Why Is Large Art Considered Better And More Professional?

The case for smaller art.

 

One of the things one critic mentioned when judging a show or exhibit to be “amateurish” is the size of the artwork. “Artists work large” was the idea. When he saw a show of relatively smaller sizes, and for this I am not talking about small or miniature art, I am talking about 8 x 10, 11 x 14, even 16 x 20. It seems that anything less than 18 x 24 is amateurish.  I know that many college level classes specify larger art but I am still mystified why this is thought to be better. Why is larger better? Why is only large "Serious Art?"

Miniature

 

I have done one really large canvas in my life, 36 x 48. It took a lot of time and skill. But I can really say it took more skill, or vision or creativity than my smaller works. Certainly not as much as my miniatures.

 

And now I have this really large landscape on my hands. I have shown it at several show, and it is greatly admired. But who wants something that big? I have it on a side wall in my sun room, the only wall big enough for it. And I look at it and say. You know, I get it. It’s a great painting, but I also know why, while I have sold many other paintings and drawing, people walk past it. Its huge.

 

Ok for an attention getter, but not something people want.

 

So while I do like the painting. It is an accomplishment, I am painting smaller, more initiate works of art.  I do have to ask, "Why is larger more serious?"

Large Painting

Yes, I do Paint Once in a While!

It seems that all my recent posts have been about drawings, mostly with colored pencil, but basically, drawings.

I personally, don't see anything wrong with this. For me, drawing is a perfectly acceptable art form, and as valid for a finished work of art as any other medium. Not just means to an end.

Because so many art works beginning with a drawing, sometimes it seems like it is only a preliminary medium.

And I have noticed that some other artists tend to look down on drawing the same way. It is a way of working through a problem in composition. Of writing down mental notes.

Thumbnail sketches on napkins, pencil lines on watercolor paper, just notes, right? No. Art is art, whatever the medium. Drawings are as valid as any other art form.

So for all the pencil artists out there, keep your lead sharp and draw on.

But I do paint once in a while!

Day Five: Last day of the Workshop

Friday

And more rain. My paintings, of course, are still wet. Turned the lamps on as soon as I got in, but I don’t know if will get anything done.

This is the last day of the workshop. We will review what we have learned, show each other our paintings, and wind things up. My first painting is still to wet to work on, but I can bring my other two up a stage.

Today we are learning how to put those final touches that raise the level of a painting from good to great. Today we learn to blush.


Just a little something about my fellow workshop attendees. We came from all across the country, Florida to California, a mixed bag of ladies. Young, old and in between. We had one thing in common, a love of art and the desire to do it better. Now we have another bond, this wonderful workshop that pushed all of us, made us grow (a painful process) but also taughts us we can do it.

Workshop Day Three

Today dawned bright and early. Well, it dawned, but not bright. I woke up to rain, lots and lots of rain! Good thing I had brought an umbrella, unfortunately, I left it in the car. Oh well, I won’t melt.

It has been one of those weeks, though. Sunday we all had trouble getting her with the dense fog, Monday was damp and overcast. Tuesday so far was the best day. At least there were occasionally patches of sunshine; small, put patches.

Today we watched paint dry. Only artists would do that! We are running into a problem with getting the paint to dry. Even with the lamps and using a drying agent, paintings are slow to dry. It is the humidity.

But we did get to at least start glazing, which is amazing! I have now realized that the key to this is using very small amounts of paint. At least 1/2 what you think you will need, but often much less. You need to almost drybrush the underpainting. And each glaze layer is equally light.



Workshops at Cheap Joe's



While we used white liberally in the underpaint, once you start glazing it is verboten!

This is what gives such Luminosity to the works of the great northern masters.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is how nice it is to take a workshop at Cheap Joes’s. They have a purpose built room. If anyone has ever taken a workshop in a non-art room, you can appreciate how nice it is to be in a real studio. Each person has a table with easel. There is good lighting, sinks, and an area for demonstrations.

The staff here also treats you nicely. Monday morning staff as on hand to welcome each person to the workshop, and HELP you carry your stuff in. boy, is that nice. Since it is a purpose built area, used only for workshops, you can leave your stuff overnight in the room. It is locked up at night and in the morning you can simply go to your table and start working. Also there is coffee.

