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Just so you all know.  I am gearing up a campaign for getting comments on my blog and will be sending out a newsletter to everyone on my mailing list to comment on my blog entries so far and send out word about this blog to everyone they know.

I hope all my friends on facebook will do this too (hint-hint).

Whoever comments the most in the next 3 months will receive an original oil painting – painted in my own unique style…that I would even have a painting style at this point is questionable…but I digress. 

Of all the paintings I paint in the next 3 months (and my goal is to paint one a week) who ever has made the most comments on my blog during this period of time will get to choose one of those paintings. 

Here’s an example.  I painted it today.  It is of a few of our chickens, Sally, Matilda, and Mickie.  The chickens stand on our back porch several times a day and petition for bread.  I convinced them to put down their little “Give Us Bread NOW” signs so I could photograph them and bribed them with bread to pose off and on during the day.

These paintings won’t be masterpieces since, hey – I’m a professional sculptor…and I paint for fun.  And these won’t be large (no bigger than an ipad) but they will be original and you, most frequent blog commenter, will get to choose!  How fun is that?

I will post photos of what I paint as I go forward with future posts. 
And, yes, whatever you pick will be framed.

I am doing this to thank whoever comments the most often because comments are so important to the successful readership of a blog. 

This also keeps my sculpting brain working well…cause, you see.  When painting I am taking the 3d world (aided with photos sometimes) and recreating it in 2d (a creation that hopefully looks 3d in 2d) and when I sculpt, I sculpt primarily from photos…which is the reverse – so I take a 2d representation of a 3d object that I am recreating a 3d object from that.  This maybe makes no sense unless you are an artist (and it maybe makes no sense if you are an artist)…but somehow it keeps me more creative…maybe it balances my brain :).

MMmmmm.  Balanced brain….

Of course I’m doing this too to generate more and more interest in my sculpture and in me as an artist over time.  There is that

Artists can sit in their studio and create…but that doesn’t do anything to share their work with the rest of the world.  I want to share what I do with all of you.  I want this blog to be one way of doing that.

Sorry about the evening writing of this today…I’ll have more in the morning and a newsletter out tomorrow for my newsletter readership.  If anyone reading this would like a newsletter, please go to my website and sign up or drop me a note in FB or in email and I’ll put you on my mailing list. 

Thanks for reading.

~Alex

Every day that I sculpt I have accidents that happen.  Occasionally a sculpture will leap off my worktable and break into several pieces and – since I’m working with clay that is made out of paper and dries in the air – things happen to the sculpture all during the creating process.   For instance, once the sculpture is started and I add clay to a certain area, that new wet clay is placed onto the existing dry clay and while it is drying,  moves portions of the sculpture around.

When I first started working with this material, I tried to correct these “accidental” rearrangements of my sculpture but now I will consider these accidents to see if they actually help the design or make it unique in some way.  I have decided that the accidents are sometimes a form of unique guidance and serendipity and welcome many of those accidents as part of my creative process.

Many artists today and throughout history knew accidents were often a good component in helping them create their works.  Of course some accidents will just feel like a catastrophe!

me with the finished sculpture,
Okaga, the South Wind.  Later that same
day while working on smoothing out
the last few areas, this sculpture fell
off the back of this table and all its
legs broke; some in two places!

What do you think?  Do you believe that art doesn’t “just happen” because of perfect planning and perfect control – it also happens by seemingly random accidents sprinkled in?

Check out the quotes below (thanks to art-quotes.com) from artists regarding accidents in their work.  Which is your favorite?

It’s time for me to get to work.  I hope your (and my) art accidents are all good ones today.

