Butterfies Flutter By

Island Butterfly

I've always thought butterflies should be called flutterbys. That's the way my mind works and why I love languages.

Childlike fun in my art, getting as much paint on myself as on the canvases, is the order of the day this week. Escaping business, politics and planning, can be difficult, but we must take the time occasionally.

Butterflies is one of my latest series of small spontaneously executed paintings on Picnic Island that capture my beautiful island surroundings in Spring. The originals are offered at Etsy  Butterflies Series  with reproductions soon from my prints site at Fine Art America 

Butterflies are popular with many artists, visual and performing.  They're capable of garnering academy awards as in the classic Butterflies are Free, or stimulating commentary and action on social concerns as with Julia Hill.  Julia Butterfly Hill

Island Moth

While these paintings aren't my usual genre, they are a wonderful diversion from the domain site I'm patiently waiting to load up with original works. Meanwhile, there will be several small series of garden subjects painted in different background colors.

Having a camera that only worked on scenic shots for a few months, I've uploaded photos for card prints to my Fine Art America site. Some are quite stunning captures of the Tampa Bay area and flower photos. Photo Gallery

With a new camera, I can "focus" on photographing my paintings now when I finish playing in the garden, watching the butterflies flutter by.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

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

Museums and Other Cultural Changes

When is the last time you visited a museum or any other community cultural center, or read an actual newspaper? We're online (alone) garnering our cultural snippets of art, literature, games, music and movies, and community news. We don't go to museums or to libraries unless we're in search of blockbuster entertainment.

A comprehensive discussion of the American museum historical perspective in today's changing needs can be found at this link. It's a long article, about our society, too, and well worth the read if you love art and museums. What's a Museum?

Picnic Island Prickly Pear

Thinking about our digital focus this week I spent lots of time at the beach, my cultural center. Google vs. Facebook; how we socialize and interact with one another, it's changing. I enjoy nature with other nature lovers at the beach where outdoor activities don't compete with computer time. We need both.

I found this ancient prickly pear in some mangroves. I've never seen cacti taller than I am, so had to read about it online. My digital library completed the picture by warning me to stay far away to shoot.

Picnic Island Restoration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This photo of fresh plantings at Picnic Island beach appears to be random growth of tropical plants. We know otherwise if we read local newspaper blogs. The whole story is: we've lost beach during storms and new sand was brought in, newly planted with sea oats, sea grapes and flowers and grasses, so sand won't wash away so badly during storms. Not at all nature's randomness in placement.

Gray Morning at Picnic Island

 For visual artists, the web is our life's blood. We must have an online presence to grow and survive in what can be a prickly environment. We are not in museums.

This is my only new finished painting for the week. All those that I've had on the drawing board are complete and just need to be photographed and uploaded.

Is there a museum masterpiece on this post?

Most probably no masterpieces. But until and unless Google decides to shutdown this blog, which they own, these images are captured for all the world to see and I've happily expressed a little of our Tampa Bay culture along with my images. I was able to do so only because life is changing and anyone can share almost anything digitally if they take the time to develop the skills.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

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

Why the Sky is Blue

Picnic Island Blue Skies

Blue is the most popular color in paintings, with lavender a close second. Next favorite is the tint of either color that matches fabric and paint swatches for any new decor project in the works.

Painters may use half a dozen other colors in rendering blue (or lavender) skies. In this little study of a beautiful island day, I used three blue hues, magenta, sienna, and white to capture the sunny day sky.

Facebook Cover Picnic Island

This stormy day sky required more intensity and movement to capture the storm. Two blues, magenta, and white were used to keep focus on rapid movement.

Lantana Study unfinished

These butterfly attracting wild flowers grow around mangrove habitat areas on Picnic Island. This very rough study will become a painting with a soft Blue Sky painted in ultramarine blue, magenta and white. This keeps the focus on the flowers. Having grown these in my own butterfly garden, I'm resisting the idea of a butterfly on the flower nearest the center flower - too sweet for my taste, I think.

In Olive Tree, one of my most popular Fine Art America listings, I used all colors, achieving exactly the dramatic effect I wanted in depicting the Great Flood story. Olive Tree This sky is not blue, but full-spectrum conveying a sense of wholeness, completeness, within the drama.

I read an interesting article in The Guardian about the ten best skies in art. Best Skies in Art in Pictures The great artist JMW Turner's listing didn't include the photo, but does have a link. I find his skies to be very interesting and certainly would have given one of his images front page placement. More often than not, his skies go for dramatic movement with many colors, but he's also guilty of sweet blue skies using multiple colors.

So why is the sky blue?

We expect the sky to be blue on clear days and so we see it as blue (unless we're painters!). Light waves of blue filtered through our atmosphere give us blue skies, but all the colors are there radiating from the sun.  We see all the colors after a storm when we are gifted with a rainbow. Skies beyond our atmosphere, deep space, are black.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

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

 

Internet Is Not Free, Users Get No Free Lunch

Pundits and blog techies are jumping all over Google's latest apologies for snooping. With scare tactic headlines designed to capture our attention, they will increase their own revenue. One blogger labels it an arms race: Internet Privacy

Yep, Google is out to make a buck. Surprise! As is Twitter. Facebook, Apple and everyone else in the game. Their entrepreneurial founders may have been young, but they were far from stupid. These companies will generate revenue through marketing their products and their services--information provided by users.

You and I give providers all the information they need

Free Flowers?

We're tied to our internet which we consider "free." Sorry, there is no free lunch. I snapped this photo at my neighborhood hardware big box store. It was free. Well, not exactly. Every time I shop there, I feed them bits of data on my housing, decor publications, and income profile. Before I shop there, I surf the web (free) for the one item I intend to purchase--more data shared!