The Price Of Selling Art

Sold a painting.


Should be good news, and it is, but hey, I was not ready to part with that one. Why didn’t they want the other old thing? That was my favorite! I just finished it! I wanted to grab it back? I thought selling my work would be great! Why isn’t it?



When you stop being emotional about your work it is time to stop painting.



Period.

S. Tschantz
Sold

Of course you have mixed feelings about it! While I was relieved to have sold 3 pieces, I was also sad. I loved those pieces; that is why I put them up in the show!



Never, ever show work you are not 100% proud of. NEVER.



Always show only your best, that which will tear at you to part with. Only then can you be sure what you are offering is really art and not simply decoration. Artwork to be true art must speak to the both the artist and the patron. There should be a give and take in this relationship even if you have never meet and will never meet.

After Vincent

This is why van Gogh still claims such attention over the distance of time, because his work speaks to us. More to us today than in his own time. We all live in a turmoil and that is conveyed in his work, We understand him as his contemporaries did not.

So while you mature enough to let go of your artwork, it is and should always be a bit hard, almost painful.



We all know the painter who paints and who loves to shoves his or her stuff off on everyone. They copy crafts and decorative stuff and love to give it away, but there is no emotional connection there. While they often view themselves as artistic peers (actually I know one near by who talks down to me) their work is imitative. They follow a pattern. Copying other artists. Following the directions of their “teacher” faithfully (and to my mind fatally) one such person’s latest, a copy of a Kincaid card, is their current crowning achievement. Said “artist” then proceeded to photograph it and make "prints" of it on their computer. Then it was fostered off on all of us as a priceless “gift”. This work is dull. Oh, the image is there. They copy very well, but the work is static, lifeless and to a real art lover, well.......boring. Seen it before, better done. There is no emotion in that painting other than smugness at how well they did. And it shows.

Always hurt just a little, my friend.

A Work of Art

We all have works of art we don’t want to part with. Maybe it was that first piece where it came together. Or that represents some past connection. Whatever it is, there is a strong emotional attachment or it can be simple shock and awe.

I DID THAT?!?!



Approaching art







Boat At Kanawha Falls
S. Tschantz



When we create that first piece that says we are finally accomplishing something—that everything is not a waste of time. These pieces mark significant changes within ourselves as artists. It is hard to relinquish these. And I am not sure we should. Keeping a connection to where we were helps us see where we are going.





These are the special pieces with that indefinable something that transforms it from a painting to a work of art.




Pony
S. Tschantz



 







Successful Paintings?

Failed Fall Painting

Without failure you cannot succeed.
So don’t be afraid of failure and of creating “interesting” paintings.



None of us likes everything we do. Not if we are honest and not a complete egoist, that is.

If we don't fail from time to time we don't make progress and out art becomes repetitious and stale. So don't be afraid of failure or of painting "interesting" paintings. These contain the germ of genius.

Artistic Struggle Part 2

I talk a big talk about every painting being important, and in its own way a success.
I do believe this. Even paintings that fail miserably, teach us something. Sometimes we learn more from the failure than from the successes. Without the failures, there would be no successes.

Well, one of my goals this year was to try different mediums. I have done so with definitely mixed results!

I have also tried to mix things up a bit and go for less than more, Fewer colors and fewer details.
That is also mixed success. I have written about these paintings and that has lead me think about what went right with them and what went wrong.

Struggling with these two, I think I have the “Rocks in the Stream” improved, and I have worked on the “Park Path”.

The “River Rocks” I am considering done as well as I am able to now. While it is not a complete, stand-alone painting, it was a learning experience, and in that sense, a successful painting.

As for the “Park Path”, that too will be put aside. I am not happy with it, but I do like the overall layout. I will consider this one completed as far as I am going to go with this particular painting. I will use this small painting as a "sketch" for a larger, more complete painting, incorporating what I have learned into a better painting.

Artistic Struggle

Trying new mediums is one of my artistic goals this year. I am comfortable with oils, love the rich colors and butter feel of working with high-grade professional oils. I love them! I have no intentions of abandoning them.

