Professional Framing & Happy Thanksgiving!

Ever since I started to attend conventions and exhibit original artwork in a public settings, I have always viewed framing as an integral part of promoting and advertising the quality of my work. In the context of exhibition, the frame is a physical extension of the artwork and for that reason I have always placed the greatest care and consideration in how I mat and frame my works. A cheap frame signals to a collector and client a lack of care and quality, both in the art and in the artist. Much in the same way a bargain off the shelf black portfolio belittles the art work within, spending money on a quality presentation means your viewers will immediately assess your work at a much higher thresh hold, regardless of what lies within.


It is easy to say, 'spend what ever it takes' as it is your career on the line. But when you are a freelance artist, watching budgets and considering multiple venues of self promotion, landing a high quality presentation at an affordable price is what being a wise business person is all about.

For years I have used various framers, from my local shop, Make a Frame, on Atlantic Avenue which provides me with exceptional service at a great price and hundreds of medium quality 'chop' frames to choose from, and a few high end custom cornered. The trip is all the more enjoyable since I have gotten to know the owners and workers there , Thorin, Matt and Tom, and they go out of their way to help me solve my problems. I turn to them again and again for a quick job and affordable solution.

But there are times when I want to 'spend what ever it takes', and it is then I hit the subway to Long Island City and step into Gala Frames. The way you find this place is walk down the dead end street, look over your shoulder for the Men in Black, take the elevator to the blast door on the 4th floor, and the step inside to...paradise. And I mean paradise. This place is one of those hidden gems of New York City. I first heard about Gala Frames from a friend, Dan Adel, who was exhibiting at Arcadia Gallery. I loved Dan's frames and had been looking for a way to 'step' up my display quality and to select a few special frames from pieces I wanted for our home. I was very impressed the first time I visited the shop. The owner, Nilda, has been in business for decades, she knows her stuff in and out and I now trust her with my finest works. When you get a Gala Frame, you get museum quality. Period.

But what is even more inpressive is that
these frames are affordable! No, they are not your $200-400 frame, which will land you a very nice one at most any standard shop, but for $700-3,000 you can have a frame meant for a Rembrandt that you would pay $6000-$15,000+ for in any other custom shop. Admittedly I do not go around popping all my works into these kinds of frames and prices, especially when they need to travel back and forth from conventions. But when I want a piece to sing, know that it will hang in my home for decades, or is such a beautiful image that I feel the frame will add exceptional value, then I turn to Nilda.


Contemplating how to choose from all those frame styles on the walls will fry your artistic circuits. They are so beautiful, well crafted and just gorgeous. They make you want to paint, just so you can buy a frame to hang on your wall. The desire to own one of these frames must be the same drive that others get when they start collecting original art. You want to treasure it. Nilda's frames are based upon many styles found on masterpieces in museums: from Dutch black massives, to Napoleonic golds, Art nouveau curves, and contemporary geometrics. The photographs of her place here only scratch the surface of what Nilda offers, and each frame is custom built for your art. Find a style you like, but not the right color? Nilda can change that. Right style but not wide enough? Nilda can expand it. Got a budget? Nilda can work it out. With so many options, you will walk away content every time.

If you ever have need of exceptional quality, the quick subway ride one stop into Queens is worth the trip. I guarantee it. And as a special bonus Nilda and Adam (her assistant) are some of the nicest people to work with!

Gala Frames

42-24 Orchard Street, Suite 4A • Long Island City, NY 11101
Phone: 718/706-0007 • Fax: 718/706-0731

email: Nilda@galaframe.com

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy and enjoyable Thanksgiving!



Donato

Read More

A Note on What´s Important

By Jesper Ejsing

I was drunk yesterday. Here in Denmark we have a tradition that goes like this: when Christmas time is around the corner, we get all together for Christmas lunches (meaning lots of old-fashioned greasy, meaty dishes and lots of alcohol) Well; this particular lunch happened to be with the guys at the studio, present and old members. Soon I got into a discussion about what is important in doing art as a pro. You know: one of those drunken discussions ending with 2 guys leaning into each-other drooling: “ I love you man”.

