 The finished, commissioned, pastel art work by Kathy Shell, incorperating the two photos below and placing the family together for Christmas, in the art work. Earning a Living as an artist. The Website. Get yourself a professional looking website. If you are not good at web design consider trying to trade your skills for the skills of a professional web designer, many people will trade skills with an artist, don’t be afraid to ask or stop asking if you get a knock back. I estimate for every ten times I ask if someone will trade skills with me, I will have one successful exchange that benefits both parties making the trade. You can get a website for cheap I use a Weebly Pro account. and I love it, they also have free web sites to get you started and you can upgrade to the pro account when you are ready. Many people have been successful using www.myspace.com, www.facebook.com, and www.youtube.com to promote their work. I have a Kathy Shell fan page in facebook. Obtain your one domain name or user name that is easy to remember, yet describes your work. Be careful how it will read to others. My first two experiences with a domain name were not successful. I tried r.k.shell.gallery.com and I got people wanting to buy sea shells, not works by Kathy Shell. Then I tried kathyshell.com and even spent $500. Having that sign written on my car, only to overhear people reading out, Kathys Hell, not Kathy Shell and that was why my domain name became the hyphenated, Kathy-shell.net, it is now. It once was kathy-shell.com but I made a mistake of registering the .com version of my name with a company that wanted hundreds of dollars a year for me to use it. Another costly mistake, I made doing exactly what I recommend people not do, having had a fool for a teacher, I self taught myself, most of the web skill I know, hence the amount of mistakes I have made as a web developer. Having pictures that do not load well for your viewers is another costly error as you will lose repeat viewers, cad drawing.is something worth looking into if you are designing your own web site. Be sure to copyright your images before posting them on line.   A pastel portrait by artist Kathy Shell, from a photo, an example of turning an art form into a successsful service based business, attending to customers needs. You need to treat art as a business if your business is art. If you think that artists do not need to work, that it is all play and creating when you feel like it, then do everyone a favour and call it a hobby, don’t expect grants from public money, the world does not owe artists a living. Art is our choice and we should not be subsidised if we are unable to earn our living at it anymore than someone, should get, a grant to go and play golf all day instead of going to work. Lol, J, OK I have got that off my chest. Being a professional artist is going to involve very long hours of work and becoming multi skilled. I have known dozens of talented artists who cannot earn a living at art, because they have not grasped that we need to develop four different types of skills to succeed in the arts and indeed, most professions. 1. Talent We need the talent or skill to have something to sell. Develop this. Make it a lifetime commitment to be on an ongoing search for knowledge and learn from everything and anything you can, while not contravening the copyright of others, make sure you didn’t have a fool for a teacher, by insisting on being ‘self taught’. Yes, one can be self-guided, but expertise is learned from experts. 2. Public Relations skills.If you are not skilled in public relations, then learn these skills. It might be easier to employ someone to do the PR for you, but the truth of the matter is, that unless you have an income aside from your art, few artists are going to have the funds to pay for a good PR representative. So learn how to do this for yourself. 3. Business skills. It does not matter how well you create, paint or how good the items you have to sell are, nor how well you are able to market these, using your PR skills, if the business side of things breaks down and you make unwise choices accounting for and usuing the income you make. There needs to be a balance of all skills. 4. Diversify. Art is a non essential, item. If you look at how the stock market fluctuates, then realize that art is also going to fluctuate, only the fluctuation will be wider. No one, can tell you in advance what artistic skills might peak nor suffer in the next fluctuation. Take the example of the need to diversify, from what happend during the last big depression to my own artistic family, who all survived based on the actions of one family member, my mother, the only one who diversified her skills. My father the architect, rated at the time as one of the top 6 architects in Australia, had no essential sevice skills and was unemployed during the last depression. My uncle, one of Australia’s best musicians at the time, a man who during the peak of his career, left millions to charities due to the success of his career, had no other developed skill aside from his musicianship and he could not make enough money to provide a home for or feed his family during that depression as people would not pay for his, non essential service, skill. My mother, a dress designer, was able to diversify, from making high end