is.
She originally chose pastels rather than oils because they're faster, better environmentally and you can pick them up and put them down.
She's teaching a class this summer at the Peninsula Art school, peninsulaartschool.com . Basically it covers how to take photos for painting, what to do with the photos after you've taken them and how to paint from them. She used photography as a tool, to help her remember and eliminate distractions such as weather when you're pleine air painting. She's found that she doesn't paint fast enough to do pleine air painting so most of her paintings are done in her studio.
Her paintings sizes are 20x20, 20x30, 24x36, 30x30 and 30x40. She will do a series from what interests her, wallowing in it until she is fulfilled. She founds that she paints better what she knows. She uses 4 ply museum board, not a sized board with a watercolor underpainting that opens up the tooth enough for her to apply pastel. She chose that substrate because that is what her teacher at MIAD used. In one piece with waves she cut & glued? layers of paper in the shap of the waves before covering it with pastel. Takes her about 1 week to do a piece. 2 weeks for a bigger piece. Sessions can be 4-6 hours.
To take photos and make slides of her artwork she pins them to a foam core mounted on a big fiberboard covered with black jersey t-shirt material.
Now a days the art world requires digital capabilities, email, a website or web presence that shows your work. Galleries generally request a CD with appropriate digital images. She puts a copyright on her web images.
Advice on pricing is to look around at artwork where the work is as good as yours. Pricing should also be based on your resume, where you're exhibited and the honors you have received. Clint Watson of FineArtViews.com has an interesting post from 2/25/2008 called "Does Expensive Art Just Look Better?" http://www.fineartview.com/archives/nlarchive.asp?nl=614
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