But before we got to that part, we talked about our attitude towards the process of creating images. And it got me thinking of what I think is important when I do my thing...

I have one rule. If I do not like a drawing, why would anybody else?

Above anything I try to satisfy myself first... yeah yeah, artistically, I mean.

I am not in this to make money or to just get the work approved. I always want to create the best painting of my life every time I start thumb sketching a new piece.

Needless to say, this raises the bar a bit, and, needless to say, it seldom happens.

But my point is, I try to make it happen. My wife hates when I say it. Usually this scene plays out when I come home from a day of sketching, the painting still in its infancy and the thumb so unclear that it could be anything, but none the less I have a great feeling about it and blurt out: “I think this will be my best painting ever”. That is when my wife sighs, knowing full well that I will be back the next day, moody as hell, tormented with insecurity and self loathing, like a helpless child, at how unable I am to reach that formidable picture I had in my head from the thumb the day before.

It is a bumpy road.

It is rollercoaster of ups and mostly downs, but in the end it is worth the struggle.

When a painting does succeed and when it is better than anything I have ever done before, it is worth every drop of salty tears and thrashed sketches. The feeling you get from taking a step up the ladder of skill or achievement is the best.

But it only happens approximately 3 times a year. Mostly the result is just decent.

Just decent doesn´t teach you anything. It is not worse or better than the last piece. Just decent is OK. But having set out to do The Best Ever, the just decent is a major disappointment.

Still, disappointments make me want to try even harder next time. “

THIS will be the best ever...”

and there we go again.

Here are a couple of paintings that I remember to have given me the feeling of success and grandeur. Some of them might seem like the rest of the fantasy stuff I constantly blotch out like a slow color printer from the 80s´, but to me these are examples of pieces where I dared something new and difficult and got it right, where the process taught me a lot and helped define where I wanted to go as an artist.

Read More

Painting a Series

-By Dan dos Santos



One of the great things about painting the covers to Science-Fiction and Fantasy novels, is that the genre tends to reap a lot of sequels and trilogies. The benefit of this is two-fold. Not only does this mean more reliable commissions (as an AD will rarely swap artists mid-series), but it also presents the Artist with an opportunity to tell a better story.



An Author has hundreds of pages in which to capture the essence of their character. The Illustrator on the other hand has just one shot. Unless, of course, the book is part of a larger series. Then we are presented with a chance to flesh out a character further than we could on just a single cover. With the initial cover behind us, and a hopefully faithful readership already established, the hero doesn't have to be 'super-bad-ass' or 'in-your-face' on every subsequent cover. Instead, you can explore a vulnerable side to them, or maybe an introspective moment, or perhaps a subtle eroticism. For me, this is one of my favorite aspects of illustration... developing a character, and not just a generic pin-up.

A series also presents the Artist with a chance to create a 'theme', a visual thread that ties the whole group together. In the 'Mercy Thompson' series shown above, the tattoos are the most obvious theme. But there are other themes that are more subtle. For instance, the character always appears 'head to knee', and is always the exact same size on each cover. This may not be important as far as any individual book in the series is concerned, but when you see them all together on a shelf, it adds a great sense of cohesiveness.



Another series that I work on is the 'Willow Tate' novels, written by Celia Jerome. In the story, 'Trolls in the Hamptons', Willow is a female comic book artist. Uncannily, whatever she draws seems to come to life. It is not made clear if she herself is causing these things to happen, or if her drawings are simply precognitive.



It's a really interesting story, and it presented me with some wonderful opportunities to experiment quite a bit. I have always had a real passion for comic books, so I couldn't pass up the chance to incorporate a looser, more comic-book style into the image. Of course, that's a bit difficult to do in paint, so I also experimented with splicing my traditional oil painting with a digital background. In the image to the right, the background was drawn and colored entirely in Photoshop. The woman and her desk are all painted in oils. Having painted her on a pale yellow background, it was very easy to then splice the two images together.



