Just back from a trip where I successfully was able to take photos to use as Cinefield® fuel (materials). As is always the case, this is going to be labor intensive.
While on the road I used my new pocket pad. As I work on new Cini this will continue be main outlet for visual work too.
The pad is 4×4 inches and we are already fast friends. Back in my American studio, I finish me coffee put on some Miles and get to it.
Always looking for people to draw. Email me for details.
With everyone having phones now the ability to capture amazing scenes is always just a pocket away. When something is too easy though, it starts to loose power. Phone-cams went from being at the ready in case something fantastically dramatic should occur to being merely the facilitator of the mostly mundane minutia of people’s live being on a non-stop social media scroll.
One of the biggest and most far reaching negatives of this is how it effects people being in the stream of life. I travel, often. An overly familiar sight now is people rushing around a famous museum or well known area (Luxembourg Garden et al) stopping to raise their phone slightly above themselves while duck billing, snap a pic, then rushing off. Their justification is that they are capturing memories. So preoccupied are they in getting the perfect pics to post that they are not in the moment, not in the stream of life.
Once back home they can show you them standing by some landmark, some great work of art but there can be no description which makes you feel as if there. Even for them, this is the case and they had actually been there.
The adage that travel broadens the mind is not merely about ticking off things on a list of what to see, where to go. It is absorbing a place with all its ambient characteristics which hopefully in some way add to you long after the trip is over.
I am not anti-photo, I take some myself wherever I am. But see and capture with your eyes first. I always have a 3×5 pad in my pocket. I will do small sketches when on the road and take notes. Not always dramatic, sometimes it’s just a room service tray with the leftover bones of a hastily eaten meal or my book bag hanging off the back of a chair.
Not everyone can draw, but you should still keep a little pad on you. Use it to take notes. In doing this you will actually be more present in the moment if you slow your roll and take a beat to describe what you are seeing. As you are doing this just for yourself, even if you can’t draw, why not try anyways?
That is another negative of social media, everything seems to be motivated now towards getting views/likes. The recently departed Paul Auster said “Do a thing simply for the beauty of doing it.” To live this way, you may not garner as many likes etc but you will create true memories.
For artists in any medium an online presence is now necessary regardless of how one’s methodology used to be. Connected to this online life for amateurs (even if they are not aware of being so) is the myth of the numbers game with its implied short cut to money and visibility/site numbers.
The basic premise, which has a myriad of variations depending upon who is explaining it, can be parred down to a basic concept of the greater amount of times one puts out there a work they have for sale or perhaps an appearance/show, then the better chance there is of achieving satisfying sales/head count. The true believers explain it thus:
“If you have one hundred thousand views of your post and only five percent of people buy your thing, well that still works out to be…”
Aside from the fact I think machine gun firing (this is making constant mention everywhere) what one has to offer out onto the net is uncouth, it also is naively optimistic. It’s one thing to look at a posting, it’s another to purchase something. Regardless of how inexpensive it is, most people follow at least a few hundred people and it can easily add up fast.
All that aside, I personally want an audience, not customers and this is the great disconnect often now occurring between artist and public. I dont want to hustle for sales etc. If I were going to do that, then I would just have a straight job where sales would equate to large commissions and expense lunches.
It’s all right to mention something available to the public when pertinent. As an artist you hope your work gets seen. Anyone who reads my blogs knows that I rarely make mention of for sale things except for when they are brand new.
I am proud to say that my latest collection has just came out. It’s available now for kindle & Paperback on amazon.
Paper Life Painting 