Category: Photography

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Rules For Being a Professional Artist

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Mark Gould’s

10 Rules for Being a Professional Artist

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1. Creative efforts take priority over other activities

whenever possible.

2. Simplify all aspects of life in order to think and act

creatively.

3. Ensure the creative process is always challenging

and enjoyable; always balance a risk of failure

with the potential for success in order to keep

efforts honest and engaging.

4. Be the eternal student, always willing to learn.

5. Welcome other opinions—good, bad or indifferent

—but never relinquish final judgment to another.

6. Seek out people who are positive in their approach

to the creative process and welcome their

constructive critique. Avoid negative people and

their attitudes, even when personal sacrifice is

required.

7. Think before committing time, money or other

resources to any future aspect of the creative

endeavor. Be certain that both feeling and logic

regarding the decision are sound.

8. Release to the public only those works that are

fully “competent and satisfactory,” those that are

properly executed with a high degree of creativity.

9. Never become problematic for any gallery or

collector. Be sincere and forthright in all gallery

dealings. Require absolute honesty in return.

10. Be truthful and self-aware in regard to your

creative efforts. Only then can artistic vision be

trusted and improved.

www.artistsnetwork.com

My coach suggested that I look up the 10 Rules for Being a Professional Artist by Mark Gould, published by the Artists’ Network.  She regularly suggests reading a particular book or this reference or that article, to help me to think outside of  my immediate box.  It’s not easy, this business of changing my life.  Epiphanies are happening right and left, as I discover yet more boxes I’ve been living in, which define and limit me.  A very difficult realization happened just yesterday, and that is that for more than 50 years (yes, telling my age), I’ve had my mother’s voice echoing in my head, telling me to finish my chores before I start drawing again.  Since I was for the most part an obedient littl girl, this Rule evolved into an unproductive lifestyle, artistically.  I do chores very well, and I am very good at finding new chores that need to be done.  But I have to be honest.  Certain tasks and chores are useful for maintaining a grounded life — one must pay the bills, after all, and basic housekeeping is a must.  But my idea of doing-the-chores spread into my method of running my non-art business, and essentially took over my life.  In recent years I have carved out some time and space for doing art, but yesterday I realized that I have to create a completely new psychological construct, one in which it is not just permissible, but required, to do art before all my chores are completed, perhaps to do all the art I can before doing any of my chores.  There probably is no danger in the latter ever actually happening, because the chores-first pattern is so deeply embedded.  But to break the habit, I will  need to try to go overboard the other direction.  Since my goal is to become a full-time artist at least two days a week by the end of this year, then that still allows a lot of time for chores, including running my non-art business.

I  am adhering to none of Mark Gould’s Ten Rules.  Some I might possibly be making some progress towards.  But others don’t make sense to me, or I downright disagree with, as I try to hide from the light they are shining on my life.  Certainly, I often have broken Rule #8 within my blog, showing the public many incompetent or unsatisfactory works, as befits my purpose in writing this blog, which is to share the artistic process, including the stops and starts and do-overs.  Sharing my less-than-totally-satisfactory works has made me less self-conscious.  It also has made me much less of a perfectionist, a crippling condition which can prevent an artist from ever showing their work.  But I understand Rule #8.  Though very public, a blog is not actually a “release” of art as would be an exhibit, where I would expect the viewers to come dressed in something other than their pajamas, my usual casual attire when I am drafting and publishing a new post.

I probably should write my own Ten Rules for Being a Professional Artist, and see how they evolve as I become one.

I don’t want to publish a post without an image attached, so here’s my image for today, a big overflowing bowl in the reflecting pool at Eden State Gardens in Point Washington, Florida, shot with my iPhone.  I loved the greens.  I loved the movement of the water.  I loved the reflections.