Imagine the Information Visual Artists Share in Searches and Shopping

Next-to-Free Frame

Recently, I met with my banker to question a medical charge on my bank card.  He cast a sideways glance my way as he searched, questioning assorted thrift shop charges. "Why, yes, those are valid, I'm an artist," I said, as though that explained everything. The "medical" charge was actually a hospice thrift store, one of a half dozen I frequent for "arts and antiques" fixes. All of my picture frames are recycled thrift purchases along with most subject vases and props. A lovely hardwood black frame for this small study cost me forty cents. That's in my profile!

We Thought Internet was Free Because They Said it was Free

Remember when AOL sent out all those free disks to every mailing address in the county? It was free. Other than wonderful academic sites, there was little on the internet then. That was pre "monitizing" marketing moguls.

Remember when you signed on for a free artist site or to research materials for your works? Wasn't long before you were paying to get the full monty.

Similarly, when I bought my auto some years ago with pricey extended warranty they said all my service, car washes, tire rotations, etc. etc. were "free." I just discovered that service 1 is about $300 and service 2 roughly $500 now that the warranty is out and Nothing is Free--that's for an oil change and if nothing is broken. My luxury auto is in my profiles along with my thrift store picture frames. How funny is that--"I'm an artist."

Build the Profile You Want and Bury the Old Stuff You Don't Want

For decades I did everything possible to stay invisible because I'm a private person. Change was necessitated by my online art studio presence. Old bits and pieces of my personal life crept into the web over the years and is now way old in internet profiles. As I built sites and posted, I made sure it was business-focused data with a little commentary that surfaced in searches. And I kept the data flowing-mountains of data. Many artists post daily just for this reason.       Keeping your imagery and data flowing will gradually build your chosen profile. When you search the web, use privacy settings and remember you are never alone on the web. Every click, every stroke of your data is being targeted for sales to marketers. Have fun with it, build a really interesting profile!

User Fees for Services and Information Are the New Norm

Nothing is Free. Not the internet, banking, news, my car washes, your airline baggage, Nothing. We have the freedom to search the web because we have already paid the price of admittance. Artists who want to put their works online must also pay the price to reach all those eyes out there. Protect your privacy and protect yourself from unscrupulous thieves who will download your images--web search a how-to site for free!



GailKentStudio.com Update: This new site is not yet live as I need to see what Google is doing with Plus to see SEO implications, and I'll have a larger space this summer to paint much larger works. Meanwhile, I have many works on my Fine Art America site at FAA Website

Comments are always encouraged. 
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 


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

Untalented Thief Copied Your Art Again!

What else can you say? 
They have no original talent, and they are thieves who risk copyright infringement. Yet, they make money selling your imagery on their canvases.

It happens to visual artists who put their work out on the internet. You can watermark or protect your images in a number of technical ways, none of which will deter them. Fakes, copies, knockoffs-- a huge problem for this country and others when copyrights and trademarks aren't respected. Consumers foot the bill for it because there is no free ride. If you're any good at your art or craft, you will be copied.

I recently got a little suspicious of some of the hits on my works that didn't quite fit the profile of my market--multiple hits from same source addresses was curious, too. Without searching for "similar" imagery, I decided to take a look at another less professional site many professional artists join that is heavily populated with a great variety of talents, skills and techniques.

Bingo! Look at all that copying going on over there! No respect for others, and ignorance of trademark laws, too. Do they not know that if you paint a portrait of an angry bird, you'd better have a license. Guess not. Do they not know they cannot lift my image from my website, change a little color in a little line and call it their art? Guess not. Here's a link about copyright Art Legalities. Professional artists copyright their art and give notice of that fact. We don't contact thieves, our legal teams do.

Funny thing happened on my way to that other site, so funny that I laughed all afternoon over it. I posted recently about a fellow on a paid website who had 12,000 images Keyword Worth a Thousand Pictures and I have to admit, I find it hard to believe but it's true, the works are all his original works. His style is totally unique and reflects his training. Evidently, he has been copied by the untalented thief who also copied my images.

But wait, there's more! The untalented thief who copied me and the other fellow was copied by another very successful untalented thief on that same website. Both untalented thieves "toot their own horn" quite loudly about their talents in their profiles. Amazing.

A few years ago I was in an interior design store when their "Art" vendor arrived. He pulled his truck to the back of the store and unloaded dozens of paintings in the parking lot for the design team to see. Being an observant and curious painter, I followed along and got into a discussion with the vendor about the art and the pricing. Of course I didn't tell him I'm a painter.

This load of paintings was sourced offshore for pennies on the dollar and sold to designers for "wholesale" as original art. These paintings were blatant copies of European masters. Though both the quality of the painting and framing were ghastly, they were "original art" and would be sold for top dollar. This link is an example of higher quality "original art" from one of many offshore sources michael-wolfs-copy-artists. (My old favorite, Vincent, is in this batch.)

You, too, can have your works produced offshore. Sadly, though, you probably won't be aware that a thief has taken your work. Should you discover you've been ripped-off, domestically or offshore, you can do as I did and have a good laugh about it, or you can get tough with the thieves right away. I prefer to wait patiently until they've built a very strong case of infringement. I haven't traced down the offshore multiple hits I'm getting. Yet.

Please don't hesitate to share how you've dealt with this unpleasant business on your sites, or link your blogs.

Harbor Sunset

Update on my domain GailKentStudio.com : 

Year-end; Holidays, Not-Quite-There-Yet Skillset, Perfect Florida Weather, - I'm working on it! 

Plan is to list large traditional paintings done from the small field works, such as Harbor Sunset, that I've posted this Summer. I have 3 beautiful landscapes almost completed with more to come, painting daily - 

I'll have the site up soon.



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