Gentle giants - irish wolfhounds

Here is an update, this is how far I got with the second dog.

Then, I have to ask those who follow this wip, once again to be patient.

I also have to patient with myself - my goal was to finish this drawing this week - but will not happen:

I have to work on something else. I don't know how long it will take, but I will finish this up later.

Poll result - collecting art

About a year ago I posted a poll on my blog, to get some idea about collecting artwork. The result can be seen in the right colomn. Link

The response was not overwhelming - 9 people replied, with 14 votes.

4 votes was for collecting original artwork. 3 votes for collecting prints and 2 for collecting artcards. 2 votes wanted to collect art and 3 didn't have interest.

Er du dyreven, se mine print

Som dyreven, er du sikkert glad for at se på kunst med dyremotiver. Billeder man synes om, har stor værdi og skaber gode følelser.

Du har nu mulighed for at købe flere af mine trykte billeder, direkte fra mig.

Jeg kan leverere billeder i størrelsen A4 (21x29,7 cm) af sorthvide motiver.

Motiverne er trykt på kraftigt kunstpapir, syrefrit og langtidsholdbart. Hæng dog aldrig hverken originaler eller aftryk direkte i sollys.

Motiverne ses i Imagekind-shoppen.

Prisen er inkl. porto kr. 125. Sendes i kraftigt rør.

For øvrige print - farver og størrelser henvises til Imagekind-shoppen.

For spørgsmål, bestilling evt. kontakt mig på min kontaktformular, nederst i venstre kolonne, på min website .

(copyright linjen er ikke på print)

Gentle giants - irish wolfhounds

Starting on dog at the right side. Still a long way.

I am almost certain at this point, that they will be standing on stones.

A question of personal style

The question of personal style when being an artist, has - if not haunted - then bothered me for a long period.

I've read in several places that you have to develop a distinct style, which I think means a personal style, that will naturally grow as you work. And I agree on that, but percieved it in a wrong way.

That statement together with the statement of the importance of not confusing gallery-owners/dealers/judges etc by showing them different styles, which will lead them to not take your art in, as they don't see a connected body of work, got me depressed. At the same time, I understood the importance of clients/people wanting to be able to recognize the specific artist.

Now - this has droven me nuts, and I've read other skilled artists having the same thoughts as me.
I know many artists works only in one media all the time, and that's great - for them. They must have another temper than me.
I am the kind of artist that like to explore, experiment, try out, draw and paint all kinds of ways and with different medias. Of cause, I also want to have an income from my art, I do not neglect the business side of it. Neither do I neglect the importance of practice!

I got a bit mad, that the persons selling our art, would at the same time supress some of the very characteristics of being an artistic soul. I do not mean that artists working in the same media and concept are not artistic souls. But some fit better into boxes than others. Or they find satisfaction staying in the same line of work.

What I didn't see clearly - being in the stage of "not knowing what you don't know" - was that I can be as free and experimental as I want, and still fit into the artworlds boxes.

The problem was, that I believed that I should see my one and only personal style, throughout all my artwork - despite technique, motif, media etc. And I got confused, resignedly and not able to do so.

When the thing is, that I do have personal style in those media, techniques etc. where I have worked the most. And in time I will develop more personal style in the medias still a bit unknown to me.

But the style are not similar across media.

So to satisfie the artworld box, I should just think of showing only one media at the same presentation - or perhaps two, but be clear about my awareness of this representing two different sides of me.

It was such a liberation to accept that ! And I hope fellow artists, struggling with the same issues, will find this to be true for them too.

Our artistic soul gains nothing from restrictions or tight boxes. Then we produce art only having business in mind. I am sure art gains from visions, goal-setting, experiments, working-hours and much more.

Follow your hearth and dreams. Happy drawing and painting!

Prints and gifts - it's 3 months to Christmas

Christmas is closer than you think, christmas gifts soon to be found. What's better than finding unique gifts for your family and friends.

For your animal loving friends and relatives, I have many wonderful prints to choose from. It is safe and easy to buy.

Take a look here and discover my best animal-artwork.

Bought framed it is ready to hang and spread joy and pleasure at your friends homes.

New prints just added.

Other gifts are easy to collect in my a-zoo cafe-press shop. Let your friends show their love of animals by many different items.

Gentle giants - irish wolfhounds

Finally the first wolfhound stands on 4 paws!

Right now, I am rethinking the ground. I did have gravel in mind, but I might change it for large stones... well, I can think about it all through rendering the second dog :)

Gentle giants - irish wolfhounds

An update.

Sketches

A couple of small sketches of chickens and a birdie. I wanted to do some colorful abstractive figures.

They are just made to try out the Caran d'Ache neocolor I crayons. The crayons mix very well and I love the bright colors.

Gentle giants - irish wolfhounds

An update.

This kind of fur takes patience! - but so far one leg finished.

Gentle giants - irish wolfhounds

Here is a pic of the drawing, taken a few steps away from the easel it's placed upon.

Sometimes when drawing very detailed you need to stand away from the drawing, and take another kind of look.

When people are looking at finished artwork, they don't look at it close-up - indeed they might want to to see some details - but in general the drawing should look great from the distance of from a rooms length to the position people stand away from the wall.

Gentle giants - Irish wolfhound

I am finally back to my irish wolfhound drawing. It took 2 cats, 3 chameleons, 1 dog and one unfinished drawing to get back!

Grey cat in the window

This is the final drawing from the thumbnail-sketch shown earlier.

The title turned out very straightforward: "Grey cat in the window". Beside doing a decorative piece with all the beautiful colors, I also wanted - subtly - to express thoughts about the cats life.

I hope you enjoy it.

Not visible on www

Nowadays the internet is such an integrated part of our lives. As many artists I spend hours looking, commenting, writing on/about stuff related to art. I like to blog, edit my homepage, follow forums, read articles, follow artists etc.

And I just hate it when people (artist') dissapear from www. To me, it's almost like they died. Sadly this could be a reason of cause, but then you trace a single comment or whatever that proves they are not. But apart from that - they are not visible on www.

I've just discovered favored artist no. 7 or so removed all homepages, blogs, memberships and artwork from the web. A couple still have some membership or whatever, last updated 2008!

Peoples lives can take all kinds of directions of cause, but I cannot imagine myself skip art ever, and these people are certainly skilled and good artists. Now being on www is not a must for being a succesfull, productive artist (sometimes www takes too much time from artwork for me, I know!), but to me it feels like they simply gave up art.

What happens?