Elmer Bischoff

I used to think that when I matured as an artist, I would paint like one of the Bay Area figurative artists especially Elmer Bischoff or Richard Diebenkorn. In 1993 when I was in grad school is when I really became aware of Bay Area figurative art from the 1950s. I was going to school at Davis California at the time and had grown up on the eastern seaboard primarily in New York City, and many of my teachers even at the undergraduate level never even mentioned in an art movement on the West Coast.

While I was in graduate school at Davis a couple of my favorite artists, including a friend named David Tomb , talked quite a bit about Richard Diebenkorn. They were really taken with his Ocean Park series, but David was particularly attracted to his figurative work. Quite by accident, a friend of mine owned a frame shop in downtown Davis and would occasionally frame art from a local art gallery by an artist named Kim Frohsin.

Willem de Kooning Woman I 1950–52

What I liked in particular about most of these artists was the fact that they use the human figure. In addition to that they also used paint and color in a way that was very similar to artist that I thought were particularly good, Mark Rothko, and de Kooning. In a way the main difference that I saw between the West Coast Bay Area artists of the 1950s to the East Coast abstract expressionists was the use of a figure and the creation of space. For me, this tidied up the reconciliation between abstract form and realistic imagery in art that I craved in 20^th century art.

It was almost as if John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, and Willem de Kooning, were brought together in some sort of strange hybrid in the work, especially of Elmer Bischoff. Bischoff combined thick painterly passages, the creation of space, color theory, and a love of clunky almost unrealistic, naïve, and aggressive drawing together with some interesting iconography subject matter.

In Bischoff’s painting, Yellow Lampshade, he creates a painting that looks a bit like one of Edward hoppers psychological interiors but makes it more interesting on a level beyond that in terms of color theory. In this painting, the interior color of the light is warm orange and yellow, and as you look outside the window you see a ceiling that is made up of all cool or blue tones. It kind of tells a story through color that is similar to the story it tells in terms of the subject matter of the interior apartment at dusk with two figures speaking in a comfortable living room.

Business for Fine Artists

Today’s world is changing rapidly. And so is the art market. One of the things that wasn’t, true probably even 10 years ago was the fact that many artists have unprecedented access to an audience through the Internet. They also have access to researching art museums, art galleries, and other venues to exhibit their art. Another new event is the fact that artists have many websites that they can sell their artwork on.

I’m a 52-year-old artist who one could say is “midcareer.” I started making enough to live off of as an artist and so I retired from a full-time day job as a professor teaching art and art history.

Recently I’ve had a 75% jump in sales due to some practices that I’ve started doing. One of them is that I’ve chosen to leave brick-and-mortar gallery sites even though I had representation in them and move into online sales. I still get offers for shows and there is a gallery that still hold some of my work, especially the large expensive ones and occasionally makes a sale for me. So I’d like to share with you some things that an artist today should know as a type of overview or plan for an artist to starting out to think about in terms of marketing and selling artwork.

Traditional Venues

First I want to start with the traditional approach to selling art which is through art galleries. Basically a first step that most artist should make in terms of trying to find brick and mortar gallery representation is to look at hundreds of galleries online and compile lists of artists and galleries that are sort of cross referenced and cross-linked that will help you to understand what each gallery does. A couple of things to think about would be making sure that the gallery shows work that has the same subject matter that you show, and also, has similar quality work. I’ve discussed this in depth in another blog post about finding venues and the differences between museums and galleries and you might want to take a look at that blog post.
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The second thing that you have to think about when you’re approaching these galleries is that you have to have giveaway materials to send them and this means you also have to learn how to do some things with digital imaging and photography. So I suggest that you buy a secondhand single lens reflex camera on Craig’s list or on eBay to start. You can get away with using a cell phone camera like a galaxy Samsung five but sometimes the quality is a little sketchy and you have to make sure the lenses really clear and clean. Right now I’m still on the fence and I use my digital camera is much as I use my cell phone camera to market my work. However, you probably still need a smart phone to be able to do some online marketing so it might be best to have both.

Becoming Tech Savvy: Software, Cameras, And Digital Imaging

Next you need the software to be able to do the things with your camera that you need to do. One of the things that’s available for free are older versions of Adobe Photoshop. Just Google it and see what you can download and use. If you have enough money I suggest you go for the latest version. You also need to learn how to use Photoshop and their couple of different ways of doing this. One way, which may take quite a bit of time to get out of it what you need, but I’ve done this, is to do the tutorials that Photoshop comes with. Also going to the library and getting a book out on Photoshop for dummies is a big help believe it or not.