 

 

 

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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The Value of Beginner Classes

Like many artists and photographers, much of my creative development has been through sheer determination and white knuckles.  Workshops, classes, courses, and graduate- and post-graduate studies certainly have provided me with a solid grounding in the fundamentals.  But image-making as a whole, whether as craft or as fine art,  is largely learned by just doing it, finding your own comfort zone for composition, color, light, texture, balance, and rhythm.  In the doing, you develop confidence and authority.  Still, there is a lot to be said for reviewing the basics.  Sometimes in reviewing, you are introduced to something entirely new.  Or perhaps it is something you’ve been taught before that you forgot, or that you never understood before.  At the very least, you are a different person today than you were last year, so you see things differently.

Too often, an artist will become very good at their craft, able to produce amazing images, only to find themselves challenged by not being able to execute a detail, or not knowing how to structure an element.  I can’t tell you how many artists have told me that they cannot draw.  Drawing seems to me to be essential to the execution of anything visual.  It doesn’t have to be drawing with a pencil — it might be a drawing with a brush, with wet media.  Perhaps those artists have a limited definition of drawing.  Or perhaps they are more of the instinctive, intuitive school, where the image evolves almost like a performance, without the artist having a preconception.

A painting I did a couple of months ago, shown at right, might be considered a drawing as much as it is a painting.  I painted the canvas-board a dark blue-black color, let it dry, and then painted the tans and blue colors over it.  I created the trees by “drawing” them with a rubber stylus, wiping off the wet paint to expose the dark color underneath.  The related blog is at https://joanvienotart.wpengine.com/landscape/opening-floodgates-4964.

Several accomplished artists are in the Back-to-the Basics Drawing Class that I am teaching for the Cultural Arts Alliance this month.  At first, I was a little intimidated because I know their capabilities, but within just a few minutes of my start,  I found my footing and got on a roll.  Many years ago, I was awarded secondary school teacher certification when I received my Fine Art degree from the University of Northern Colorado.  I taught painting and drawing in a high school in Colorado for 3 years before I moved to Florida.  Since then I have just taught a few adult classes in watercolor painting, and a private drawing course to a student who needed a humanities credit to graduate from high school.  So the Back-to-the-Basics Drawing Class is requiring me to review the basics myself.

Teaching can be exhausting.  Supposedly a good teacher prepares for 2 hours for every one hour in the classroom.  An experienced teacher will be so well-prepared and so practiced that he or she can teach off-the-cuff.  But it’s been so long since I taught that I am having to review everything myself, as well as come up with visual examples of the concepts and techniques I am teaching. In the first class I reviewed elementary perspective (ugh!) for the first hour, and in the second hour I let the class draw, focusing on thumbnail sketches and line quality.  I provided some articles that were difficult to draw, requiring the artists to simplify.

I myself am taking a beginning photography class.  My point-and-shoot camera is so smart that the only decisions I have had to make are compositional decisions.  There is a lot that I do that I don’t have to think about because it is “instinctive”.  And there is the added benefit of using a digital camera with no expense associated with the number of photos I take, so that if necessary, I can take a zillion photos on the high probability that at least one will turn out good.  But I have been finding limitations to the “automatic” settings, so now I am learning about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.  I have dusted off my tripod, which has hardly been used because it is difficult to deploy from a canoe or stand-up paddleboard, my usual vehicles for nature photography.  The class I am taking is at Northwest Florida State College, at the South Walton Center.  Like many colleges, they offer non-credit adult-education classes for a nominal fee.  My class is taught by Jackie Ward, a professional photographer (www.jacquelinewardimages.com).  This week’s homework was to produce a few images of the same subject, keeping all camera settings the same and varying only the aperture, without too much concern for the excellence of the composition.  I photographed the little metal birds that are fastened onto my porch railing.  The first image below, focusing on the third bird, was shot with a larger aperture, so it has less depth of field than the second, and more bokeh (new fancy photographer’s word, meaning blur).  The bokeh is most obvious in the background trees.  Now I have a new problem:  I don’t have as many options as I would like, so now I need a better camera!