It's still to be seen whether or not the cover is successful, since the book just went on sale this month. But the publisher has contracted several more novels regardless, and has already commissioned me to do the second in the series. Again, we decided to maintain an obvious theme, and use the comic-book style background a motif throughout the whole series.



The second novel is titled 'Night Mares in the Hamptons'. Given the nature of the title, I thought it appropriate to make the image a bit darker than the first, both literally and figuratively. The palette is much darker in value and cooler in tone, creating a more dangerous atmosphere. The actual content is also a bit darker. The heroine is not smiling like in the first cover, the fire seems threatening, the man is not in a romantic embrace this time, and the mares are obviously in distress. All of these elements together help create a coherent mood, and provide a stark contrast to the fist novel. Meanwhile, the stylized background, and narrative nods like the pendant, ensure the series holds together.

Read More

Rule of Thumb

Occasionally I'm asked for advice from artists fresh to the field (some of you who know me far too well are shaking your heads and muttering, "Those poor, misguided boobs"). Though I'm happy to blather about any number of things, I'm always quick to point out that a career in art isn't the same as baking a cake. There's no set recipe which, if you follow it carefully, will yield the same results for everyone. What works for one person sometimes turns out to be a mistake for another.

Of course, when talking about portfolios and presentations I'm hard-pressed to come up with a more clear-cut set of guidelines than Irene Gallo shared a few years back on her Art Department blog: rock-solid advice that all artists can benefit from by reading. Donato just made a good post on Muddy Colors about self-promotion and gaining confidence through experience, Greg Spalenka is doing great work with his Artist As Brand seminars, and we're getting all manner of wonderful tips and insights both here and in other art-centric blogs on the Web (including, naturally, Jim Gurney's outstanding features).

So—as a Rule of Thumb—I tend to keep my advice fairly general, based largely on what I've learned and seen through the years. And, as with all such "rules", these aren't really rules, aren't strictly accurate, and aren't exactly reliable for every situation. But what do a advise? Well, here are a few...

Don't Put Down Other Artist's Work

It only makes you look (1) envious, (2) boorish, (3) stupid, and, in general, (4) bad. Or some combination of the four. Sure, when you're sitting with friends having beers, you can talk shop and express your honest opinions—but never forget that not everyone has the same taste in art (including your friends) and art you deem dreck others might truly love. Especially don't forget that you never know who knows who and who is likely to spread your comments—and not in a way that's to your advantage. Now, if Artist Winsor Colors ran off with your significant other or stiffed you for their half of the rent or mashed your dog on the highway, feel free to point out their failings to someone that will lend a sympathetic ear. But, as a fellow illustrator, leave their work out of it. And never—never—under any circumstances talk smack about a fellow artist to your clients or art director friends: messing with another's livelihood, even in the most cursory way, is a big no-no. Frazetta had a falling out with Al Capp after ghosting Li'l Abner for him for some years and even decades later after Capp had died he observed the fine line between personal and professional. "Capp was a miserable S.O.B.," Frank told me, "but he was quite the artist. I'd never knock his talent."

Never Stop Learning

Never miss an opportunity to watch other artists paint or listen to them talk. Never stop going to galleries and museums or miss an opportunity to see touring exhibits. Never stop looking at books or the published works of your peers to keep abreast, not only of what's being done, but of what's proving popular in the marketplace. Never stop looking at work that falls outside your area of interest. Never miss an opportunity to socialize with your fellow creatives, at conventions or openings or...wherever. (Good art can't grow in a vacuum.) Never become complacent with your skill level; always try to improve. Always—always—press the envelope. We get letters from James Bama after every edition of Spectrum comes out and he ends them almost the same way each time: "Every morning I get up and paint in the hopes of one day being as good an artist as I hope to be." Words to live by.