fashion to designing clothing to fit people with deformity, then accept commissions to make military uniforms and her income as a young woman in her twenties, supported three families of six adults and three children, all because she was prepared to diversify her artistic skills when the need arose and not be too proud to take orders or work with heavy harsh on the hands, military materials. When I informed my family that I intended to be an artist, they were 100% behind my doing this, they never told me that ‘I would not be able to earn my living at the arts’, as many tell artists. They did however insist that I have diverse talents and essential skills. Back then, I did a science course as my essential services ‘fall back on, if I needed it’, diversification from art. These days with my interest in web design and reliance on computers I would probably choose to study for and have IT Jobs as my essential industry, fall back, should I have times when art needed subsidising with other work. Develop varied and essential service skills and your integrity as an artist is protected and you have the financial stability you need as a base to develop a successful artistic life. Happy creating :-)  Another portrait commision by Kathy Shell, in artist's pastels, completed to a clients instructions, showing the combination of artistic talent, PR skills of working with the client and the business ability of marketing commissioned portaiture as a service. Caravan Studio Sales. 02/03/2010
    I have packed all the art print cards, fridge magnets and postcards in the caravan, ready to pop out on the tables under the caravan awning in the mornings, while we are touring around Victoria and east coast Australia, during 2010. Australia. Reg will be sitting outside and we will have a simple, hand crafted, Welcome sign, up and be as unobtrusive, as we can be, while letting people know they are welcome to enter out caravan awning studio to view my work. This is how I hope to pay for the fuel, tyres and vehicle services on this landscape painting and travel writing tour. Reg enjoys selling small items, though I am thinking, as we will be on power, in caravan parks most of the time, that a small receipt printer like the smaller version of these, epson receipt printer, might be an asset to us. We used one like that, for years, whenever we did exhibitions and in our gallery, it does make it easy when you have a few sales in rapid succession, saves you trying to keep up with things writing everything down. Lol, I do not expect to be rushed, at breakfast hour in the slow pace of a holiday caravan park, but I can hopeJ. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have illustrated this post with some of the functional art items we will be selling from the caravan awning studio, while we are on tour. These are caps, T Shirts and key rings. I do not sell these on line as I only have a few. You can view and order, my popular fridge magnet art at http://www.fridgemagnetart.com or purchase them 'Direct from the Artist', n tour.   Colour Harmony! 02/02/2010
  I had a lovely few hours looking at modern furniture and home decor, today in a little side street store. I came home with three beautiful plump soft pillows with exquisite ruched, cream beige, velvet covers. These will ‘work’ in either my caravan interior, which is cream white and beige, base colours with sky blue and a pin stripe of yellow as the accessory colours. I love this fresh sun and sky colour scheme. My lounge room in my summer retreat is cool, blue grey walls and ceiling, with a cobalt blue curtains and cream, creamy beige and an interesting, beige grey stone colour that ties these colours together well. I think this is one of the most important aspects for a painting, a room, an outfit of clothes, to look good, having a colour harmony that works beautifully. The picture I will illustrate this post with, at the top, are of two cards from my art work, these are in colours that would work well, in the decor of my summer studio, they are painted using split opposite colour harmonies which work well with the colours I have described Below are pictures of the bare interior, before my soft furnishings are added, to my caravan.      The Giveaway: In conjunction with Mummified Times Five, I am giving away up to $1000 worth of Maimeri Classico oil paints! Each prize pack includes 10 tubes of Maimeri Classico paints valued at $9.55 each…so with free postage, that’s a prize pack valued at over $100!! And we have 10 packs to give away!! To enter, all you need to do is: -comment on any post ON EACH of Kathy Shell’s blogs (listed in my blog side bar and below): http://mummifiedtimesfive.net/2010/02/01/spotlight-on-kathy-shell-giveaway/ and say why you would like to win a 10 pack of Maimeri Classico paints. (Both steps are mandatory to be in the running to win this prize) Giveaway finishes 15 Feb 2010 This blog post has been illustrated by postcards from the art of Kathy Shell. These can be orderd through the artist's postcards-art web site or purchased 'direct from the artist', in her caravan awning studio      Advance Notice. $1,000 . value of Oil Paint to be given away FREE to my blog readers during February 2010. Not just any oil paint but, quality Italian Maimeri Classico 60ml tubes. These paints are the artist’s daily bread and butter. Anyone – professional or amateur – who picks up a tube of Classico oil paints will find in it just what they need. They contain no waxes or thickeners, and pigment concentration is very high. Bright, lively colours with overall harmony in the palette, these paints from Italy are made with non-toxic, non-polluting pigments that improve light-fastness. They are versatile paints, offering exceptional value for money, but you could own a set plus postage FREE. Watch this blog and http://mummifiedtimesfive.net for further details and be the first to enter this FREE competition.  Tile Art. 01/29/2010