Another resource that is excellent for teaching you Photoshop is to go to YouTube and search for basic lessons on how to use it. Another video venue for you to look at to find lessons for Photoshop is actually on Amazon. If you have an Amazon prime account you can actually look at free to view Photoshop lessons. I’ve done this to it’s a little long and boring at times but it’s well worth putting in the 20 to 30 hours to do it. Nothing worth doing doesn’t take time. I also offer in my online class a complete tutorial that consists of five or six videos that show you exactly what you need to do to generate catalogs, images for use online, and even make greeting cards. Any of the sources above will do.

Some of the things that you should think about being able to do as you learn Photoshop are, learning how to clean up and enhance images, learning how to save different size and resolution images, learning how to organize your documents and save them, and learning how to make documents, such as catalogs, regular 8.5 x 11 paper sheets with 4 to 5 images on them and even greeting cards.
If you’re not tech savvy and this really freaks you out one of the things that you can do is use Microsoft Word to create catalogs and cards as well and they also have plenty of templates that you can download and use for that kind of stuff including templates to teach you how to design your resume.

Once you’ve gotten a handle on these skills, and you do want to learn how to do this on your own because hiring someone to do it for you is super expensive and if you’re like me you don’t want to throw away $500 to get work photographed and edited and sent to you on a desk so I really suggest you learn these skills.

Another thing that you need to learn how to do is approach galleries. I have an extensive video and article on my blog for you to look at to learn how to do this but the bare bone basics are you have to visit the gallery at least online and look at what their requirements are for submitting work. Many galleries are very specific about how they want you to present the work whether they want you to send it as a digital file or as a paper package. They even include things like how to name the files that you’re emailing to them. By the way, it’s never good idea to visit a gallery and act like you’re going to buy something and then spring on the person who spent some time with you that you’re actually an artist and you’d like to apply to the gallery. It’s just bad form so if someone comes up to you and introduces themselves to you the first thing that you should make clear to them is that you’re not going to buy that you’re just looking. If you can engage with them in a pleasant conversation that isn’t too self-promotional that’s a great idea too.

Your Online Presence: Using Social Media

The next thing that an artist should probably learn how to do is to set up some sort of online site that showcases their work. I think probably the easiest of these to do is to either use Word press and or Google blogs which actually comes with a lot of storage space and comes with your Google account. This is the quickest and easiest way to create some sort of web presence is to use Google. Lately I’ve also been experimenting with deviant Art.com - Posters, Art Prints, Framed Art, and Wall Art Collections, but I haven’t seen much action from it so I’m a little suspicious about it.

One of the things that you have to do with your blog and your online presence is make sure that you’re not just blogging about your own work and constantly posting your own stuff. You have to do features on things that you’re interested in, such as other artists, political stuff, anything sincere and in fact probably eight out of 10 of your post to your blog need to be about something that’s art related but not about your art. Again I have some complete lessons to teach you all about how to do that.

Another good bet is to set up a website for yourself but this is a bit complicated in my PB on some people skill level but again if you don’t know how to do something a really great place to learn how to do it is to go to YouTube and look it up there and watch at least 3 to 5 videos before you even try to do anything. If you invest time in the beginning doing some research then you might have an easier time trying to set something up.

Couple of things that you might also want to think about are setting up a site on a for sale websites such as eBay or Etsy. I sell a lot of work through http://etsy.com/. In fact in the last five years I’ve sold about five or 600 drawings and paintings on Etsy.

You’ll also have to, or want to learn, how to market yourself and create some sort of buzz about yourself using various social media on the Internet. There are lots of ways to do this but I have a sort of tried-and-true set of sites and things that I do that have had a really positive affect on my sales. Again in my course I have some great videos that really outline this and you can check those out if you’re so inclined.

The first thing you have to think about is probably getting yourself and Instagram account so that when you are making art and you have several pieces you’re able to photograph it as you’re working and also photograph it when it’s done and posted to Instagram. You should also photograph tons of other fun things with your Instagram account so that it’s not just about your art. Instagram will really get you a good web presence.

Tumblr is also an excellent way to share images of your artwork and to create a following. Another rule of thumb is to make sure that only two out of 10 posts are about your own artwork. You need to re-share other people’s images and other artwork that you admire and share other people’s Tumblr posts in order to get a following. Again if you want to learn more about this you should either go to YouTube or check out some of my courses on how to do this on our marketing.

Tumblr also is a neat tool because it allows you to schedule posts further out or queue posts so that you can just keep working in your studio without having to keep going back and doing promotion every day.