ISO 100 f/3.2
ISO 100 f/8

 

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Early Morning Light

 
Yesterday I went hiking shortly after sunrise with my friend Jane Burns, who is a fine art photographer.  The sun was rising between the foggy tree trunks, just above the brush, as we hiked the groomed trail through the state forest just north of Grayton Beach State Park.  Jane and I both pulled our cameras out of our packs, to capture the first light.  We continued to have jaw-dropping views at every turn of the trail.  It was the “golden hour” following sunrise, when shadows are long and the light is warm and diffused.  A light fog exaggerated the effect, rendering every scene an ethereal fairy-scape.  The first photo above was taken during those first minutes on the trail.
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The light changed quickly as the sun came up, and the fog began lifting.  Wonderful atmospheric  effects played over the landscape as the cooler, shaded areas maintained a misty quality, and open areas became more clear.  Normally I carry my bigger camera, but since we were going to hike 8 or 9 miles, I opted to bring only my iPhone 5S.  Halfway into the hike, Jane showed me the High Definition function, where the camera shoots two versions, one normal, and one HDR.  The higher quality is obvious on some even when viewed on the camera’s small screen.

As the morning progressed, the fall light became crisper, and the colors became more vibrant.  Dew remained in the shady areas, and in one section, a carpet of bejeweled, glittering moss underfoot.  Both Jane and I tried to photograph the shimmering drops on the moss, but the camera didn’t pick them up.  A tightly focused video would have been beautiful.

I stopped taking so many pictures after the first hour or so.  The light was still beautiful, the sky a crystal clear blue and the colors so typical of autumn.  I still felt like I was walking through a scenic calendar.  But I was so very spoiled by the wealth of imagery during that first hour, the golden hour, that I just enjoyed the views for the rest of the hike.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Scenes of South Walton, 2012

A local group focused on environmental and growth issues in the mostly rural community where I live, in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, is called South Walton Community Council.  Missioned especially with protection of our fabulously beautiful, pristine environment, relative to development and community growth issues, SWCC also puts on a Back-to-Nature Festival every fall.  Last year for the first time, Hidden Lantern Gallery partnered with SWCC to produce a juried art show called Scenes of South Walton, comprised of art inspire by the local natural setting.

Aster Reflected

I decided to enter a few of my photographs this year, and I was pleased to receive notice that my work had been accepted.  I usually shoot photography for fun, for Facebook, and because I love the process of capturing images.  If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you know that I also shoot for Leslie Kolovich of The Stand Up Paddle Radio Show, but working for her is so much fun I hardly call it work.

Being a visual artist, of course, line, shape, size, position, color, texture, and density, all of the elements of composition, and repetition, harmony, and unity, the principles of composition, factor into my artistic evaluation of any of my photographs.  Ultimately, though, my chief interest in my own photography, is the play of light over the forms.  I rarely do much with post-processing, primarily enjoying the act of shooting the photo much more than the infinite tweaking that can happen after the image is on the computer.

Tree Frog

To my pleasant surprise, one of my pieces was selected for Honorable Mention.  There were works by 12 other artists and photographers, all of whom I consider my superiors in craftsmanship, experience, and sheer expression.  But my pieces do have impact, and the piece I submitted that received the Honorable Mention, “Aster Reflected“, also has enough of an abstract element to be just a little confusing.  It is a photo of an aster hanging out over the creek, and perfectly reflected in the creek.  Actually, the reflection is a more distinct image of the flower than the actual flower, which is over-exposed.  The confusion comes from there being such a perfect reflection of the aster, stems, and leaves, in contrast to some pine straw and debris that is just floating on the surface without any reflection.  When you look at it, you have to stop to figure out why there isn’t a double image of everything, how there could be just a single image, unreflected, mixed in with all the double imagery of the reflections.

Water Lily

The juror, KC Williams, didn’t mention the composition when she talked about my photograph, but instead discussed how it clearly represented an image that could be found in South Walton.  She actually talked quite a bit about each piece she that she had chosen, and also about the superb craftsmanship and artistic expression of all of the works in the show, but when mine was announced, I was smiling too wide to be able to listen.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

Juror KC Williams is Director of the Galleries at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, and she along with the Director of the South Walton Center of NWFSC, Julie Terrell, facilitate the exhibition of Cultural Arts Alliance members works through the A+Art Committee, on which I serve as co-chairman.

