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Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, from where I have noticed a flurry of articles lately, regarding painting from photos.  I have determined that I need to get my two cents worth in.  Here goes.

 

I am sure I've shared with you my passion for sidewalk paintings as in:  painting the people I see on the sidewalks of my life.  People watchers everywhere, know what I mean when I say that the most interesting people are NOT posed, posers, or anything closely related. 

 

I know painters who work incredibly fast, but no one can paint fast enough to catch someone riding down the sidewalk on their bicycle.  Or someone chasing their dog down the block.  Or someone pushing their baby down the walk in the stroller.  Are there some of you at this very moment saying "duh, why would she want to paint THAT?"  "Look a little closer", I reply.   There is a wonderful story of everyday life and everyday people wrapped up in each of those opportunities.  "Too good to pass up", I say.

 

And so I stay at the ready with my camera.  Yes, the sketch book is there, too, but admittedly, I am slow in that department.  I keep at it, assuming that if I sketch enough, one of these days, I will suddenly be quick.  It hasn't happened yet.

 

The problems other artists cite for working from photos are valid and concerning.  Keeping the photo from overpowering and killing off any hopes of a good composition requires some extra measures.  Here's where I start:

 

1.  Assume that absolutely every photo you take is NOT good enough to be a painting exactly as it comes from the camera.  Let me

re-emphasize that:  No picture comes from your camera void of possible improvements.  Put it into your photo editing program, and PLAN on changing something. 

 

2.  Cameras and sketchbooks should be worked simultaneously.  Just because you caught it with the camera and uploaded it on the computer, doesn't mean you can stand at the easel and draw it on a canvas.  Cover some paper with drawings of what you caught with the camera, altered with the computer.  In other words you need to get to know your subject on a first name basis.  With a pencil.  (or a close facsimile thereof)

 

3.  Again, with the photos, look until you find that something.  The photo tells it like the camera saw it, but surely you are smarter than the camera.  Here's your chance to say "okay, but I remember this" or "I think this person was way more important, the camera really screwed up giving equal importance to the other guy".  Okay let's spread that one out a bit:

 

a.  Crop the photo in a bunch of different ways, line up your crops in a row, run a slide show of them, which one do you like the best?  I think most paintings from photos, that leave you wishing for better, get to that place, because the artist doesn't narrow things down enough.  Ask yourself how much can you eliminate, and still tell the story?  Just because the photo shows you three trees doesn't mean you have to paint each and every one of them.

    

b.  Three very important little words:  Black.  And.  White.  Everybody's photo program has that option, right?  Use it.  A black and white photo removes the impact of color and leaves the values large and in charge. 

 

c.  I find it helpful to have a bazillion photos of the subject.  Well, maybe not a bazillion, but at least more than one.  (thank God for making the guy who invented digital cameras)  What you can't see in one photo is hopefully found in the second, third or twenty-fourth of the subject.  I did a commission earlier this spring for three paintings.  I had 24 photos to work from--it was great.

 

Is it easier to paint  a person from the model than a photo?  Oh yeah.  But a posed model doesn't have much of a story to tell.  And I do love a good story.  And so I paint people out in the world, moving down the sidewalks.  Beaches.  Parks.  Whatever.  The story is key.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Later, Cooper

 

 

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, where today in our region, everyone and their dog is a biker.  Why you ask?  It is the last full week in July which can mean only one thing:  it's RAGBRAI time.

 

  

 

Surely you've heard of it.  The (Des Moines) Register Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa---RAGBRAI.  And this year is number XXXIX, that's 39 to the rest of you.  Literally thousands of people make the trek, dipping their back wheel in the Missouri River, peddling across the state, and then dipping their front wheel in the Mississippi River.  If you really want the stats, it is ridiculously easy to google, so go for it.

 

  

 

But you saw that title, Sag Wagons, And the Unscheduled Artist, and that's where this conversation needs to head.  Do I need to explain to you that sag wagons are an integral part of RAGBRAI?  Sag wagons are often vehicles formerly employed as school buses, now painted over with team or club colors and names (with no finesse, I might add )  Anyway, their job is to haul camping equipment, clean clothes, spare bike parts, and occasionally, a cyclist who has "sagged" or worn out to the point that they can't complete the day's miles.  Heavy sigh.

 

This year's RAGBRAI route came very close to Jefferson, enough so, that the sag wagons used US 30, which of course, runs right along the edge of our fair city.  I needed to make a trip into Ames (Iowa) today which took me down US 30 also.  Here's the amazing thing I realized:

 

Sag wagons and unscheduled artists might have something in common. 