Another two good sites to create accounts on are Twitter and Pinterest. Those two sites are very easy to use and are often integrated in with sites like Etsy and Tumblr.

By far the most important tool you can use besides Instagram is Facebook. Some of the things about Facebook are very complicated and you should really look at some of the videos on YouTube and the ones that I have offered on my channel but here’s an overview of some of the things that you should do and should know how to do.

Facebook you should have a personal page that you communicate more social friendly stuff with your friends and family on. You should have a fan page or a community page that is basically a sort of professional page that’s about mostly your art. You should also join many artists groups, as well as groups that talk about art, and groups that are related to the subject matter of your art, for example if you’re painting dogs and cats make sure you join a bunch of dog and cat groups and post pictures of your dog and cat but also drawings and paintings that you’ve done of cats and dogs. Another example, especially with me is I make gay art and so I am in a bunch of gay or homoerotic art groups as well as groups that feature semi pornographic images of men. These groups also provide me with reference material to work from.

The cool thing about Facebook is it’s got so many options in the groups and in the community pages that you can schedule posts, schedule advertisements, and create an incredible following by being super friendly and sharing lots of stuff and commenting on people’s things. Again a rule of thumb is to make sure that you share more than you advertise yourself or promote yourself. Another really important rule is never get into an argument in any of the social media platforms if someone is nasty to you unfriend them or just ignore the comment. Nasty exchanges in any social media platform escalate and can only hurt you and you will never win. So always be polite always be friendly and never post anything that you would want your mom to see.

Now let’s say, that you have either created the site to sell your work or you’ve gotten a gallery to represent you they’re going to be a couple of things that you have to know how to do that you would not expect how to do. The first thing is probably setting a price for your work.

Pricing Artwork

Pricing artwork is really super complicated but the bottom line is don’t be greedy and don’t overvalue yourself. It’s hard to back off of high prices once you’ve established a taste for it and also sold some work. I have actually done this and cut the cost of my work literally 75 to 80% when I started selling online and I’ve been selling like hot cakes. A lot of people will advise you against this and it’s up to your own discretion. The thing that I think you have to do is do comparison shopping on websites where you’re selling your work for similar work and price your work accordingly so that it matches or is lower than the prices of your competitors. I don’t mean that there really competitors because I share a lot of work that people who do similar subject matter to me do but what I’m saying is it’s better to have a lower price than they have so that they can afford to collect your work. Again, I would Google pricing artwork and look at the various articles online and I would also look on YouTube for videos about it and I also have some ideas about it as well.

What to Do after You’ve Gotten a Gallery or Selling Online

The next thing that you have to be able to do is write about your work and develop advertising materials and mailing lists to promote your work. I’m talking about email mailing lists because it’s really costly to send out postcards even though everybody wants to do that the return on your investment is so nominal that I suggest you do not do postcards for show let the gallery do postcards for you. So I’m advocating that you develop an email list and also shout it out on all the social media that you can for promotion. Also learn how to write cogent clear essays that are short about what your work means. Don’t make it to intellectual unless you’re a real hot shot is people will look at you like you’re crazy.

Also, you need to learn how to package and ship your own work inexpensively and safely I actually have a video on YouTube for this and it is basically how to order shipping supplies and how to use the post office to ship work. Other organizations like UPS are very expensive and if you bring your work into ship it with them and you haven’t prepackaged it it will eat up literally all of your profit. There also people called art shippers and they make regular routinely scheduled trips across the United States and basically they ask you to wrap your paintings in plastic and they come and pick them up. The average cost to ship a painting across the country within our chipper is somewhere along the lines of $200-$700. So collect lists of art shippers and comparison shop online. Especially if you have a show coming up. Something that you might want to consider that you might not think about doing because it’s a little scary is hiring a mover to move your paintings to and from the art gallery. I did this with a bunch of shows that I had in museums and I was so satisfied that now for local stuff I actually hire movers to do it so that I don’t have to do it myself and I don’t have to worry about parking and a set of extra hands. You may also want to look on Craig’s list to see if there are people who have carpeted vans who advertise themselves as art shippers in your local town.

So basically outlined a lot of things that you should think about if you’re starting an art career of course this is a little bit of a promotion for my art marketing course but my art marketing course that’s available online which is all videos is very inexpensive. The class is in video format and includes about 30, 20 minute videos that talk about each of the topics that I’ve discussed in this blog post. 

I have a free course on everything I know about how to sell art available here:

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Video: Drawing the Skeleton Front View preparation for Life Drawing

Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rockwell

I don’t think that it’s any mistake that Norman Rockwell painted “The Problem We All Live with,” and Fred Rogers began his iconic television series in the mid-1960s. At the time, Norman Rockwell and Fred Rogers both have the appearance of being a kind of square. They weren't. They were completely with the times.

