(this article was contributed by Jade)

A had promised us an “entertaining” games session, and the air was filled with anticipation of perhaps, having to flex our muscles a wee bit more in the outdoors. There was that hint that it was an “outdoors” thing…

Well, surprise us he did, with an “outdoor” activity that involved each of us, being given our set of brushes, a wooden artist palette, a mini stand, canvas and also an acrylic paint set to paint! There was also a special “guide” on painting, provided by Artmakr, which guided one step by step on how to paint.

The theme was “Rivers”, inspired by a bible verse Ps 46:4

“OK folks! We are going to do painting, and the theme is rivers. Rivers can mean a lot of things, it could mean, your source of life, what makes you happy, rivers of joy, your roots..it is up to you how you want to define the meaning of rivers,” said A, our official facilitator for the painting session.

A round of gasp and uncertainty in the form of “ aiyah, how to paint? How ah? What to paint ah? I haven’t done this for a long time!” filled the air. Being in unfamiliar territory especially in the area of self expression wasn’t something that our group of everyday consultants, financial experts, accountant, IT Whizz and oil and gas expert was used to. We were all more used to solving “corporate or work related” matters.

It took us all a while to get going. But eventually, the ideas flowed; the lightly marked sketches by pencil gave way to brilliant colours decorating the canvas. Each of us had a river to paint. Each of us had a way of expressing our river – whether it was a decision to make in our life, a crossroad at the river, or perhaps, our source of life or depicting our joy in colours!

This was coupled with perfect weather, cool breeze blowing in the background, making the newspapers we had lined on the round marbled tables rustle, the scenery which was awash in lush green, giving us a sense of being calm and serene – and most of all, the crisp cool air, which set our minds energized to think through the meaning of a “river”.

It was an informal, get to know you session as well, with each of us, revealing a side of us which was very much uninhibited – the artistic side of each of us revealed. Some of us drew, bold, strong colours; whilst some of us dotted our paintings with brilliant colours, while others drew very symmetrical sceneries.

The daylight slowly began to fade, as we sat painting in the dark, with the intensity of the wind blowing even harder, and our bodies chilled to the bone.

“Hey, we have to go in to eat dinner already. S has prepared a real feast for us. Steamboat!” said our chief coordinator for the trip, SC.

And so, we quickly wrapped up, not too happy that we couldn’t improve further on each of our masterpiece, but happy enough to know that – we painted. Yes we did! We were painters in our own right! And gasps of admiration flowed, with each painting being a beautiful piece of work!

We headed into the warm enclave of the Johore bungalow at Fraser’s Hill, and sat down to tuck into homemade Hainanese steamboat. For RM 32.00 per person, we had a feast! It was homemade, Yong tau foo, bitter gourd, brinjal and taufoo stuffed with fish cake, limitless amounts of vegetable, mee hoon, sliced beef, chicken, fish and eggs to be dipped and boiled in herbal soup. Delicious is the word! And in the cold, cool air of Frasers, steamboat just topped our night like a well placed cherry! Plus, we didn’t have to do the dishes, so we were very happy campers.

Soon after dinner, whilst some went off to shower, others couldn’t help but to touch up on their master piece. Took out our wooden palletes dipped our brushes into water, and started improving on our masterpiece. I revamped my “bunch of flowers” into fields of flowers. A gave my river a bit of a punch, with more texture, and revamped the mountains. Though, my sun still looked like Armageddon instead of a normal setting sun!

All in all, it was a fun time, with parting words from L, our headmaster saying “Aiyah. The painting session not enough lar. Need to do more. It’s like, you eat one seed of durian, it’s so fleshy and yummy, and then you stop. You can’t even go to the next one. It’s like – just not ‘shiok’”.

And so, the first unofficial informal artmakr weekend, with the theme of “river”, was a really good experience for all of us, novices. We are all professionals by day, but yearn to be artists, with many hidden talents when given the chance to. It’s amazing to see the creativity and the hidden talents that each of us have.

Written by soyabeanmilk, a participant in the first ever artmakr weekend LIVE!

(visit alisha)

Just as there is a sort of prestige and heritage attached to ‘Oil Painting’. Acrylic paintings tend to be associated with ‘cutting edge, contemporary, high culture’.

