Watch Me Paint: World-Class Art, World-Class Instruction
One may be the Queen of England, the other a cleaner, but they’re both ladies of a certain age. Ena, by Ruskin Spear, available through Chris Beetles Gallery. Tom Root is a portrait artist I know only from Facebook. He—like many other artists—occasionally uses Facebook to post paintings that catch his eye. This is how …
Want to write a successful art blog? Be brief, punchy, disciplined and focused. Barnum Brook, by Carol L. Douglas. (Private collection) Your blog is primarily to promote your brand, so use your own photos when you can. I used to post whenever I had a new painting or brilliant thought. That’s how most artists post, …
Continue reading “The nuts and bolts of social media: content”
The internet is a powerful tool for artists, offering free or inexpensive direct and indirect marketing. Learn to use it. Ocean Park Beach, by Carol L. Douglas, available through Ocean Park Association. Put your strongest visual image first. I’m no marketing guru; I just developed this blog by the seat of my pants. I learned …
Continue reading “The nuts and bolts of social media: what platform is best for you?”
You, the artist, do. If a buyer copies it without your consent, he’s liable for damages. The Monarch of the Glen, 1851, Sir Edwin Landseer, has been used for everything from the Hartford Insurance Company’s stag logo to biscuit tins and butter wrappers. You can read its history here. “A previous customer wants to use the painting they purchased as …
Continue reading “Who owns the right to reproduce your painting?”
Damien Hirst finally makes something recognizable as art, and the chattering classes hate it. From Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable by Damien Hirst. All images lifted from the internet without attribution because, hey, it’s 2018 and that’s how we roll now. One of my former students now works in the workshop of a …
Continue reading “Fall from Grace: the wreck of Damien Hirst”
Naked, 1988, by Jeff Koons Jeff Koons has been found guilty of plagiarizing the work of a popular French photographer. A French court has ruled that Koons’ Naked (1988) ripped off a black-and-white photograph by the late Jean-François Bauret (1932-2014). Although unknown here in the United States, Bauret was successful enough to have earned the …
Trump posing in her apartment before the Tony Awards. (Instagram) Alex Da Corte, whose small assemblages sell in the $18-25K range, recently tweeted, ““Dear @Ivankatrump please get my work off of your walls. I am embarrassed to be seen with you.” He is part of an Instagram feed called called “Dear Ivanka” in which artists under the …
Continue reading “Ivanka is a problem only for really rich artists”
The Romans kept their ancestor-geniuses in boxes. (Okay, they were actually shrines.) This one, from the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, shows two Lares (or guardian angels), flanking the household’s ancestor-genius. When I went looking for Iván Ramos’ photos, it was very easy to come up with them, because he is practicing an open-source …
Low Bridge (Erie Canal), oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas. Go ahead, copy it, print it, and hang it on your wall. Satisfying? I doubt it. But you can contact me and buy the original, and I guarantee you it will bring you joy. No discipline has suffered more from the internet than journalism. …
Continue reading “Giving it away for free—the journalism question”
From The Blue Beetle Faces the Destroyer of Heroes, Blue Beetle, Vol. 1, No. 5, November 1968, Charlton Comics Group, Derby Connecticut. It’s Memorial Day. I’m not up to anything particularly deep about the meaning or execution of art. Instead, I’m giving you Steve Ditko being deep about the meaning of art and heroism: selected panels from …
Continue reading “Amazing what you find if you clean your room.”