Robert Reeves: Oil & Dust

Not a ton of time to philosophize today, but I wrote a couple of posts back about my bestest and oldest friends, Michael and Joshi came to visit me in the studio. Michael posted these in-studio pics on his FaceBook page and I really enjoyed them so I had to share.

These are in no particular order, but you may notice in some of the shots some of the dark red under-painting I used. I think that red added a real dimension to the layers of color that went over it. Even in the finished piece it peeks out here and there. I wanted it to add vibrancy.

As always, Dancing is not only allowed in the studio… it’s encouraged.
Here is my friend, Joshi showing us the finer points of The Skank.

Gotta Run!

cheers,

R

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Once upon a time (very recently) I made the statement, “Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, but it sure beats starving”. I meant it when I said it. I still believe it, but I took one hell of a bite this week. Lately I’ve been getting approached to book showings for future dates; many of them in 2010. I don’t have much in the way of formal bookings for this year, but next year’s filling up quickly. Seems odd, huh? I took a BIG bite this week, however, by booking a show at the Iowa State University Memorial Union Art Gallery. Very cool. Turns out they’ll be needing about 25 pieces for the show! Whoa… 25 paintings. That’s huge for me. Thankfully the show’s not until December 2010. It’ll be a challenge, I’m always up for a challenge. I wonder if I could convince some of my clients to loan me a few, select pieces. That might help.
Just “thinking” out loud there.
digress digress digress…

On a couple of other fronts I managed to get that painting of the late Steb’s Amusements in Cedar Falls scanned. A little color correction and I’ll be ready to make the announcement that prints are available. I’ll post a link here and my other points of contact (FaceBook, Twitter, etc) when that time comes. Won’t be long.

Also I’ve finished my latest painting. I think this is a land-speed record for me. At least for a piece this size (36″x48″). I’m very happy with the way it came out. The piece overall is very loose and energetic. I’ve been using it as practice for the Des Moines Art Festival Mural project. I needed to loosen up. To make sure that every inch of the image had something going on. Not a necessity for all of my work, but for that project I’ve got instructions to make sure that there’s a lot of visual activity. When the piece is enlarged the little things will become very visible: the funky, little edges of brush strokes, slight variations of color, etc. I think this latest piece has been a good exercise in working towards that, AND in working with more immediacy. It’s going to a good temporary home at ArtDive so hopefully you can go see it and pieces by many other great Iowa artists in person.

Gotta run. A beautiful Saturday awaits.

Cheers,

R

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For the last 4 and a 1/2 days I’ve been in the splendid company of two of my best friends, Joshi and Michael. During that time I got the extreme pleasure of having them spend some time with me in the studio. I don’t normally have a lot of visitors, but this kindof hearkened back to a time (before small children) when I painted in my living room. I was used to having a lot of company while I painted back then. It was nice doing that again.

The whole scene gave me a much-needed dose of inspiration. I started a piece late last week out of an overpowering desire to paint. I wanted to do something relatively quickly. Keep it loose. Keep it energetic. I started playing with some deep red underpainting and was able to start working over the top of it. Having them for company kept things very lively. A definite energy carry-over into my painting. I was bolder with the brushes and actively avoided impulses to “clean” things up. Actually I’m going back over a bit of the street where the colors started to muddy. They’ve lost their energy and that’s no good.

We also took some time last night to gather some more pics for the DSM Art Festival project. I’d never played with the panoramic settings before, but it fits the required ratio for the painting so well… I don’t know why I didn’t do it before. I got some shots I really enjoy. I’ll put them up in another post. They need editing and I don’t have the time or energy. I sincerely hope they go over well.

Time for horizontality. Even insomniacs need their rest.

Cheers,

R

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I swear I’m trying to write more than once per week. It seems like I’ve been doing nothing but running around. Plus I’m exhausted most nights lately. Dozing off while hanging out with my boys or while relaxing after they go to bed. I guess it’s a sign and I should try to figure out what it means

Seriously tho I’m kindof in a holding pattern on the DSM Art Festival project. We’ve made some adjustments to the process of image-approval. I need to take some new pics as a result, but the weather hasn’t been cooperating. I was out of town all weekend and when I came home, ready to work, I got 3 days of rain and fog followed by a 30degree drop in temperature. Not conducive to taking panoramic shots of the City of Des Moines.