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The Artist’s Way Workshop

I am two weeks into a workshop on  The Artist’s Way:  A Spiritual Guide to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron.  Joyce Hogue is leading the workshop for our group of 10 or 12 women, at A. Wickey Studio-Gallery in Rosemary Beach, Florida.  I bought the book eons ago, when it first came out, and I started it several times, but my interest always waned after not even one week of studying it by myself.  One of the exercises in the first chapter, which is to continue I guess for the rest of your life, is to write 3 pages about anything, every morning.  I found out in this workshop that I don’t have to use a big notebook, so I can finish my 3 pages inside ½ hour every day.  I think using a fullsize notebook is what cost me my enthusiasm in previous attempts.  I expect the energy of the group to keep me focused.

I am more in touch with my desire to produce art now, and I expect The Artist’s Way workshop to reinforce the direction I am heading.  Anyone following my blog knows that I am not a “blocked” artist, that I have been producing quite a bit of art over the past few years, especially considering that I also have a full-time job and several part-time jobs.  Also I have been much more involved in my local art community, serving on the Board of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County (CAA), and working especially hard on CAA’s A+Art Committee.

One of my part-time jobs has been to occasionally produce photographic images for Leslie Kolovich, host of  The Stand Up Paddle Radio Show, a blog with online podcasts of her interviews of interesting people and events connected by the theme of standup paddling.  She also writes “On the Road with Leslie” segments for the Standup Journal, where some of my photography has illustrated her adventures.

So it should not be not a surprise that I took my cameras with me on my “artist date”, an exercise assigned by the Artist’s Way workshop.  I got up early last Saturday, and launched my canoe in the bayou behind my house, and paddled out on the glassy-calm Choctawhatchee Bay at sunrise.  The buoys marking the Intracoastal Waterway captured me, and my half-hour artists date turned into two hours.  I played with some of my photos right there and then, in my canoe, using an application on my iPhone.  I’ve included a couple in this post.  Most of my photography is done with my Sony Cybershot which I dearly love, but which requires a computer for any post-processing.

My practice of photography is paying off.  Next week is the opening of  “Scenes of South Walton“, a juried art exhibit at Hidden Lantern Gallery in Rosemary Beach, Florida, and I am one of the 12 artists selected for the show.  I submitted 3 photographic images.  All of the art is nature-inspired from South Walton County, Florida, my home community, as a part of the Back-to-Nature Festival hosted by South Walton Community Council.  The show opens Thursday, 10/18/12, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

The next night, 10/19/12, A+Art’s “Top of the Class” juried art show opens at Northwest Florida State College, in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.  I served as show coordinator with the Co-Chair of the A+Art Committee, Miffie Hollyday, for the production of this show.  Every member of the committee provides invaluable assistance, and I’m excited to be a part of this team effort.  Working behind the scenes certainly has given me an appreciation for the process.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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A Little Fun with Effects

Today is the last day of the month, and the second full moon of the month, which is called a Blue Moon.  There have been a number of fancy moon images marking the occasion on the web, but I haven’t learned how to overlay images yet, so my Blue Moon is just the moon.   I managed a fairly well-focused hand-held shot of the moon by setting my automatic digital camera on Twilight, and then I “cooled” the image to a nice blue using the “Cooler” tool in iPhoto Effects.  I re-sized it and added the watermark using Photo Bucket.  As always, the watermark will be removed for purchased prints.

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Paying Attention

Mirrored Bay

Every day I cross the Clyde Wells Bridge over the Choctawhatchee Bay as I travel US 331 from my home to my office.  Though I strive for present moment awareness, I often find I am focused on planning my workday, and I cross the bridge without even noticing whether the water is choppy or calm.  But sometimes the view is so spectacular that I not only cannot ignore it, I am compelled to pull off the road and try to capture it with my camera. Sometimes I share the images on facebook.  The mirrored image at right was especially popular with my friends.