 

Hunh??  Yup, you heard me.  As I was driving, in the short distance of 27 miles, I saw three sag wagons parked along side the road, in the obvious throes of mechanical duress.  But of course.  They only come out of hiding from that back lot, one, maybe two times a year, just for events like RAGBRAI.  The rest of the year they are parked and forgotten.  But come the last full weekend of July, these behemoths are expected to go the distance.  Clear across the state of Iowa.  Don't you see the similarity???  The unscheduled artist, the painter who paints occasionally, who paints when the mood strikes--kind of like a sag wagon that is expected to perform when it only gets to "practice" a couple times each year. 

 

 

So the moral of the story is clear, is it not?  To be able to expect results you have to put in the time.  Every now and then doesn't cut it.  To go the distance requires steady practice.  And not just on the last full weekend of July.

 

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

 

Did you catch that title?  Fulcrum Of A Moment.  I keep a word starter inspiration file that I cut and paste to, when something attracts me.

 

Who wrote that phrase?  I wish I knew/could remember/had cut and pasted the author as well.  Heavy sigh.  I can not/did not.  May we discuss it today anyway?

 

Fulcrum of a moment.  Can't you just picture it??  Talking about hanging in the balance, whoa, something so pendulous that a fraction of a second is all that matters.  Something that's there one minute, and moved forward to a new place in the next.

 

I felt that fulcrum of a moment last week. I was riding my bicycle to the post office.  It was a hot summer day, the kind that makes you feel glad to be outside.  A woman and her maybe-three year old were pushing a stroller down the side-walk.  The little girl had pony tails sticking out from her head in all directions with admirable flair.  She was wearing a dress that was the perfect color of blue for a sunny summer day.  And the bottom part of it was a short pleated skirt that moved in perfect time with her pony tails as she hopped down the sidewalk next to her Mama and their baby-in-the-stroller.

 

There I was on my bicycle, no camera, no sketchbook, NOTHING to record ANYTHING with.  And then the moment tipped on its fulcrum and was gone.  Around the corner of the post office and out of sight. 

 

People ask if I paint from my imagination.  No, I don't.  I paint what I see out on the sidewalks of the world.  Real people, living real lives, a moment at a time.  I always have reference material--photos and sketches--by the easel  when I'm working on a painting.  That little girl and her mama gave me nothing but a quick glimpse.  A fulcrum of a moment.  The little girl hops through my mental image bank on a regular basis lately.  Is it enough?  Can I paint them just from that?  It seems that I am going to have to try.

 

The fulcrum of a moment.  Attempting to decode the essence of it and put it on a canvas.  To attempt it is as crazy as it is addictive.  Still, paint on, paint on...

 

 

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

 

This is a location specific post for art lovers in the Cedar Falls region of Iowa.

 

Art fair directors keep a "wait list" of artists who juried just below the cut off line, and I was on one of those lists.  That's now ancient history, because I have just become an official exhibitor at the College Hill Art Festival.  Someone cancelled, and I got the call.  Yay! 

 

Cedar Falls is a wonderful college town, University Of Northern Iowa, and I am looking forward to showing my paintings there.  The schedule is as follows:

Friday July 15 2011, 12-8PM

Saturday July 16 2011 10-5PM

 

The street address in Cedar Falls is 915 west 23rd Street, just across from the Henry W. Myrtle Gallery.

 

  This painting has just returned home from the Dundee Gallery in Omaha (yes, it makes me happy to see it in person again!) and I will be ever so pleased to show it to you in Cedar Falls this weekend.

 

Later, Cooper

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings, 

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, where today, due to circumstances beyond my control, and even though it's a Tuesday, today is run-day.  Get out there and go.  A couple of miles down the bicycle trail and all of that.

 

A couple of months ago I wrote a post that started out with running.  post  It focused on getting the timing right, in light of school traffic.  Well, school is currently on vacation, but the timing of the run is still pretty darn important, only now we have to blame it on the weather people, as they predict their heat&humidity lofty highs for Iowa July.

 

And what does all of that mean??  A change up.  My running shoes met the trail about an hour earlier than the usual. Beat that heat and humidity.  If it's too blazing hot to run in the sun, then change it up and run an hour earlier.  Don't keep going with the same-old, same-old.  Different conditions demand a different schedule.

 

And you know by reading this blog in the past, that I'm required :) to relate that to art/painting somehow, don't you?  Change up. 

