Nothing major, but I did get to play with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen in a Pentalic Traveler’s Sketchbook that was given to me by my rep. I must say… I need to carry these sketchbooks in the shop! Lovely cream paper that is not too thick and not too thin. The only downside to the paper is that you can’t draw on the backside if you have used markers or pens. Not a big deal… I sort of don’t like doodling on the back of pages (OCD? Maybe).

For those of you who do not want to dish out cash on a Moleskine notebook, the Pentalic Travler’s Sketchbook is not a bad substitute. It isn’t hardcover, though… but it is soft and therefore can be folded over while sketching.

Pentalic 6×8 Recycled Traveler’s Sketchbook – $7.95
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen with 4 cartridges – $19.95
Faber Castell Pitt Pens (Assorted colours & tips) – $2.75 each

You can purchase the products pictured above at my art supplies store, Sketch Art Supplies (Calgary, AB Canada). Hey, nothing wrong with plugging my shop right? Gal’s gotta make a living.

Merry Winter Holidays and all that jazz to anyone reading my thoughts out there in Internetland.

- I like art when it is thought-provoking.
- I like art that is more than what it is.
- I like art when it makes me angry, sad, mad, confused, happy, inquisitive, excited, etc.
- I don’t like art when it is treated as just a commodity by both the artist and the buyer.
- I don’t like art that fails to make me feel something (see emotions above).
- I don’t like art that is only about “trends” (art needs to be ahead of it’s time always).

I enjoy looking at and experiencing all sorts of art… so how do I narrow down what I want to produce? I am particularly enamoured by oil paint, drawing materials and surfaces (canvas, linen, board, paper). I want to make a “thing” – a piece of art which is two dimensional and goes on a wall. It would be nice to have people adopt my art in exchange for cash so that I could buy more supplies needed to explore art further, but I am not interested in building an “art brand”. I want to explore art until the end.

And now, onto studio happenings. So, I am going to be more diligent with keeping a sketchbook and creating compositions on paper before they get turned into big canvases. I have plenty of sketchbooks to fill up, that’s for sure. I should actually scan them and post them here on the blog. I also want to narrow down which sizes I use for paintings. I have lots of different sizes of canvases lurking about in my studio and house… everything from dinky 5×5 standard profile stretchers to awkward sizes like 15×30, 22×30, 24×48 and so on. I’ve got lots of 12×16 stretchers that are blank and ready for some paint… but I don’t want to paint on ANY of these sizes. Here are the sizes I’m interested in:

10×12
12×12
54×60
60×60

… that’s pretty much it. Also I will be keeping sketchbooks of all sizes, but I will try to stick to “almost square” or square. If I want to stick to abstract landscapes I might go into panoramic territory and create paintings on sizes such as 48×96 but I’m not entirely sure that I want to do that. It seems cliche to paint a landscape on a panoramic stretcher.

I had someone call me yesterday asking for abstract painting lessons. They specifically asked for private lessons… which I am fine with. At about this point in the conversation, I always ask the prospective student what they would like to learn exactly, and what sort of ideas they had in mind that we could start out with. The individual informed me that they were not interested in any sort of “procedural” (another word for technique) lessons and that they “just wanted to make abstract paintings because abstract is easy”. I was flabbergasted when I heard it.. “abstract is easy”. The phrase repeated itself in my mind again and again during the rest of the conversation. “Abstract is easy, abstract is easy, abstract is easy, abstract is easy, abstract is easy, abstract is easy…” and then another preposterous phrase was uttered, “I’ll be printing pictures of art off the Internet and you are going to show me how to paint those… you know, break it down for me through demos about how the artist made them. So that I can make them too.” … Double whammy flabbergasted.

Honestly, I thought I was being pranked at this point. Anyway, I gathered up my shattered brain and managed to sound rather calm (totally unlike what I was feeling at the moment) so that I could properly address the prospective student. I told them that it would be nearly impossible for me to not mention any sort of technique or art history when teaching art lessons… especially abstract. I then quickly brought up that much abstract art is actually based off reality… unless we are dealing with Jackson Pollock “action painting” method of art-making – then, we are dealing with process-based abstraction. I paused for effect and then continued, “How would I have been able to describe that to anyone without mentioning art history?” Another pause. I thought about mentioning that I would not be helping them copy other people’s work, and that I would teach the class based on self-expression but… too late. The person thanked me for my time and then hung up.

So, I started playing that phrase over and over in my head again… “Abstract is easy, abstract is easy, abstract is easy…” … oy!

For anyone interested in reading an essay about methods of teaching art, this is a great one.

ART SHOW

Lake Bonavista Community Hall
Main Level, 1401 Acadia Drive S.E. Calgary, AB
Saturday, December 10, 2011, 10 am – 4 pm

A showcase of affordable original artwork by various artists, including quality inventory from Keystone Art Gallery.

I’ve got a bit of a problem. I spend too much time on the Internet. What I mean to say is that there are too many websites out there and as an artist, I think it is folly to have your work everywhere on the web. Yesterday, I deleted my Flickr & Tumblr accounts, cleaned out my Deviantart account and removed a Myspace that I had from long ago. It felt pretty good to be honest. With each Internet thing that I deleted/removed myself from, I felt like I was gaining time which I would have lost maintaining those websites. When someone searches for me, I want them to end up on this website and this website alone. Having multiple websites for my artwork on the web can be seen as a sort of “promotion” or “advertising”, but it was just too much for me. If I took all of that time invested in uploading work to random websites and put it into this website, I would have more content for folks to read when they stumble upon it, and I would feel like I actually contributed to my own creation. Lately, in regards to privacy agreements, I have been feeling sketched out by places like Deviantart and Flickr because one never knows when they can turn around and sell images of my work to third parties. Don’t get me wrong… that could happen through my personal website too if someone stumbles upon my work and decides to copy it or something, but at least this way my work is all in one place.

Calyx Art Show Review & Bunny Painting

I was juried into a local art show in Calgary called Calyx and had the opportunity to show (and attempt to sell) some of my work both in Calgary and Edmonton. Unfortunately, none of my pieces sold. In the future, I will be concentrating my efforts in art shows which allow for each artist to be in an area or booth instead of being scattered around. I think I would feel more comfortable showing my work in that manner. In fact, I should just not do community hall shows and focus on developing a body of work to show in art galleries.

In other news, I was hoping to create more bunny paintings but was only able to finish two of them… here is one of them! A cute (sort of creepy) bunny painting that I completed last month or so.

Ghost III
5″x7″ comes with frame
Charcoal & oil on canvas
$180

“Candy Cells III”
Oil, oil stick, charcoal on canvas
20″x30″

This recent painting is more or less inspired by M.I.A.’s album “Kala”. Love it.

“Galaxy”
Oil, charcoal on canvas
12″x18″