(This post edited on 01.27.2012 to replace photo lost in creating Google+Page)
What's an artist to do when even a tiny painting is affected by world leaders' global oil games and the value of a dollar or a yuan? Stock-up when you get all those sales e-mails in your in box.
Fortunately, we don't job cost our works by the cost of raw materials, which just increased, and time at minimum wage rates which also increased today.
How Iran, China, and the price of oil will affect your purchasing power at your favorite art supply house:
1. Painters need surfaces, likely a natural product not locally produced, prepped with a ground. My canvas is sourced in several countries, I don't recall buying any US-produced recently. Whether you're painting on canvas or other surfaces, freight costs will pump up the cost. Canvas is produced in the US, but it's beyond my price range.My grounds are almost always acrylic paint undercoats of blue, grey, or lavender. Acrylics, synthetics, are petroleum based products, though they aren't "oil" paints.
Gamblin's site -they're a long way from my home and shipping costs will affect pricing.
2. Painters must have brushes, knives, and all sorts of tools to apply their chosen media. These tools are primarily imported from China in all price ranges for natural and synthetic. Trekell Brushes are a US product that I don't find in my stores, but I'm a knife painter who doesn't take care of fine brushes and must use disposables when I do use brushes these days.
3. Painters select their media for many reasons including preference in application, pricing, allergies, etc. Most paints we use are affected by the price of oil, even if we paint with "water-cleanup." My artist's grade paints are $20 per tube or more when oil is $100 a gallon. Oil is 10% higher today. Crude Oil Pricing Maybe even higher in the very near future. I use linseed oil, white spirits or turpentine with my oil paints - other petroleum products I must have. Artists' Solvents
4. Painters love to travel for subject matter and workshops - need I say more?
Wherever you go, you may pay a premium to get there, especially for international travel.
The future's looking a little foggy today, and, if headlines can be believed, may get worse before it gets better but we'll get through it.
I won't be painting in Europe or Israel for awhile, but I do have photos for studio work, and beautiful surroundings that I can paint every day of the year. If oil paints get too pricey, I'll switch to water color or pencil renderings.
An artist has to create.
Morning Fog is a small acrylic field study original offered only on my Etsy site.
If you're following great blogs, feel free to comment or post your links here. Comments always welcomed.
All the best,
Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio
Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com
Twitter -
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent, and Facebook - www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios
Showing posts with label oil painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil painting. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Painters Creating Great Art Blogs
(This post edited on 01.27.12 to replace photos lost in creating Google+ Page)
A Great Art Blog I'm exploring as I surf around other artists' sites is Artists Helping Artists.
The AHA blog was linked to me by another painter when I started my blog and I knew right away it was a keeper. Two painters, Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry, have done a marvelous job of getting their art out there and in helping the rest of us achieve success in selling our art, too.
Today I listened to one of their older radio blogs on creating a popular blog which reiterated in artist-speak what I've learned from Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett's book, ProBlogger, ( Problogger Book Link ). I'll enjoy more of AHA's posts and broadcasts after I get my domain site up in the next week or so.
The holidays have been a productive period for me as I paint larger oil works to put on the new gallery site. After listening to this broadcast on blogging, I've decided to sell the original small acrylic field studies, as well as sell them as prints currently offered at Gail Kent at Fine Art America. Though these studies are abstract and the new works are traditional, they complement one another and each has a market.
There were a lot of great ideas in this AHA broadcast, with participants also discussing favorite artist blogs and the reasons they visit these popular blogs:
- great instruction
- informative tips
- consistent artwork
- and voice the bloggers use in their writing--they are themselves.
I'm looking forward to developing my blog into a helpful favorite resource, too, as I learn from pros like Leslie and Dreama. I'm gathering a list of blogs that I'll share and Artists Helping Artists will be at the top of the list.
Meanwhile, this was my audience yesterday as I waited for the fog to lift so I could get in a few hours of painting. I'm not sure where these old crows (or buzzards) came from or where they're headed, but this roof is definitely not their home and they're not in my painting.
Fortunately, the fog burned off around lunch time and it was a beautiful winter day.
This little guy stopped by last week. Picnic Island is his home and I am his guest. I've named the little mischief-maker Rocky, and taught him that he has to look elsewhere for his breakfast each morning that I'm painting.
Other guests last week were "snowbirds" from Michigan who found it curious that I was painting mountains not the beach before me. They complimented my work and moved on laughing about the 30's back home.
If you're following great blogs, feel free to comment or post your links here. Comments always welcomed.
All the best,
Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio
Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com
Twitter - Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent, and Facebook - www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios
A Great Art Blog I'm exploring as I surf around other artists' sites is Artists Helping Artists.
The AHA blog was linked to me by another painter when I started my blog and I knew right away it was a keeper. Two painters, Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry, have done a marvelous job of getting their art out there and in helping the rest of us achieve success in selling our art, too.
Today I listened to one of their older radio blogs on creating a popular blog which reiterated in artist-speak what I've learned from Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett's book, ProBlogger, ( Problogger Book Link ). I'll enjoy more of AHA's posts and broadcasts after I get my domain site up in the next week or so.
