Artist organizations, Art as a Competative Sport & Validation!!

One of my power points was to join artist organizations and become involved.

Early 2009 I looked for a local en Plein air group, but at that point Richmond didn't have one or one I could locate. It would come much later in 2010 (they found me via OPA). I did find several online en Plein Air blogs, such as Southern Plein Air Painters which I readily joined. I soon started posting my en Plein air paintings and writing brief descriptions every few days. I still post all my en Plein Air paintings and occasionally sell one. It allowed me to see what others were doing and it led to other links. It also put me on Google search engines...very cool.

Websites

While surfing I came across a few artists web sites and those led to others, but the first one that caught my interest was one a en Plein Air painter who had a rather smart looking site, it included a link to Fine Art Studio Online. Good timing, I needed a web site as one of my first year goals and FASO fit the bill. FASO was very inexpensive, user friendly, newsletters, contests, hundreds of artist
world wide - quite complete. I've been with FASO for several years it now has a significant membership. Great break material, I could look at the best of breed and see what they were doing and compare my art against theirs. I could see my short comings and would go back and work on it until I was happy....eventually I could see snippets of their short comings........PROGRESS!!!

Competitive sport

I started entering the FASO Bold brush monthly painting completion. Before this, I never looked at art as a competitive sport, but when you think about it, it clearly is!! You do plan and you do scheme for position, you do ask yourself "why did this painting get picked over mine"? Better yet when you do get picked - Wow!...I got their attention!! I must be doing something right. It's all about validation! I found solid feedback to be the hardest part of painting to find. I never knew if I was on the right track or not. As a designer I knew what worked on a wall, but as a painter I needed outside validation. The monthly contest was invaluable in this way to my growth and maturity as an oil painter - my bar was continuous raised and will continue to do so.

Juried shows

Soon after I started with FASO I noticed different shows and organization the top players belonged to and again got in the game. Mid 2009 the first major organization I joined was Oil Painters of America (2-annual events). I entered the 2009 Eastern exhibit and accepted!!....I was stunned...that was a good day!!

FIRST VALIDATION

#126 Richmond - Libby Terrace Sunset 18x24 Oil on linen panel completed Alla prima 8/4/2009

The evening before, I was painting en Plein Air the sunset at Libby Terrace. I completed (2) 8x10 panels and shot maybe a 100 photos. I used the photos, studies and my fresh memory painting Libby Terrace in my studio the next morning.