Perhaps this has something to do with Acrylics being the ‘New kid in town’ when it comes to art materials. While oil paints have served everyone from Renaissance masters to the bohemian working class. Acrylics have served Pop Artist and Soccer Moms.

The History of oil paints span some 500 years.

The History of acrylic, span 50.

Yet there is all this argument and comparisons about which is a better medium. The reason for this could be, that Acrylic paints, in a skilled hand , and with the correct accessories can imitate even the finest Oil Painting. And do so more quickly and with less fuss.

And there’s more.

Apart from being able to mimic an Oil Painting, it can just as easily mimic the effects of watercolours and gouache. Then there is the exciting prospect of producing all these varying painting effects on a single canvas.

Many would argue that Acrylics are the future of painting. Or the High Tech paint.

What are acrylics?

“Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with the other media.” -Wikipedia

  It takes decades or longer to develop a complete understanding of what the acrylic colours could or couldn’t do. So, compared to other mediums, we’re still early in the learning curve with acrylic colors.

 7 Key Differences between Oil Paints and Acrylics

• Let’s start with the obvious, Oil paints are soluble with oil, and acrylics are soluble with water.
• Oil paint dries slowly (some say too slowly) , Acrylic paint dries quickly.
• Oil paint produce deeper more natural hues, Acrylics produce brighter and wider ranges of colour
• Oil paints have been pushed to their limits, producing thousands of masterpieces. Acrylic has been shown to be able to match the capabilities of oil paints, but only a handful of masterpieces in acrylic exist.
• Acrylic cleans up easier than oil paints.
• Acrylics appear more stable than oil paints. Whereas oil paints normally turn yellow as they age/dry(oxidize) acrylic paints, at least in the 50 years since their invention, have not yellowed, cracked, or altered.

Face value.

The perceived value  of an oil painting is generally higher than that of an acrylic painting. Although I suspect this has more to do with History than Merit. It would seem that the opportunity to make a dent in the history of oil painting is limited. But to achieve ’success’ as an acrylic painter is a potentiality.

Onward

The difficult thing about being the new guy, in this case ‘Acrylic’. Is that comparisons will be made before distinctions. And it is almost difficult to talk about Acrylics without mentioning oil paints or water colour.

But difficult as it is, for the next few post I intend to discuss Acrylics on it’s own merits compared only to itself. I will discuss:

• The Strengths of Acrylics as a medium
• Overcoming Limitations (of Acrylic Paints)
• Acrylic painting Techniques
• Masterpieces in Acrylic Painting

along with a few other surprises.

But don’t go away just yet, please share your experience with acrylic paintings, either as an audience or an artist. We value your comments!

To easily receive updates on new Artmakr articles subscribe to Artmakr

For a chance of your acrylic painting to be featured in these articles submit your artwork to ArtmakrWeekend .

Can Art History be simple? Not likely. Yet these series of artworks by “the wine guy” manages to very humorously update and explain art history through a series of artworks in language that art geeks and tech geeks can understand.

See ART HISTORY FOR GEEKS flickr set

 Here are 3 of my favourites:

1. pwned
2. scream
3. God

 (I heard about this from 2 blogs that I follow bad language and Drawn , apparently alot of people are talking about this)

 Question:If this series of photos were in an art book, would they be considered art? and if so, what kind of art?

 Artwork copyright: Debbie Lincoln

We’ve BEEN TAGGED~By Jennifer Young

Here are the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

 Five funky facts about me:

1. When a top art gallery snubbed my work, I almost stopped painting altogether.
2. This is the first time I’ve ever been tagged.
3. I am Chinese, but I don’t speak Chinese and I’m not from China
4. I have a personal blog
5. I try to wake up at 5 am every day. I don’t always succeed.

The 5 links I tagged below are artist (not all painters) I follow via rss.

• Edward B. Gordon
• Dave Walker
• Ashley Cecil
• Luis Colan
• Laurelines

 It’s really enjoyable to share some of the art I love. Share yours?

And even if you are not on the list, but reading this consider yourself tagged, and start sharing art!

This post  is part of a series called ‘Critiques On The Painting a Day Movement’.  By Elijah. You will find more of his excellent art critiques at Art&Critique.com

Where there is light, there is shadow

We all know how daily and frequent painting can benefit artists. It helps to develop commitment and self-discipline, it can prompt the systematic study of one particular theme, it can prove to be financially profitable and, it generally teaches about the sacrifices involved in constant creative labor. However, each one of these advantageous consequences withholds a darker side, which could potentially become more and more dominant and eventually transform the advantage into a disadvantage.