 

How about change up and the art fair artist-exhibitor?   It's not hard to find a cluster of artists at an art fair, before opening on the second day, lamenting the economy and how that makes it so hard to sell a painting.  Aren't they ripe for a change-up?  How many of them are looking for it, with both eyes open?  And how many of them are just doing it the way they've always done it?

 

I know I've aired this belief before, but it's been brought to my attention, that it needs to be thrown out their again:  there are too many art fairs that are the same-old, same-old.  Nothing's been done to improve or grow (except for the price!) or enhance.  And year after year, the same artists keep buying an exhibit space, hoping to sell a bunch of art.  Even though they didn't last year.  Or the year before.  Where's the change-up?

 

It seems logical for art fair directors to keep going with a show as long as artists will buy that 10 x 10 chunk of week end real estate.  And that puts the ball in our court as artists.  Do we really need THAT art fair?  Maybe when applications open for next time, we should just ignore it.  Will we keep paying $595 for that 100 square feet?  Hmm.  Maybe it's time for a change-up. 

 

Later, Cooper

 

 

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio Jefferson, Iowa, where the quarterly (sort of) newsletter is being formed.  Sounds sculptural, doesn't it?  Aach!  Forget that. 

 

The in-process newsletter will absolutely be about paintings, with a little summer holiday music accompaniment to move it along.

 

The sign-up click is right over there on the left menu bar, or can be accessed by clicking on this link:

 

http://cooper.fineartstudioonline.com/email-newsletter

 

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

 

It's sign-the-painting-day, in red, of course.

 

And this must be why I paint people.  Walkin' With Her Honey--you sure couldn't name a landscape painting that, and probably not a still life.  If you're crazy enough :) to paint abstracts, I suppose you could put that title on one of them.  But it wouldn't tell the story like it does on this one, would it?

 

There's not a man, woman or child among us that doesn't watch the people living life around us.  And sometimes as we people-watch, we happen upon a simple yet perfect little story like this one.  And I'm glad I got to paint it.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  And here's the painting:

 

  Walkin' With Her Honey, an acrylic painting on a perfect little 12 x 12 inch canvas.  And yes, I just put it in my portfolio,  in case you happen to need a "zoom-able" view.

 

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.  Let's talk about the calendar today. 

 

After all, timing is everything.  Don't you just hate that phrase?  Timing is everything.   Most people say it to you with sympathy on their faces, because you've made a timing erred mistake.  Or when an opportunity is lost because the perfect time has already slipped by.  There are those people who make it their living to forecast the perfect time to get something done.  Sigh--even they are not 100% perfect.

 

A little while ago there was an article in the FAV newsletter about Ebay.  Be it noted here I am not an Ebay fan, but allow that for some people, it works.  That's not the point however, rather the comment included in the letter:

 

"When the art goes off is extremely important. You don’t want the auction to end Christmas Day or on any other big holidays. Use your brain."

 

Did not that author just say, "timing is everything"?  I was reminded of this paragraph when I opened the stats page of my website today.  All of you who have FASO artist websites know that little bar graph that pops up there, right?  It shows how many people have visited your website today, or yesterday, or whenever.

 

Aaaach!  Flat lined!  My personal bar graph is apparently glued to the bottom.  What does that tell us?  NO BODY and NO ONE (except for me) is sitting in front of their computer this holiday weekend.  Okay, actually,  there were a whopping seven there yesterday, and eight today, but trust me when I tell you that doesn't give your bar graph any perceptible motion.

 

Now then, what's the lesson to take away and retain?  That brilliantly written blog post article, or that beautifully crafted newsletter?  DON'T send them at holiday time.  There's no accounting for all of your reader's travel plans and vacation times, but by looking at the calendar and using your brain, it's pretty simple to forecast that your bar graph will be flat lined for a day or two.  In essence, your very important information will fall on deaf ears.  Unopened ears, errr, emails, I mean.  And those same people probably won't have time for you the first day back from holiday either.  Really, everyone is playing catch up and it's way too easy to file things away for reading later.  A later that often never happens.

 

So if you are one of those crazy seven or eight, sitting in front of the machine, designing that newsletter, when everyone else is out on holiday, look at your calendar.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Schedule that article/newsletter to go when there's actually someone there to receive it. 

 

 Note:  I'm writing this today, but you won't get a chance to read it for a day or so.  And were the fireworks in your town spectacular?! 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

 

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

 

Two paintings.  And the details about their current status.

 

 

 

And the scoop:  http://www.linncreekartsfestival.com/Raffle.html

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Later, Cooper