 Artist’s can do some incredible tile work. It is worth considering trying working with tiles as a creative medium. I have seen artists use a mixture of modern commercial tiles and broken pieces of patterned English bone china to create beautiful coffee table tops. These photos above are of the tiles in the footpath in front of the gate leading into the garden of the Art Gallery Restaurant, at 50 Emily Street Seymour, Victoria. To see more travel photos and stories, check out my 'gone bush' blog at http://www.gray-nomad.com The photos below are of the flower boxes at SPC Ardmona, KidsTown, Midland Highway, Mooroopna, Victoria.    I began with this wonderful, photo of two Clydesdales, showing amazing personality in thier expressions. The secret of a good paining is not in the artist's skill but in an amazing subject. Every painting should tell a story and the subject lent itself imagining what this pair of horses might have been saying to each other. My friends and I had fun choosing captions for the art work prints. I am working with Maimari Puro Artists Oil Paint, and an archival quality stretched canvas and using artist quality, round, Chungking, hog hair brushes, size 2 8 and 12, one synthetic, rigger brush, size 1 and one 000 sable signature brush/ I use a disposable palette..   Because I am needing to enlarge the image from a small photo, I very carefully draft it as a line drawing on to my canvas using a soft charcoal stick which will dust away as I work. I only use this technique if I am enlarging, I normally work without a preliminary drawing when painting sight size.  I planned every aspect of the painting, before I began, especially the colour harmony, I chose a split opposite colour harmony of red orange, yellow orange and the opposite colour to orange a blue. I put out on my pallet, low and high chroma (colour intensity)versions of these colours and light and dark tonal values (light and shade, versions of them plus Titanium white. I did not use black from a tube but achieved a tone as dark as black by mixing a dark orange (Burnt Sienna) and a dark blue (Ultramarine dark), together so they muted out each others colour, leaving only a dark no colour as dark as black. You are only able to achieve tones as dark as black when you work with the worlds best oil artist quality oil paints with high concentration of pigments and little or no bulking fillers. Student grade oil paints contain a lot of filler and oils and little pigment (colour) density, if using these you would have to resort to the rather flat, bland, black where you need intense darks and expect the darks to eventually fade, if using student grade paint, as the oils eventually yellow and alter the pigment colour.  Preliminary painting step: I didn't begin this painting at the traditional beginning, I chose a relaxed, easy, non stressful place to start, with a medium blue sky coloured background produced by mixing Ultramarine Blue with Titanium white with a tad of orange red occasionally added to the mixture to make the colour more muted. I didn't completely mix the colours on the pallet, preferring to mix as i paint with the size 12 bristle round brush, making the background slightly mottled in appearance and more interesting that a flat solid one tone and colour sky would have been.  Step two of the block in of the horse painting. I painted the lightest light now. I do not always work in this order; the lightest light is often left until last. The reason i jumped ahead and painted it second is because the light shining on the horse's light hair needed to sparkling pure and light and it was important that the brush did not touch and pick up any darker tone that might have made this light paint appear muted or muddied. Any time you need clean bright colour or tone, apply that area of paint BEFORE you paint the surrounding areas even if this contradicts the normal, paint from dark to light method of tonal painting. Sometimes rules are there to be broken. Don't follow anyone's method of painting dogmatically and lol, don't follow a dogmatic painters method. There is more than one way to paint, don't believe anyone who thinks, 'their way is the only way'.  As soon as I had applied the lightest tone to the painting, I could see that my medium tone background was not dark enough to make my light area appear as light as I needed it to be, so I rubbed away some of the medium tone paint and painted a medium dark tone of the same colour, in its place, making my lightest light area, appear lighter than it had before. Remember to make something appear lighter place it along side something darker. To make something dark appear darker, place it beside something that is lighter. In this way, you are able to draw attention to your focal points in a painting.  