But I have never really painted with anything else. Oh I have toyed with watercolor. Who hasn't today? But they are a bit unforgiving, and in my early days of painting, I needed a lot of forgiving!

Still do for that matter, but that is another story.

With this spring’s Fine Arts Exhibition, and my own earlier sickness, I really did not have time to fully develop 3 oil paintings, so necessity has forced me to actually keep my goal for this year. I hate to admit it, but although I have always wanted to try other things, I am a bit of a coward, and was reluctant to strike out. Especially I did not want to show anyone my struggles!


So, as usual, I have reverse order over most artists. Instead of starting with watercolor and acrylics, I started with oils, and will work my way backwards!



Acrylics

As it would happens, the local hobby shop had a sale on artist quality acrylics this week. The dye was cast.

Acrylics are texturally very different from oils. While I knew, intellectually, this would be true, I don’t think you are every ready for it in practice.

But I digress.

I needed 2 more paintings and I needed them fast, at least to dry fast to give me maximum time to dry. I also wanted to change things up a bit, try for something different. Acrylics was as close to an answer as I was going to find.

For the first painting I decided to try something a bit more graphic, less detailed and flatter. Usually, I work hard at creating depth in my landscapes, but this time I was going to use non-local color and a more abstract style. I worked out my thumbnail, and sketches, and with vine charcoal placed just the basic shapes. This is all I intended to paint, block in the basic shapes.

I used a limited pallet of Violet, Yellow Ochre and White. To achieve any distinction between objects I had to manipulate the values of these pigments, darkening some and lightening some. Mixing them together would give me the grays to add some shading.

Mixing Paint

These paints were much softer than I was used to, and a bit tricky to mix. For the first time I had to worry about drying times, not in hours and days, but in minutes. Usually I spread my paints widely, into rather thin strips. but if you do this with acrylics they dry before you can use them. Also, keeping a spray bottle at hand is a good idea. There are medium you can use to delay this drying time, but naturally, I had none of these! In addition, my standard pallet knife seemed awkward with them. I persevered, I did find a small plastic spoon was a better mixing tool.

The resulting painting is a 12 x 12 square, another departure for me. I tend to stick with what I am comfortable with, and work either in standard landscapes sizes of 18 x 24 or with miniature sizes of about 4x5. So even the format is outside my comfort zone.

The second painting is again a modified landscape, again in acrylics. This is a waterfall of sorts. Large graphic rocks splashed with rapids of an active stream, but with found colors dominating. Emphasizing the blue of the water and the red-orange rock colors, the painting does not try to convey a realism that is more typical of my artwork, but a warmer, more whimsical interpretation of rocks in a stream. Again, this has a limited pallet. Here I worked with a mid-blue and its complementary orange with white. The sky blends into to the river and flows over the rocks whipping up the spray onto the bank.

Even the first trial and error blocking in did let me work with the medium. While I would not call the painting a roaring success, even our failures teach us something. I strongly believe that without the failures you cannot achieve real success. Well, I have the failures now!

While there is a certain amount of success in these paintings, they are far from masterpieces. These paintings are not really very good, from a purely artistic standpoint. But they represent the struggle, the attempt to mastery of a medium and of artwork. They are simply steps along the way. Some of the many hundreds need to complete the journey from painter to artist.

Spring Art Exhibition

Spring may be when a young man’s fancy turns to, well, you know, but the artists of the Renaissance Gallery turns to thoughts of spring painting challenge. This year’s Spring Fine Arts Exhibition will be all about color, and how well you can use it in the composition and presentation of your art. "Color and its Complement", is the theme, challenge and title of this May’s show. The artist will take one color as the primary element of composition and work with its complement to bring forth his/her ideas.

December 20, 2009.

Setting up an Art blog

Well, here I am setting up a blog about art and what we are doing.

I have thought about it for a while and now I am going to do it.

This will be more about getting started in art, than about my own artwork, although I will use my own work as examples.

My own work can be seen on my website, tschantz.myexpose.com, and I am closely involved with shows and presenting artwork at the Renaissance Gallery in Huntington, WV. Their website is: http://www.orgsites.com/wv/renaissance/index.html with the gallery blog at: http://renaissancegalleryart.blogspot.com/