Your Employer/Client Isn't Your Friend

It's good to socialize with art directors and games producers and film makers and, well, everybody. But...decisions get made for any number of reasons, sometimes by people who aren't your friends, but whom your friendly art director reports to. Try to keep a wall between, again, the personal and professional. Do your work, do it on time and to the specifications of the brief, don't ask for favors based on your personal relationship, and demand the same treatment from the employer/client. If you work for a corporation don't expect them to be your family (much as they try to cultivate that impression): you're there to do a job and their obligation is to pay you for doing it. An epiphany came to me during a performance review many years back when I was a senior designer for Hallmark Cards: I was pointing out all of the extra work I had done, all of the extra time I had put in, all of the contributions I had been making above-and-beyond, all the money my art and ideas were making for them, all because I cared and we were "family" and I wanted what was best for the company (and, of course, I wanted to get a promotion in the process). And my supervisor at the time (who I had known for something like 15 years) looked at me blandly and said, "So who asked you to?" It was the proverbial splash of cold water in my face. No one had "asked" me: it was my mistake, not theirs (though they were perfectly delighted to take the "freebies," at least until I started asking for something in return). Hallmark stopped getting the "extras" from me from that point on—and they paid me quite well just the same. Not that I didn't do the work with any less care, not that I approached the job with any less professionalism, but I definitely had a much more realistic view of how things worked corporately from that moment on. I had let the lines blur between personal and professional—and I never made that mistake again.

Don't Work On Spec

That's not the same as doing pro-bono or charity work, both of which can and should be done as you deem appropriate. No, what I'm talking about is when someone has a simply TERRIFIC idea—but no money—and wants the artist to work some magic for them so the entrepreneur will have something to show prospective suckers...er...investors to make the project a reality. These sorts of pie-in-the-sky projects almost never come to fruition or, if they—miracle-of-miracles—do, they virtually never turn into a paycheck for the artist. Work for pay, get everything in writing, and don't fall prey to the shysters. Likewise, if someone wants to use your art, demand compensation of some sort. Harlan Ellison (viewable here) in an absolutely magnificent outburst in Dreams With Sharp Teeth, talks about paying the writer: it goes the same for artists.

There's more, naturally: as I say, I can blather on and on. Let me know if you'd like more.

Read More

The Mud of Venus, Part 2

"I can paint you the skin of Venus with mud, provided you let me surround it as I will."

- Eugene Delacroix

In the first part of posting on this comment by Delacroix I dealt with the technical aspects of his work, this second part will deal with the business.

A highly successful artists like Eugene Delacroix did not achieve such broad recognition and respect for his art merely by being a great oil painter. Rather it is a combination of strong business sense joined with great technical virtuosity which produces the super stars of any art genre. These traits may be found in such showmans as Picasso, Dali and Rubens, or the trusted and respected court painters of Holbein and Velazquez or the independent artist like Rembrandt. Managing studio time and driving the wheels of self promotion is what is needed by an artist to push their art into the limelight. Far too often inexperienced artists assume that studio merit will be enough to guarantee a successful career.

Part of Delacroix's success was derived from his ability to sway clients away from other choices and into his studio. I cannot imagine the competitive nature to art as

changed much over the centuries as thousands of talented artists constantly vie for the limited commissions which exist in the marketplace today . Sheer bravado, like the statement above, was more an advertisement for commissions than a call challenging his painting skills. As I have mentioned, Delacroix already knew that painting flesh required creating it out of 'mud', he was stating the obvious to any painter in earshot. But to the layman or art collector the skills of such a gifted artist were like that of a magician, and to raise such a public challenge must have seemed highly risky to the reputation if failure resulted and utterly amazing if the challenge was fulfilled. Makes me think of Houdini's public feats, putting his life at risk and going far beyond what many artists would do for their work. But that is another level. The dice were loaded by Delacroix - and created a wonderfully imbalanced state to enter into negotiations with a client!