~Alex

All painting is an accident. But it’s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve. (Francis Bacon)

It’s the nasty and the accident that form the foundation for elegance that comes later. (Nick Bantock)

In art, there is one thing which does not receive sufficient attention. The element which is left to the human will is not nearly so large as people think. (Charles Baudelaire)

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don’t really know what we’re doing and when we do, it doesn’t seem to help. (Bono)

Oops! I wonder how that blob of paint turned up in the sky? – that must be how many a bird ‘happened’ in a landscape and how extra leaves were added to overhanging branches. (Jeane Duffey)

Accident is veiled necessity. (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)

Accident is design / And design is accident / In a cloud of unknowing. (T. S. Eliot)

There are many accidents that are nothing but accidents – and forget it. But there are some that were brought about only because you are the person you are… you have the wherewithal, intelligence, and energy to recognize it and do something with it. (Helen Frankenthaler)

We try not to have ideas, preferring accidents. To create, you must empty yourself of every thought. (Gilbert George)

It may have been accidental but you knew enough to let this alone. The intelligent painter is always making use of accidents. (Charles Hawthorne)

The most persistent principles in the universe are accident and error. (Frank Herbert)

I have meant what I have done. Or – I have often meant what I have done. Or – I have sometimes meant what I have done. Or – I have tried to mean what I was doing. (Jasper Johns)

A creative train of thought is set off by: the unexpected, the unknown, the accidental, the disorderly, the absurd, the impossible. (Asger Jorn)

We never learned how to solve problems, create effects, get concrete results. So we hope for, and rely on fortuitous accidents. What we do by accident we call ‘creative.’ (Brian Knowles)

You need accidents, otherwise it is fake. (Sotirios Kotoulas)

Experiment by applying a few strokes suggesting the subject and see what happens… develop the piece from interesting accidents. (Jean-Francis Le Saint)

It was accidental before but now it’s become my method. (Hui Lin Liu)

At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, / That nothing with God can be accidental. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

I throw down the gauntlet to chance. For example, I prepare the ground for a picture by cleaning my brush over the canvas. Spilling a little turpentine can also be helpful. (Joan Miro)

Surprises are the joy of living. Surprises directly touch the soul. Good surprises energize and bad surprises teach. (Alev Oguz)

Accidents, try to change them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man. (Pablo Picasso)

When a person is prepared to receive something, a series of accidents takes place. (Irving Sandler)

Every brushstroke has a certain tension, a certain nervousness. Every brushstroke is, in a sense, some kind of accident. (Raphael Soyer)

As soon as you accept the accidental effects, they are no longer accidents. They are necessity – the part of yourself that you could not expect or design beforehand. Thus the realm of your creativity grows wider. (Kazuaki Tanahashi)

The unforseen event, the ‘accident,’ the unexpected all play a very large part in my creative play. I prefer to let the materials suggest the direction of a work. (Burnell Yow!)

June 23, 2014
23Jun
2014

It’s Monday, June 23 and I have dedicated myself to writing a blog entry every day.

I do not consider my life to be what anyone would describe as exciting so this could be the most incredibly boring blog ever if I just talked about my life.  What I think is important is to connect with other artists. 

 

Maybe other artists are also feeling that their life is also not incredibly interesting but they are nevertheless also developing their art career and are also learning more about how professional artists structure their days from day to day.

 

I don’t want this blog to be just a one way dialogue and want to hear from other artists (and any creative business person/entrepreneur) too so we all can learn from one another. 

 

What works in your life?  You are always learning how to manage life and create the best art you can…just like me.  It isn’t easy.

 

So that is what I will talk about – each day what I do to create art and make what I do better and the other adventures into art that I embark on and the other things that just happen that enhance or interfere with that.

 

I have been refreshing my art education since the beginning of the year.  I spend a portion of the beginning and/or end of the day learning something about art and artists through history.  This must come up (art history) just with the every day sketching I have been doing…I have been involved in the study of values and perspective, for instance – and how can the study of value and perspective not lead me to learning more about da Vinci?   

 

I have been trying to shore up the holes in my art education in other ways – for example, I have been learning more about oil painting.  You can’t paint well if you can’t draw well…I think. 

 

I want to paint some scenes from around our property to frame and hang in the living room which is currently being remodeled a bit to make it more of a gallery space for my sculpture.  So I have been on Stapleton Kearns blog and he is fantastically educational not just about painting but about art history.

 

These things and more (to be shared in future posts) have been important inroads to keeping me motivated to sculpt more and to always think of myself and my work as truly a professional endeavor. 

 

I hope to hear from anyone out there, all of you artist/entrepreneurs.  What do you do every day?  Do you try to continually educate yourself about art and what is it you do to keep your work it’s best and to keep your muse alive?

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