I remember reading in one of Rockwell’s biographies that he felt he couldn’t go back to making the art that he had made pre-1960s because he realized that the world was imperfect and he wanted to do something to make a change of it. Mr. Rogers neighborhood and several of Norman Rockwell’s paintings express a kind of gestalt for the mid-1960s that I think some of us are returning to. We kind of got comfortable with all of the freedoms and fairness that had been legislated by previous eras and now with the rebirth of racism and inequity we need to return to some fundamental core values that these two figures were trying to get us to think about a little bit more than 50 years ago.

Artist: Dan Thompson

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Artist: Damon Lehrer

Sailor's Lark

 

Kenney Mencher

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Sailor's Lark, 9x12 inches, watercolor and crayon on cotton paper by Kenney Mencher$8

Video: The Fertile Crescent, Kings Naram Sin and Hammurabi cc

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Artist: Kris Lewis

Video: 17th C Baroque Art Caravaggio cc

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Artist: Michael Leonard

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Video: Francis Bacon

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Drawing and Proportions of the Human Skeleton Side View

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Art History: How to Analyze or "Break Down" a work of art or what are the main characteristics of a work of art?

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What are the main characteristics of a work of art?

I think that there are three major themes that a work of art can be analyzed.

The physical or tangible, or formal characteristics which are in physical properties. This includes size, color, texture, what it is made of. In general formal analysis is how it looks and feels.

The second characteristic has to do with the work’s meaning and what it represents. This has to do with the story it tells and how people interpret the meaning of the painting. Some times this is referred to as iconography.

The third category or characteristic has to do with a history, geography, and how it was produced. Who bought it or asked for it to be made? Where was it sold? What was the city or culture like that made it? When in history was it made? The context that surrounds the work.

Formal Analysis

form

(1) : orderly method of arrangement (as in the presentation of ideas) : manner of coordinating elements (as of an artistic production or course of reasoning)

(2) : a particular kind or instance of such arrangement

b : PATTERN, SCHEMA

c : the structural element, plan, or design of a work of art -- visible and measurable unit defined by a contour : a bounded surface or volume

(3) The literal shape and mass of an object or figure.

(4) More general, the materials used to make a work of art, the ways in which these materials are used utilized in terms of the formal elements (medium, texture, rhythm, tempo, dynamic contrast, melody, line, light/contrast/value structure, color, texture, size and composition.)

Form consists of the physical properties of the work. Whether we look at a sculpture's size, mass, color, and texture or a poem's order of elements and composition, all are part of the work's form. When you are doing a formal analysis, you describe the way that the work looks, feels, and is organized. The next passage is a formal analysis of a work of art; the Augustus of Primaporta is a statue from the first century BCE.

The statue stands six feet eight inches tall and is made of white marble. It depicts a male figure wearing armor and some drapery, with his right arm raised. The figure carries a bronze spear or staff in his left hand. The texture of the hair and skin mimic the texture of real hair and skin. Augustus stands in contrapposto, appearing to be stepping forward with most of his weight resting on his right hip. Attached to his right leg is a small dolphin with a winged baby on its back.

One of the more important elements concerning form is the idea of composition. Composition can include how things are laid out in two dimensional space or how the picture plane is organized.

For example, the top two images in this illustration are asymmetrical. The blue circles are not evenly distributed through out each rectangle.

The bottom two most images are symmetrical. There are balancing elements on each side of the blue sphere in the lower left hand image. Even though one of the objects is a square and the other a circle, they take up about the same amount of space and have the same visual weight.

The boxes on either side of the tall white rectangle are mirror images of each other and this can be referred to as symmetrical too. Since you could draw a vertical line down the center of the center rectangle and on each side of this imaginary line it would be a mirror image, this is called bilateral symmetry.

The "Whirling Logs" textile on the left is arranged in a bilaterally symmetrical fashion because we could draw cut the design in half and the left and right sides are nearly a mirror image of each other. Nevertheless, for all its symmetry, this textile appears kind of flat looking.

Composition also has to do with the creation of the illusion of space. When we look at pictures (as opposed to sculptures as the Augustus above) we often think of the picture as an imaginary window. The front of the window, or the glass, is the picture plane that we look through.

In order to create space artists conceive of the picture plane as having three planes that recede back. In order to create space in the picture plane and the appearance of a foreground, middleground and background we can overlap objects to give this illusion. If there is nothing overlapped then we can say that there is no real illusion of space in the picture.