In this series of articles I would like to focus on the pitfalls of the One Painting a Day movement, and hopefully mark them as thought provoking — and avoidable.

The nature of success

Apparently, it may take up to a year, and usually less, to make it in the Internet art world. This is an incredibly short amount of time, especially considering that it will often take decades for an artist to build him or herself a reputation in the real world. It seems that it is easier, at least for now, to launch a painting career on the web. Basically, if you make good art and market it effectively, sooner or later you will begin to sell, receive compliments and even invitations to real tangible galleries — all of the indications of success.

Once achieved, it can inspire, but it can also dishearten. It may sound odd, but some artists may have real difficulties coping with success. It may pose psychological barriers that arise just as high as those of its opposite, the failure. Many artists are sensitive souls by nature, and sudden massive recognition may stifle a blooming career just as a continuous lack of attention would. But this doesn’t mean that one should avoid success: on the contrary, one only needs to keep the sense of proportion — something that shouldn’t be a problem for a painter.

What’s next?

I would like to take a closer look at those obstacles and suggest strategies on how to break them down, or walk around them, when possible. We will discuss the trickiness of financial success, the problems involved in mastering and exploiting a single niche, the addictiveness of One Painting a Day, the compatibility of the practice with the artist’s individuality, and so on and so forth. We will examine known examples not only from painting, but also from other creative spheres, because, after all, all artists make up a single great community.

Although not a painter myself, as an aspiring art critic and writer I draw from personal experience in relation to these fields. To familiarize myself with the topic, I took part in a “One Short Story a Day” initiative, which although lasted only for a week, gave me insight, perspective and a general deeper understanding of the subject. I hope that my detachment from painting will bring a touch of objectivity and dispassionate credibility to the reached conclusions. Though, I will be the first to admit, passion is what drives us all in this complicated thing called “art.”

A band of some of 12 Daily Painters, have formed a website: Dailypaintworks.com

This Band of artist include some of my favourite daily painters, as well as some painters, that I am happy to discover for the very first time! The artist featured are:

MICHAEL NAPLES - Solid Brushwork And Fresh Colours
 
SARAH WIMPERIS - Masterful Water Colours
 
KARIN JURICK - Rich Colour and Intriguing Subjects
 
PETER YESIS -Tender Oilpaintings
 
JUSTIN CLAYTON- Bright Light , Subtle Brilliance
 
TOM BROWN - Masterclass in simplicity
 
DARREN MAURER - Time Stopping
 
J MATT MILLER - Lively Still Life
 
QIANG HUANG - Light, Shadow and Colour
 
CAROL MARINE - Strong Brushwork
 
AARON LIFFERTH - Designer Paintings
 
BELINDA DEL PESCO - Dreamlike Paintings

THE SITE

Think of the new site, as a gallery of like minded Daily Painters. Latest works are available for sale, and the site also includes videos and workshops by the artist. There are other ‘Daily Painting Guilds’ like these, and each seem to have a subtly different collection of artist, while some artist appear in more than 1 group.

I look forward to following the progress of these individual Artist, as well as the progress of the various groups.

Here is a short list of Daily Painter Groups:

The Daily Painters Guild

Daily Painters Webring

Daily Painters Dot Com

and now

Daily Paint Works

Do YOU belong to a daily painter group? Give us a shout out in the comments!

+In Depth Art Critique +Themed Online Art Exhibit +A different kind of daily painter

Consider this an invitation… 

Click Here to Learn More!

photo credit: brian

     IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS (something like three or four years ago), we wrote news releases in hopes that they’d get us a big splash in a metropolitan newspaper or get picked up by the evening news. In other words, we wrote news releases for the traditional press. Notice that I didn’t call them press releases.  That’s because these days, news releases are dispersed on the Internet to an audience that is much larger than the traditional press.    These days, you write news releases for the world. Better put, you write news releases for your target audience.

Have an exhibit? Write a news release.

Receive an award? Write a news release.

Tackling a juicy topic on your blog that’s generating discussion? Write a news release.

Teaching a class? Write a news release.