So in the meantime I’ve been restoring a piece that belongs to a friend of mine. He used to smoke… a lot, and this piece has spent its entire life in the room where he did most of his smoking. I’ve taken a heavy layer of tar off the surface by gently brush-washing areas with turpentine-substitute and then taking it up with a lint-free rag. I was amazed at how much better it looked just after that. Also the painting had never been varnished so I gave it a couple coats. I like to do a coat of Damar (glossy) followed by a coat of matte varnish. When I’ve got it I use EcoHouse-brand Damar. It’s orange-based so it doesn’t smell as badly as regular Damar, AND it doesn’t yellow. EcoHouse doesn’t make a matte-finish product yet sadly so I’ve been using a Miameri product. At any rate it looks gorgeous now. The colors are revitalized and the finish is like muted glass.
(the image here is an old pic. I’ll post a new one when the scan’s done)

Truth be told; although I do regularly varnish “matured” pieces for clients at no charge (I feel that it’s part of the process of creating the work) I’m doing this one with an alterior motive in mind. I recently posted this piece on a bulletin board for a group of people who are fans of a Cedar Falls, IA landmark, Steb’s Amusements. The building no longer exists. It was foolishly replaced by a big, empty hole. The response to the piece was very positive and some people have requested prints. My friend was wary of giving up this painting at all until I offered to give it a good cleaning and varnish. I’d have done it anyway, but the potential to make a little profit never hurts. As a matter of fact I delivered it to my local hi-rez scan provider today. Tomorrow I’ll have the painting along with a TIFF file in excess of 300mb which can be color-corrected and made into giclees.

The moral of this story: Never write off your old work. You never know when it may find a new audience.

Cheers,

R

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The kids are in bed. I’m NOT doing any laundry tonight. Just wanted to take a moment to do a few things for myself: catch up on emails, return a few calls, and practice guitar. I’m just learning how to play and this time I’m going to stick with it… I swear. The nice thing about it this go ’round is that there’s the miracle of the internet. Last time I tried was before my first home PC. Now if there’s a song I want to try I just Google the tab and go. I think that’s going to be a big help. Being able to apply what I’m learning and see progress gives me a purpose. It gives me a point of focus. I’m not outwardly such a goal-oriented person, but having them does help. Plus it’s on my Bucket List. Ain’t gettin’ any younger.

Speaking of that there’s this DSM Art Festival project I’ve been working on. Because of the nature of my contract I have to submit images for the approval process weekly. That means I’ve got to be able to come up with quick studies that not only explore the composition, but the color and treatment of the medium as well. It’s giving me a chance to pull out the charcoal and pastels. Oil pastels too. They’re great for the quick study. The only downside that I can see is that now everything in my studio is covered in a fine layer of chalk dust… as well as the inside of my head. Have you ever blown your nose and had it come out Magenta? Talk about a nasty shock. Ah, the joys of creating.

But I digress… you know this.

The connection I was making is that this project is giving me focus, but there’s another side to it. I feel a little like I’m floundering in it. There’s some difficulty in coming up with an image that people will immediately relate to as “Des Moines” while keeping certain contraints in mind. I’ve been feeling a little stuck trying to come up with just the right shot. You think you’ve got the one only to hear that it won’t do for one reason or another. So you do it again. Simple. Coming up with and iconic image is a tall order though and everyone’s got their opinions. So the best thing to do at this time in my opinion is to forget the subtext of the project and just work.
So there you go.

Cheers,

R

ps: If you’re in Des Moines this weekend make sure to check out the opening of the Instinct Gallery Saturday night. Good stuff. A definite must-see.

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It’s been a good week. I’ve been spending my studio time wisely, but I need to be writing more. Seems like I when I have the time to write I never feel like it (read as: tired, uninspired, inebriated). I need to carry over my studio work ethic into my writing. I never was much of a writer to begin with so it’s been hard at times keeping up a good momentum/schedule. But this has become important not just to me but to my work as well. Seems like it’s less real if I don’t write about it now.