These two pictures demonstrate this idea. If you look at the one on the left, there is very little overlapping in the picture plane and the figures seem to be pressed against this imaginary window. While the one on the right has some overlapping and we can tell that some figures are in front of others. This overlapping gives us a sense of space.

These two sculptural friezes demonstrate these ideas in a three dimensional form. If you look at the one on the left, there is very little overlapping in the picture plane and the figures seem to be pressed against this imaginary window. While the one on the right has some overlapping and we can tell that some figures are in front of others. This overlapping gives us a sense of space.

Here is an example of a formal analysis of the Greek tragedy The Bacchae written by Euripides in 406 BCE. You can use a similar format of analysis when examining a work of art.

The Bacchae is play written in a chant form called dithyramb. Musical instruments, especially the drum, were used to keep time in the performance of the play. Approximately eighty percent of the play is dialogue while only a small portion is devoted to action on the stage. The order of the narrative is predictable and therefore symmetrical because there is a continuous cycle of basic components that are repeated throughout the play. These components are known as the prologos, parados, episode, stasimon, and exodos. The repeated sections are the three central components of the parados, episode, and stasimon, which are retold in predictable form as many as five times in the typical Greek tragedy.

Another look at schema and correction:

Summary of Gombrich

Renown art historian Ernst Gombrich developed a theory to explain these adaptations and changes and refered to it as schema and correction. If we were to look at the Archaic period's art and architecture as the plan or schema, we can see how the later Classic period might have taken the archaic art as its schema and updated it in order to make the designs more pleasing according to the later tastes. These changes are referred to as the correction.

The next update or correction occurs when the same pose and musculature from the Doryphoros were adopted and adapted for use by the Romans in the portrait of Augustus.

To understand his theory called "schema and naturalization," or "schema and correction." To understand it you basically just need to know the definitions of three words.

• Schema is the cultural code through which individuals raised in a culture perceive the world. For example, we recognize stick figures to be humans.
• Correction is where you take that schema and you compare it to what your senses tell you about the world and then you make it more accurate.
• Mimesis is the process of correcting your schema.

Gombrich's idea can be expanded to looking how later groups can take the earlier work of art and mimic it (mimesis). This is a kind of Darwinian theory kind of like Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fitest."

Read some more stuff by Gombrich if it interests you!

Some interesting ideas that might help you to understand the terms "civilization" and "period" occur when studying the concept of "schema and correction." Both of these works of art come from the Ancient Greek civilization. Even though we use the term "ancient" what we are saying is that the Greek civilization occurred a long time ago. Within the Ancient Greek civilization, is tied to the region of land we now call Greece. The civilization lasted between circa (approximately) 1000 BCE to about 100 BCE but we divide the Greek civilization into various periods that are defined by the style of art they produced. For example, the Kouros from Attica, comes from a period we refer to as the Archaic period, which lasted from around 600-480 BCE. The style associated with this Archaic period is that the sculpture is a bit unrealistic and slightly stylized in a geometric way. This means that the style of the Archaic period was to make the sculptures look kind of "blocky" and unrealistic. A later period that occurred during the Ancient Greek civilization is the "Classic Period" which lasted from circa 500 BCE -350 BCE. The main characteristics are that the sculptures look lifelike or realistic. So both the "periods" belong to the Ancient Greek Civilization. The main difference between period and civilization is that period is a kind of style that is a subset of a civilization. Civilizations go through many periods of development and a civilization is located in one geographic region and spans a longer time.

The next passage is a contextual analysis of the Augustus of Primaporta.

The portrait of Augustus of Primaporta is work of political propaganda. Augustus waged an extremely profitable series of wars and was able to extend the Roman Empire's borders. His ability to control the Senate maintained his status of unchallenged power within the Roman city as well. The unnaturally tall height of the statue is symbolic of the god-like status of Augustus because the average height was around five feet. The statue of Augustus is a correction of an even earlier sculpture called the Aulus Metellus.

Augustus's raised right arm symbolic of his abilities as a master orator and refers and builds on the iconography of Etruscan portrayals of great statesman such as depicted by the Aulus Metellus. The raised arm, a symbol of rhetorical power as a speaker is combined with the bronze staff and armor are references to the abilities that any Roman leader should possess. In some ways, this is the originating idea of our conception of the "Renaissance Man" of the 1500's. The references to the Aulus Metellus statue, the contrapposto pose (invented by the classical Greek culture) and the Cupid (representing Augustus as a descendent of the gods) grant both the Augustus Primaporta, and Augustus himself, an authority based in time honored traditions.

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