Thinking 'composition', while I have the medium dark background blue colour on my brush, I dip into the a little of my medium dark tone red orange and I both deepen the tone and mute the colour of the background area between the horses heads so there is a subtle blending of the edges in this area of the painting. This also helps make the light on the horses face and the contrast of tonal value (light and shade), that will emphasise the expression of the horses faces, showing their personality, telling 'the story', to be the first thing that will be noticed about the work. It isn't enough to paint the work well, in brush stroke technique, the painting has to 'speak' to the viewer and this needs to be carefully thought out, planned, and the focal point kept in mind all the time the painting is being developed. Big brush, big areas covered. No hard edges, No details, this is still block in stage; keep everything as loose as possible for as long as possible.  With my darkest and lightest tones blocked in, I begin to mix all my medium dark, medium and medium light tones   Then I block n the mid tones of the painting, working from medium dark, through mid tone to the medium light tones as the last I apply. The brush strokes are still applied loose and with a large size 12 bristle Chungking hog bristle brush. The painting should look 'crude' at this stage as this is still only the block in phase of the work  With my darks, medium darks, mid tones, medium lights and lights all blocked in, I am ready to begin the refining stage of the paining. I hold the stretched canvas up to the light. This shows me any areas of the canvas where I have not applied any pain and unless there was a reason why I should not apply paint to that area, I turn the painting back to face me and I correct this now using a range of brush sizes, from size 12, 6 to to a size 2, to suit the size of the space i am painting in. Large area, large brush, small area, small brush.  With the first three stages of the painting completed. 1/ The planning stage = preliminary sketch, colour harmony and compositional plan. 2/Bold confident large brush work, loose block in of the darks, medium darks, medium, medium light and lightest tones. 3/Refine the pain of any obvious detrimental to the finished effect, blemishes, smooth any area where texture is detracting from the image and fill in any obviously missed areas. Do not over fiddle at this stage. I was now ready for the final, fourth stage, the detailing if the art work. I now go back over areas already loosely painted, developing the contrast of the light and the shade in the focal point areas of my painting and I add the smaller details, firstly working in size 6 brushes for medium sized areas of work and then I work with my size 2 round Chungking hog bristle brushes for the small details.  Notice how I have lightened the background behind the darkest area of my focal point horse head, in the same way i had previously darkened the background behind the light area of the foreground horses head, to increase the contrast, make the darks appear darker and the lights appear lighter, and make my horse heads come into sharper focus, being the focal point of my painting.  Thinking of composition once more, I darken and mute the colour of a section of sky, blurring the edge of the horses neck on the right hand side. I want all the focus to go to the amazingly cheeky expression on the horses faces and then for the eye to comfortably wander around within the painting with no lines drawing the eye out.  have used a new brush for every tone and colour of that tone that I have used in this painting. I don't stop to clean brushes and I do not allow thinners to be used inside my studio. Once I have finished work for the day I might put my day's brushes into canola oil to stop the paint in them drying out. You can also use baby oil only this is a little more costly. I of course would not paint again with these brushes until all that oil and paint has been removed carefully from the brushes.  I do more detailing and subtly draw the viewers's eye to the focal point and strive using good composition and reduced contrast of light and shade on the outer corners, to stop the viewers eye going out of the painting. Can you see how I have blurred the fence post on the lower left hand side of the painting? It merges with the background, visible, but not hard edged, It is viewable but it does not draw the eye away from the main focal points which is not the horses themselves but the interaction in expression and pose of the horses. I feel as if they are in conversation and it’s somewhat a cheeky private in nature one at thatJ. These horses make me smile. I love this painting and enjoyed working on it and sharing my how I painted it steps with you. I am available to assist you with your paintings through private tuition, on line or in my studio for a tuition fee. The completed painting of Rosco and Rusty the delinquent clydesdales, below. The images of my art works are copyright, contact me to purchase originals and print images and please respect my free lessons, learn from me all you like, but do not copy. Thank you :-). Happy creativityJ. Kathy Shell xxx  | Kathy Shell on Facebook What is RSS
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