I got great news yesterday. I’ve made it as a finalist for the Art EMC contest that EMC Insurance holds yearly. I think it’s a great project and not just because I made it. The company purchases work from the finalists and those pieces go on display in the company’s buildings. I think the businesses that populate our city would do well to invest more in local/regional Art instead of spending money on some print from Art.com or something like that. Too many times I’ve visited office buildings only to see the same crap on the walls. A shame really when there’s a wealth of great art right here in our back yard.

Which segues into my work on the DSM Art Festival Mural Project. I submitted a pack of images last week. Met with my contact from the DSM Art Center and went over some notes a couple of days later. I’m back to the drawing board and have been plugging away at charcoal/sharpie composition studies and have moved into working with some oil/chalk pastels for color studies. I’ll start posting images from that when we’ve landed on a final, approved image (hint: if you’re on FaceBook friend me and you’ll get to see all of my developmental work thus far!)
Until then I’ll leave you with some pics from the studio…
Meet my palette (top). It’s heavy with paint and more than a little worn. Broken in like a pair of good shoes.
And here’s me in the depths of a painting fugue. I don’t usually post pics of myself because… well, I’m not all that fond of the photos I take, but in this case I’d set up a camera to catch my work in progress with a series of timed shots. I caught myself a couple of times and thought I’d share. When I’m painting, for some reason, I compulsively run my hands through my hair, close my eyes, and fidget a lot. My hair has a tendency to stick out in all directions anyway when left to its own devices, but the compulsive hair-tugging doesn’t help. By the end of the night I’ve got this great Wolverine-thing going on. I’m pretty sure I scared the little one with it last week. Good times.

Wishing you all a good week.

Cheers,

R

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Took the night off from painting last night to take care of the web stuff. The web site needed to be updated with the latest painting. No good having painting inventory if you don’t bother promoting it . I also spent some time trying to suss out some meta-tagging issues on the site. It’s not showing up in search engines the way I want it to. It’s getting good placement for the most part. Just not displaying a good site description in the Google’s blurb section under the found link. Even though I put my own pages together (with some help) I’m no web designer. Research research research…
I also managed to get a stack of giclee prints posted for sale on my Etsy Store. I’m hoping that people will be more interested in picking up prints than they have been in buying the original paintings lately. When you can get a high-quality image for one tenth (or less) the price of the original why not? From an Artist’s perspective it’s a great deal so long as you have a reliable source for the prints themselves… which I do AND the cost to produce them isn’t exhorbitant… which it isn’t. You can continue to generate some revenue from paintings no longer in your inventory. In my case I can also have them produced one-off and on the fly. Custom sizes or rush jobs aren’t typically a problem. I got lucky.
I can’t say you’ll get rich off of print sales, but I will say this: I’ve sold more prints this year than originals.
Something to think about.

Cheers,

R

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Well the plan was that I’d have the house to myself for a few hours this afternoon. Things don’t always turn out like you’d planned. So the open house didn’t get any traffic (damned real-estate market). Not a huge surprise. It IS February. We’ll keep trying. It’ll sell one of these days. On the up-side the house is clean, the kids are being good, I’m getting to blog and catch up on email. Life could be much worse. Maybe I’ll get a chance to sneak out this evening and see Coraline. Big Neal Gaiman fan here. Love his stuff. If ou’ve never seen MirrorMask I’d highly recommend. His words with Dave McKean’s art… the stuff of nightmares and fantasies galore.

But I digress… as you well know.

I put the final touches on the latest NYC piece. I’m happy with where it went and how it turned out. It gives me a sense of accomplishment that’s a good warm-up for starting the new painting for the DSM Art Festival. I’ll be turning my preliminary images over to the the person who is acting as my primary contact. I’ll start posting the updates on this blog once we get a handle on which image we’re going to go with. I’ve come up with three, but I’m leaning towards two of them. Well, you’ll see what I mean in the near future. Keep watching.