The holidays have been a productive period for me as I paint larger oil works to put on the new gallery site. After listening to this broadcast on blogging, I've decided to sell the original small acrylic field studies, as well as sell them as prints currently offered at Gail Kent at Fine Art America. Though these studies are abstract and the new works are traditional, they complement one another and each has a market.
There were a lot of great ideas in this AHA broadcast, with participants also discussing favorite artist blogs and the reasons they visit these popular blogs:
- great instruction
- informative tips
- consistent artwork
- and voice the bloggers use in their writing--they are themselves.
I'm looking forward to developing my blog into a helpful favorite resource, too, as I learn from pros like Leslie and Dreama. I'm gathering a list of blogs that I'll share and Artists Helping Artists will be at the top of the list.
Meanwhile, this was my audience yesterday as I waited for the fog to lift so I could get in a few hours of painting. I'm not sure where these old crows (or buzzards) came from or where they're headed, but this roof is definitely not their home and they're not in my painting.
Fortunately, the fog burned off around lunch time and it was a beautiful winter day.
 |
| Rocky Raccoon |
This little guy stopped by last week. Picnic Island is his home and I am his guest. I've named the little mischief-maker Rocky, and taught him that he has to look elsewhere for his breakfast each morning that I'm painting.
Other guests last week were "snowbirds" from Michigan who found it curious that I was painting mountains not the beach before me. They complimented my work and moved on laughing about the 30's back home.
If you're following great blogs, feel free to comment or post your links here. Comments always welcomed.
All the best,
Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio
Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com
Twitter - Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent, and Facebook - www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Friend Me? Risks to Artists Known and Trusted
Today's piece follows-up on my last post on building an online art gallery - more about building a brand, internet presence, a community to market your art with other artists you know and trust and clients who know and trust you. how-to-setup-art-gallery-website
To quote Drew at Skinny Artist, "The internet offers us as some unprecedented opportunities, as well as some unique challenges to selling our creative work online. Since most of our customers will never meet us face to face, they have to base their decision on what we say or do online." how-to-create-and-destroy-your-reputation-as-an-artist Skinny Artist is chock-full of great advice for beginner and sage alike.
My new website featuring larger studio oil paintings based on field studies and small acrylic paintings will be up this month. As I stated in the steps that I followed in planning my professional brand, this site will be the center of all other online presence. These works will be fresh off the easel and most are only sketched in as I write this post. I put considerable effort into building my brand.
My reputation as an artist is Critical to my art, which until recently, didn't exist online.
Link to Fine Art America gallery featuring prints of this painting:
http://gail-kent.artistwebsites.com/featured/harbor-sunset-gail-kent.html
The Importance of Social Media Decisions: Friend me?
To Friend or not to friend, or Like, or Favorite, or allow Following?
As I wrote in my post about Facebook's 69 billion connections ( marketing-to-your-69-billion-facebook friends ), a lot of eyes see everything you say and do online. My Facebook page is a Professional Artist Page and my Twitter account is used as a global news feed for finance, the economy, and art news, with a little humor added for my sanity.
Family and friends and personal interests are wonderful to share with - just not on a business website. Facebook and Twitter are websites - you can Google yourself and find the most interesting things once you've setup these accounts. With a professional artist page, you don't have to deal with making a decision to "friend" or not to friend. You simply have more control.
My websites, including Facebook and Twitter are friendly to all artists and artisans and people who support the arts. If you market a service or product online, social media decisions are best made early in setting-up. Your reputation is at stake.
All the best,
Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studios
Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com
Twitter - Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent, and Facebook - www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios
To quote Drew at Skinny Artist, "The internet offers us as some unprecedented opportunities, as well as some unique challenges to selling our creative work online. Since most of our customers will never meet us face to face, they have to base their decision on what we say or do online." how-to-create-and-destroy-your-reputation-as-an-artist Skinny Artist is chock-full of great advice for beginner and sage alike.
 |
| From Fine Art America site |
My reputation as an artist is Critical to my art, which until recently, didn't exist online.
Link to Fine Art America gallery featuring prints of this painting:
http://gail-kent.artistwebsites.com/featured/harbor-sunset-gail-kent.html
The Importance of Social Media Decisions: Friend me?
To Friend or not to friend, or Like, or Favorite, or allow Following?
As I wrote in my post about Facebook's 69 billion connections ( marketing-to-your-69-billion-facebook friends ), a lot of eyes see everything you say and do online. My Facebook page is a Professional Artist Page and my Twitter account is used as a global news feed for finance, the economy, and art news, with a little humor added for my sanity.
Family and friends and personal interests are wonderful to share with - just not on a business website. Facebook and Twitter are websites - you can Google yourself and find the most interesting things once you've setup these accounts. With a professional artist page, you don't have to deal with making a decision to "friend" or not to friend. You simply have more control.
My websites, including Facebook and Twitter are friendly to all artists and artisans and people who support the arts. If you market a service or product online, social media decisions are best made early in setting-up. Your reputation is at stake.
All the best,
Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studios
Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com
Twitter - Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent, and Facebook - www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios
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