Evaluating the painting

The final process for the painting is to evaluate it. Now that I've finished the detail and laid out the components, it's time to let the painting sit for a day or two and see if there's any portion of the painting that needlessly draws the eye.

In the current painting, I see three items that bother me.

The first one is that the plants around the base of the tree are too small. I think that the brighter area should spread out more and meld a little better with the foreground.

The second issue is that the ground is too vertical. In this case, I will need to glaze a thin layer of the sky onto the upper edge of the ground. That will do a better job on simulating atmospheric perspective.

The final issue is to extend the lower branches to be below the horizon line. They actually are below the line, but the green in the ground blends too much with the tree. This gives the impression that the tree branches are sitting on the horizon line.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the composition and achieved the image that I had in my mind.

How to setup for a Craft Fair

One of my major markets for selling my artwork is the Craft Fair. I like them. The craft fair is a great way to meet new clients and get their immediate reactions to your work. In addition, rather than focusing on your painting, you are really focusing on the client/customer.

I've been doing craft fairs for about 1-1/2 years and have graduated to the larger shows. I generally sell around 2 - 4 original paintings for each show and miscellaneous number of prints/cards. Of all of my income sources, the Craft Fair is the most reliable and valuable one that I have.

Over the next month or so, I will be discussing the various factors on how to sell your work at a craft fair and effective ways to set up your display/stands. Topics will include who to market, how to present yourself, how to present your work. If there are any specific topics that you would like to know about, definitely let me know.

Topics to be covered:

1) The different levels of Craft Fairs

2) Evaluating your target audience at the show

3) What to sell

4) How to manage the inventory of your work

5) How to make prints of your work

6) How to make cards of your work

7) How to transport your work to the show

8) Consistency in the booth

9) How to present your artwork to customers

10) What do when when customer's approach

11) The all-important Director's chair

12) Different ways to collect customers information

13) How to receive payment for your work

14) What to do, once you made the sale

15) How to interact with the vendors around you

Still Life Study: Vase and Eggs

As I’m currently working on a painting that involves painting a more realistic bonsai tree, I decided that I need to do some more work on rounded objects. So, for last night’s painting session, I set up a still life that contained only rounded objects: a vase, two eggs, a lime, and a bottle. Overall, I’m fairly pleased on how the painting worked out. Unfortunately, I ran out of time so I was not able to finish up the bottle, besides laying out the basic color and general shape.

For this painting, I decided to work on sanded gesso-board, rather than a canvas pad. The gesso-board was a lot smoother and, frankly, I’ve never worked on it and wanted to see how it behaved with water-soluble oils. The first step was to tone the entire board by laying down the base color of the wall behind the still life. In the past, I would never use any mediums at this stage, but have realized that the paint would be applied too thickly. Therefore, mixing liquin with the oil paint created a thin enough layer to cover the panel and still be able to lay more color on top.

Once the panel had been toned, the next step is to use Terra Rosa and a round brush to draw out the general outline of the shapes. The nice part about this is that you just need the general position for the composition. When painting, you can actually increase the accuracy of the shape by pushing/pulling the paint around. At this point, you are just working with the composition.

Now, it’s time to lay down the colors. As before, I laid down the mid-tone colors and used various levels of grey and surrounding colors to get the correct look. This is where the work really begins. Color matching is not my strong point. So, as I’m mixing the color, I hold up my palette knife up to the object to see how close I am. I then use the grey levels to modulate the color.

Now that the basic colors are down, the fun part begins: Shaping the structure. Using information I learned from Jack Winslow, I defined the upward and downward facing planes of each object. At this point, since my light is above my still life, the upward-facing features will be lighter than the side and downward-facing features. So, the entire painting was working with this principle.

Color Layout Finished

Now that the basic color layout phase of the painting is completed, time to add the detail work. For the color phase, I like the dark sky/water scene such that it really balances out the painting and forces your eye to the tree area. Also, there is enough detail in it so that the eye has interesting items to view while working its way around the painting.

In order to not draw too much attention to the dark areas, I’ve decided that no more detail will be added to it. The tree, however, will have a significant amount of detail. Changing the value patterns on the foliage will allow the tree to become more rounded. I will probably add more bark to the tree to make it more lifelike.