Giving a gallery talk? Write a news release.

The format of the news release goes something like this.

1. Your name and contact information at the top. Always provide a phone number and email address and be prepared to respond to requests immediately. When your release piques the interest of the traditional press, they’ll want action ASAP.

2. News releases used to announce FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, but I understand this is no longer necessary when you’re immediately releasing them online.

3. A catchy heading with appropriate keywords and phrases that will get picked up by the search engines. Don’t be afraid to make it longer and spill over into a second row. You can even do a subheading if you find need for it. The subheading is an additional place for your keywords and phrases.

4. The body of the release (under the heading/subheading) opens with your location and date (called the dateline)–e.g. “Golden, Colorado, June 1, 2007–” and then launches into the text right after the “–”. It answers the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How that readers will be looking for. Those answers no longer have to be outlined in the first paragraph. Instead, you want to use that first paragraph to grab attention. Because releases are now online, they no longer need to be double-spaced nor do they need to stay on a single page. Aiming for 500 words or less might be a good goal for your release.

5. Signify the completion of your news release by typing “–END–” at the very bottom

Copyright 2007 Alyson B. Stanfield. Alyson takes the mystery out of marketing your art and making more money as an artist. Visit http://www.ArtBizCoach.com to get articles just like this one delivered to your inbox.

Everyone has heard of Leonardo DaVinci. But have any of you heard of M. Vänçi Stirnemann. By the end of this article you will have, but first:

What is an ATC?

In a nutshell:

• ATC’s are original works of art 2.5″x3.5″, or 64×89mm in size.
• ATC’s mustn’t be sold, only exchanged
• ATC’s include on their reverse sides: the name, contact information, title of the ATC and number.
• ATC’s may be: originals, editions or part of a series.

Artist Trading Cards are individual art miniatures made for trading amongst artist, and more recently, artmakers of various disciplines. Artist have always been producing miniature work for self promotion. The current, “Daily Painting Movement” is part of that trend.

But where Daily Paintings bridge the gap between between collector and artist. Artist Trading Cards, bridge the gap between one artist and the next. This is the main goal of the ATC . And It is the reason why Artist Trading Cards are never meant for sale. The only way to get one, is to trade one of your own with an artist.

This are generally done in ‘Trading Sessions’. Where artist meet each other face to face.

“Artist Trading Cards are typically made on a base of card stock. However, ATCs have been created on metal, stiffened fabric, plastic, clay, balsa wood, leather, embroidery canvas, acetate, heavy watercolor paper, and many other materials. The art on the cards can be done in any media: textile arts, pencil, watercolor, acrylic, oil, collage, scratch board, mixed media, assemblage, digital art, calligraphy, beadwork, rubber stamps, carved soft block stamps, pen and ink, colored pencil, airbrush, and many others – anything artists use.” -Wikipedia

Which brings us to the question, who the heck is M. Vänçi Stirnemann?

Who is M. Vänçi Stirnemann?

Vanci Stirnemann, began trading sessions in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1997, and popularized ATCs via the Internet.

A little history…
“The original concept was developed by Swiss artist m. vanci stirnemann, who wanted to make a catalogue to document his activities with other artists. Because the cost of printing a catalogue in hockey-card format was prohibitive, he decided in 1996 to produce 1,200 cards by hand.

This led to the first exhibition of Artist Trading Cards in April 1997. During the show, visitors were encouraged to produce their own cards to trade with Stirnemann and others at the closing reception. From then on, a Trading Session has taken place at INK.art&text on the last Saturday of every month. And other places around the world.” -RAG

Here is more history . And here is some of Stirnemann’s artwork

Originals, Editions or part of a Series.

The main thrust of ATC’s is meeting other artist, and exchanging ideas, this is why on the back of each ATC the artist includes: name, contact information, title of the ATC and number (1/8, 2/8…) if it’s part of an edition.

By definition ATCs are made in limited numbers, often no more than one of a kind. Unique ATCs are called originals; sets of identical ATCs are called editions and are numbered; sets of ATCs that are based on one theme but that are different are called series.

Everyone loves trading cards, Make your own ATC’s and start trading!

Artmakr, will continue to post articles to help you make and trade ATC’s, as well as other bits of information for artist. Don’t want to miss out? Subscribe to the feed: It’s free