All the best…

Cheers,

R

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I can’t believe it’s been a week since I last wrote. If there’s anyone out there actually reading this… Sorry for the delay.

I’ve put in some more time on the NYC piece. Nearly done and I’m having to make a conscious effort to avoid overworking it. Sometimes I’ll go back and simplify areas as a piece progresses. Just a bit more on the overhanging sign and the background.

Been spending a lot of time shoring up some details for a design project I’ve been working on. I feel like I’ve finally made the logo do what I wanted it to do. My prior designs had the necessary elements and austerity, but lacked visual punch. It can take some time to get a real feel for an image or subject matter. You’ve gotta play around with it. Experiment. Don’t be afraid to do a complete rework (or several). It’s all part of the process and in the end you’ll have a better finished product if you take the time to get familiar with your subject. Once the client approves the image I’ll post it.

To this end I like to play around in Photoshop. I’ve found that it can be a quick way to explore an image. To experiement with color and composition. Sometimes I use it to put together presentations for clients who like to have a better picture of what the project will eventually look like. It can help us to collaborate and make decisions in a more interactive way. Mind you, I don’t use it exclusively. I mix my PS work with sketches, and in some cases even mockup paintings. A lot of it depends upon the client and how much they want to see up front. Some people just want you to produce a piece because they enjoy your style.

Right now I’m using it for some of my prep work for the DSM Art Festival Project.

Ok… The day job calls. Gotta go be productive for someone else.

Cheers,

R

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I’ve had a pretty good couple of days minus a stressful event or two. I got a chance to meet with someone from the DSM ArtFestival and discuss the mural project some more. Very exciting. Plus he was a pretty good cat so that helps. So far everyone there has been just fantastic. I’m sure at some point we’ll rub foreheads a bit, but I try to be pretty easy to work with. Receptive to the ideas of others without being a total push-over. When this is done I’d like for them to say that I was pleasant and professional as well as a talented Artist. I’ve known too many people who’ve let their egos get the better of them. They become demanding or snotty or worse. In the end the talent will only get you so far. If you’re an ass people will stop wanting to work with you eventually no matter how amazing your are as an artist. I figure the world has enough jackoffs with more being raised every day (yes, “raised”, parents out there). Why add to an already exploding population?

Sorry, that stemmed from a conversation I had yesterday about people in the Art World who raise themselves up to be more than they are. They sit in their ivory university towers or in their offices (read as Art Critics) and proclaim this or that to be Art and everything else (art festivals, for example) to be beneath them: the “True Artists” who create for the sake of creation. That’s so much bullshit and it keeps entire generations of Art students from taking part in some very rich artistic communities, and from seeing some really amazing Artwork, AND from making a living. Ever heard of a “Starving Artist”? Of course you have. The great names we studied in Art History were, for the most part, working people trying to make a living by doing commissioned work, art contests, salons (festivals), etc.

When you go to school for something the ultimate outcome should be to be able to make a living doing that thing in my humble opinion. We rarely discussed it when I went to University. As a result I had no idea what to do with my degree outside of… create Art. Seems a little pointless when you look at it through the eyes of someone who’s paying a mortgage and raising a family. I spent a LOT of time trying to figure out how to make it work on my own. LOTS of trial and error. Still is. Somewhere along the line the teaching of a vocation turned into the teaching of a romanticized lifestyle. Again, so much bullshit. That being said I LOVED my teachers. Wanted to make sure that was clear.

(steps down from soapbox…)

So here I am trying to find my way in the burgeoning DesMoines Art community and hopfully branch into others. Thankfully I’ve made some great connections here and have been given some amazing opportunities, but ultimately you get what you get. It’s what you do with it that makes all the difference.

Speaking of which I really need to finish this latest NYC piece. I’m hoping it will go on display in the next week along with a couple of others. Here’s the latest update. More work to do on the big sign over the people walking and I’ve made the angle on the sidewalk too severe. Gotta fix that. I’m afraid all of those nice people are going to slide into the busy street.

Cheers,

R

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