The following series was on just such a day.  The atmosphere near the ground was heavy, but backlit by the sun so that the mist created lighter values behind the successive layers of receding land masses.  I have added some obnoxious watermarks to the downsized images posted here, but have preserved the originals in full resolution, without watermark, in case someone wants to purchase a print.

Most of my images are available for purchase.  Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

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Photography Image Manipulation

Most of my photography is composed in the viewfinder or on the LCD before I ever even shoot the picture, by where I position myself and how I frame the picture.  Since most of my work is nature photography, rarely do I ever do much more in post processing than just crop and increase the brightness a little or saturate the colors just a bit.  I am cautious not to alter the lighting or the color in an image very much for fear of making it look “wrong”.  I don’t want the viewer to immediately describe the photograph as “Photoshopped.”

But there are many photography applications which anyone can use, and they are fun to play with.  I use two on my iPhone, for fun and experimentation.  One is called Value Viewer, and it is a useful tool for seeing a value study of a composition before shooting it or painting it.  It also enables a lot of manipulation to create images that are strikingly different from the original.  The image below, left, is a dramatic piece in 3 values.  Beside it is the original rather non-descript photo of some random grasses beside the Bay.  Unfortunately, for some viewing this post on their smart-phones, one of the images may be appearing sideways, which makes it difficult to compare the two.  I don’t know how to correct that for phone viewing.

Final Image

Original Image

The image below left is enhanced using the iPhone app called Snapseed.  The original shot is on the right.  I sharpened it as far as the app would take it, and also increased the “drama” a little, to produce the image on the left.

In my last blog entry,  I griped about people “borrowing” some of my images from facebook and uploading them as their own, so you will see that I am experimenting with watermarking my finished pieces that are posted here on my art blog.  Should someone wish to purchase the image, the original of course does not have the watermark.  I am using the iPhone app Impression for simple watermarking.

Final Image

Original Image

 

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Getting My Work Pinched on Facebook

I know I really need to watermark my photography and art that I am posting on the internet, even including work posted here on my blog.  I was reminded of that last week when graphic artist and printer Alison Bailey, of ABC Creations, warned us about internet theft of our art.    She was the guest speaker at a Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County luncheon.  She showed us the excellent quality of reproductions she was able to produce using images posted by local artists on their websites.

A myriad of software is available to create watermarks, and I have purchased several applications, including an app for my iPhone, called Impression.  But I have been pretty lazy about watermarking, and have also become more prolific with uploading my photography, especially to Facebook.  So as my work gets “borrowed”, I am starting to learn my lesson.

Facebook provides a “sharing” tool whereby you can re-post someone else’s image while still giving them credit for their original.  And when you upload an image, Facebook asks you if the image belongs to you.  When someone downloads an image and then re-uploads it as their own, they are going beyond bad manners — they actually are violating copyright law.  All images remain the copyrighted property of the photographer, even if they are publicly displayed.

A watermark identifies my work as mine, via text written on the image, so that someone intent on “borrowing” it would have to do some editing in order to pass it off as their own.  Some artists plaster their watermark right through the center of the image, but that completely ruins the image for ordinary viewing as far as I am concerned.  I prefer a less obtrusive watermark on one of the corners of the image, even though it can more easily be edited out.  As an example, my sunset image at upper left is watermarked on the lower right corner of the image.  I don’t normally include the date or copyright symbol like I did here, but my practice of using one is still evolving.

Below you see an image I shot at a painting demonstration, which I posted on Facebook as a part of a series on the workshop.  And below that you see my same image posted on a local merchant’s Facebook page, appearing to be the property of the local merchant, having been downloaded and re-uploaded without giving me credit.  Facebook’s simple “share” function would have left my name attached, as it should be.  It actually is a little more work to download and then re-upload a photo than it is to simply “share” it, so it is pretty obvious that it is intentional when someone does this.  If I give an image away, that is my choice, but if someone “borrows” it without my permission, especially when they are using it to promote their merchandise, then it is theft.  A merchant pays the photographer when photos are used for marketing purposes.  Then the image belongs to the merchant.  Without compensation, the photographer or artist’s name must remain associated with the photograph or art on Facebook, which by definition is a social (sharing) network.  As a point of clarification, my website is not social media, so art and photography posted on my website is not permitted to be reproduced or re-posted without my express permission.