In addition to defining the tree more, the ground needs to be darkened and the large yellow shape will need to be shortened. I find it too distracting that it interacts with the corner or the tree.

Final consideration would be to decide what the sky will look like behind the tree. At this time, I’m thinking that soft white puffy clouds would be best. Something subtle. Maybe a hint of pink

Color Layout: Water Section

The next phase of the color layout was to decide what the water section was going to look like. When originally designing the composition, I imagined that there would a land section and a sunset/water section. The crucial part is to have the two sections somewhat overlap, but ensure that the water section did not take the focus away from the bonsai tree.

I decided that, by creating a dark water section with minimal shapes, I could further emphasize the bright section containing the bonsai. In addition, by using purples and reds (creating a cooler plane, the water section would then recede. This would push the warmer tree section forward.

The final color layout section is to define the sky in the water section. The plan will be to use various levels of grey and slight coloration of the blues/reds for interest.

First Color Layout

Now that I've decided what size canvas that I would like to use, the next phase is to just layout the general shapes on the canvas. This is done using a 2H pencil and Terra Rosa oil paint. For any vertical and horizontal lines, I want them to be absolutely accurate. Therefore, I will use my T-Square with a thin pencil line and lay out the lines.

Once the painting is subdivided, I'll use the Terra Rosa oil paint and a thin brush to decide what organic shapes go where and their relative size. Notice that this does not follow my concept sketch exactly. This is the time to do, essentially, what feels right. In the concept sketch, the tree was too small and thin. I decided to make it wider and larger, so that, combined with the red sphere/yellow platform, your eye is immediately drawn to it. I also widened the water area to the left to balance the painting more. If it was too thin, then your eye would be too distracted.

Now, that the general shapes/layout have been place, it's time for coloring. Rather than painting detail, I am strictly painting the general mid-value colors that I will be using in each section. I mainly want to see how the colors relate to one another and if, accidentally, the colors take the viewer's eye away from the main focal point (Bonsai Tree).

As I'm reviewing the painting, I notice that I don't like the portion where the platform touches the tree. I also am not sure that I like the large sphere (no color applied, yet) sphere to the far right. Both items seem a bit distracting. I may shorten the platform and reduce the size of the sphere. A lot of it depends on what I plan to do with the blue sky. I think that white puffy clouds are in order for that section.

The final section of the painting, I'm still mulling over... what to paint the color of the water section. I like the idea of an orangish red sun-down, but not sure.

Canvas Size

Once I’ve defined a concept sketch (previous post), the next phase is to decide what surface that I should paint on. For me, I’ve tried paper, illustration board, etc and have decided that I prefer the standard stretched canvas. I like the feel of the canvas beneath my brush and I like the light weight. However, the biggest benefit, for me, of a stretched canvas, is that I can paint really large or small and do not have to worry about framing.

Since I do craft shows, I’m constantly transporting the paintings in my car. Over the years, I’ve had the typical issues of having the frame be dinged or damaged. If you are looking at costs, a well-primed canvas can be purchased/stretched for less than $20 (depending on the size). If you frame it, that would add another $50 - $100 for framing. Therefore, you have to sell the painting for a bare minimum of $100 just to break even. This doesn’t include the fact that the frame can be damaged, the cost of transport (more costs due to the weight of the frame), the cost of a show, etc.

Therefore, I work on canvases that are stapled on the back and I continue the painting on the side of the canvas. This way, the painting looks nice from any angle and, if there is some damage to the canvas, I can easily repair it by painting over the damaged part.

So, what sizes do I work on? This depends on the topic and how much of an impact I want to make. I typically work on 4 different sizes: 22 x 28, 16 x 22, 14 x 18, and 12 x 16. This allows me to have a variety of price ranges at a show. When doing craft shows, it is important to have some pricier items/larger paintings and a LOT of smaller/more affordable paintings. You want the larger paintings to bring people to your booth, but, most likely, people will walk away with the lesser expensive paintings.

So, for this painting, I’ve chosen the 16 x 22 canvas size.