It was taken me years to place myself in such a state where the balance is weighted in my favor. This past weekend I attended IlluxCon, a science fiction and fantasy convention devoted to the art of the genre and heavily attended by professionals in the industry including artists, art directors, collectors and serious fans. And just like Delacroix, I stacked the deck in my favor. Not by proclaiming my technical virtuosity, but by showcasing some of my best oil paintings and drawings in beautiful frames, and by presenting lectures in a structure I was both familiar with and knowledgeable about. I even went out on a limb trying out a new lecture on Abstraction in Realism, thinking I was attempting new territory. It was a hit, judging not by my accounts, but by the numerous artists and viewers who approached me later in the weekend to comment on how informative and entertaining it was. But when I presented the same lecture in my class room at the School of Visual Arts on Monday, I realized that nearly 1/3 of the lecture was material I had already covered for years!

Performing live demonstrations, lecturing, socializing at events and displaying art requires experience to make it appear smooth and effortless. The ease in which I negotiate a seminar or demonstration was not an attribute of the young artist I was 15 years ago! Far and away it was not! I hated attending openings at the Society of Illustrators, not knowing what to say or how to break the ice. And my live demonstrations? Ouch! head down, quiet as a lamb, thinking that making a nice piece of art was more important than communicating my process. There is a place for perfection and that resides in the studio, not in a one hour demo. Build upon your strengths in what ever art you undertake, and use that to leverage projects, clients and commissions to break into new territory. Your strengths might not only be a part of your technical ability, but might exhibit themselves through various social and business interactions experienced during the development of your career.

The earlier you begin to tackle aspects of self-promotion, the quicker your confidence and clarity will mature in their delivery. And the sooner you can stack the deck in your favor...

Donato Giancola

Read More

I had the pleasure of meeting Jordu Schell the other day as he gave a wonderful presentation of his work, the field of special effects, as well as a sculpting demo to a massive audience At Rhode Island School of Design. I must confess I am a huge fan of Jordu, I love sculpting, love to see sculpture, love to learn the process (I am the annoying guy asking silly questions in the back) and I love to sculpt. Sculpting helps me understand the shapes and volumes that I am trying to get across in 2d form. Sculpting is hands on experience in structure, how forms turn in space, why edges might be sharp or soft in perception, how gravity effects form, how.... but I digress this is an introduction to the wonderful and amazing world of Jordu Schell, a charmer, an eccentric and a wildly passionate artist.

Check out his site for lots and lots of cool works as well as info about his classes.

http://www.schellstudio.com/

Read More

"The Vanishing" photo ref

I was asked about my photo ref from my previous post. As you can see the figure in my final is fairly different. But the ref allows me to flesh out the piece and add in details and information that I think improve the piece greatly. I could try and make it all up from my head but even then I'm just referencing the vague images in my memory of things I've actually seen. Even if you have photographic memory I'm doubtful you would have seen the exact forms you need with the exact garments, color, lighting etc.



The trick for me is to maintain the stylization and freshness in my sketch and wrap the information provided by the photos around it. Sometimes my sketches are so far off in anatomy I make some minor changes. I always sketch, design, compose out of my head. This way I'm not bound to anything that may limit my design. When major issues are solved and I feel the piece is ready. I then take my ref trying to match up the model to the figure in my sketches. I hear from a lot of aspiring artists that they are looking online for the "perfect" ref. I feel this is very limiting artistically. And to be quite honest if you spent the time setting up a photo shoot(who doesn't own a digital camera nowadays?) you would save yourself some time and have ref that is exactly what you need. The more I take ref, the more I study it and try to understand it, ie folds, drapery etc. the more I can file away into my visual vocab. Over time I become more familiar with the subjects and when I do need to make some of it up out of my head I can do so with a little more confidence.



Another quick point before I forget. I think when you are constantly making things up out of your head they tend to repeat themselves. The same folds, the same hand at the same angle. You get the picture. A lot of cool unexpected things can happen in your photo ref. This too helps to keep your work fresh.



Here's another example of some of my previous photo ref.

Read More