My name attached to my work is my own advertising.  So yes, I am learning my lesson, that I need to watermark my photography.

 

 

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Photography in British Columbia, Canada

I haven’t posted anything for a couple of weeks.  Lest my readers think I have fallen off the earth, I haven’t, and here’s proof, a photo of me right now, working on my computer, early in the day, still in my PJ’s.   2500 miles away from my home, I am in British Columbia shooting photography and video for friend and fellow stand-up paddler, Leslie Kolovich, the host and producer of The Stand Up Paddle Radio Show, a collection of podcasts discussing everything and anything about the sport and recreation of stand-up paddling.

Leslie’s website, www.supradioshow.com, also includes a a number of posts On the Road, some of which are elaborated in much more detail in a series titled “On the Road with Leslie” for the Standup Journal, the premier quarterly magazine of standup paddling.  We are in British Columbia to produce another article in that series.

We were invited to British Columbia by fellow SUP (Stand-Up Paddle) enthusiast and environmental activist Bob Purdy, who made a commitment more than a year-and-a-half ago to paddle every day to support his personal connection to the planet, in his mission to encourage us all to change the way we live.  He is convinced, and I concur, that if we all commit to changing even just one thing in our lives, that together we will create a wave of change for the betterment of the planet.  I am starting with a small change in my life, and that is to actually use all of the re-usable water containers I have collected over the years.  Who knows why my willing spirit ever bought them but never actually used them.  You may think this is an inconsequential change, but it is my commitment, to reduce my consumption of products packaged in plastic.  When we each make a change, and really commit to it, the ripple effect will become a tide.

Today is Day 538 of Bob’s daily paddling.  Five days ago, on June 16, 2012, World Paddle for the Planet Day, he completed the extraordinary feat of paddling the entire 80-mile length of Okanagan Lake without ever getting off his SUP  board.  It took him 19 hours, and was grueling towards the end.  The weather changed from glassy calm to 2-foot swells, from tailwinds to flat calm to headwinds, throughout the day.  Bob paddled through rain, wind, and sun.  We took an extra paddle board on the support boat where I rode, armed with my cameras.  I was honored to paddle with Bob for 12 miles in the middle of the day.  Leslie started the day beside him, paddling an amazing 20 miles, 16 of it continuously, more than double the distance of our training paddles at home in Florida.  Other paddlers joined in for sections of Bob’s paddle, and he also paddled alone for a good bit of it, with the support boat far enough behind that he could not hear us.

Bob’s purpose in this momentous effort was to call attention to his mission and thereby to attract participation in his effort to create a wave of change for the betterment of the earth.   His mantra is “One person can make a difference.  STAND UP and be that person.”  He supports the David Suzuki Foundation, and all donations he collects go to the foundation to support their mission to protect the diversity of nature and our quality of life, now and for the future, directed to Canadians but of universal message.   As a side note, David Suzuki’s daughter was the opening speaker at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro yesterday.

As guests of Bob Purdy and his life partner, Sharon, we have been wined and dined in a non-stop paddle-tour of the beautiful southern part of the province of British Columbia.  For my part, the kind of nature photography I have been doing here is right up my alley as far as my personal preference.  And the human interest angle is perfect for “On the Road with Leslie”.  Below is my unedited video for part of a segment on one of our cultural tours, First Nations Cree Russell Podgurny, singing for us in a pit house at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos, British Columbia.  Leslie posted this clip on www.supradioshow.com as a prequel to upcoming posts.  It is an honor and a thrill to provide photography and videography for the SUP Radio Show.

Special thank you to Leslie Kolovich and Bob Purdy for assistance with this post.