An interesting thought, a video to go with the painting

The way we communicate is changing rapidly and more about video content than written words. Even Instagram is filled with short clips. I would like to have a interactive virtual gallery to show my work that does not look fake and most do right now. However, another option is doable. I think if an artist were to do a video showing the creation of the painting and finally display the painting in a proper setting will rule if you can get through the learning curve. If real adventurous it could be like a documentary. Wouldn't it be great if a collector also had the video story to go with their favorite painting?

Well that idea was hatched up a few months ago and still not quite there. Starting from scratch it is complicated! There is a significant amount of information on U-tube to help anyone along.... and overwhelm you with information at the sometime. The silver-lining, if you are persistent eventually the video and film buzz words begin to make sense. So far I made half-a-dozen videos or so using various programs and cameras. Every step required additional equipment that also needed additional parts to get it working. Amazon was at our doorstep daily.

Splendor, on the beach

Splendor 20x24 oil on linen (6/14/20 canvas 1341)

After some silly missteps, like forgetting to turn on the camera resulting in missing sequence clips. I managed to narrow the equipment down to the I-phone paired with an Idiskk (128g) enhance external storage and a simple blue-tooth remote.

Film editing was the most tedious part of the learning curve. Adobe Premier Pro is where I started by any measure the industry standard. After months of ups and downs discovered Adobe Premier Rush, a simpler version.... and life is better. The cool thing, when watching a movie and seeing those neat special effects, I know how it was done. However, getting the external mic to work with my I-phone still eludes me.... more equipment for sure.

Time-laps is my favorite, where the video races through very quickly to a conclusion. There are several ways to do it. The phone as an option on the menu bar or in a video editing program like Adobe Premier Rush. A one-hour video can be reduced to 6 or 7-minutes without serious editing. I-phone will do it by a simple choice on the menu bar.... a perfect option for short clips on Instagram. Not tried it yet.

Because of all this research I also accumulated a pile of 20x24 test paintings with some ugly videos over the last few months. In the process of salvaging some of the videos using the time-lapse option to post on U-tube as a first step. Nothing fancy but you must start somewhere.

Fast and Furious

Before uploading I spent the day looking at U-tube tutorials which helped. A bit easier than I thought, and they have FREE music I can use in my videos....duh! I used Envato, a paid subscription for the sound track.

More to come!

SIPSwimming-in-Paint

It started with a simple painting and a business plan with goals

Today I decided to start a blog about one of the most fascinating career choices I ever made, pursuing a career as an oil painter. In this post I’ll only give you a little background on how it started. 

 

I started out as a painter in my early youth, as a teenager I made money at it and continued to do so up until I turned 35. I was also a successful commercial designer. By the way this was a great combination if you also worked. I made an interesting choice to drop Oil painting, I never did anything as a hobby and it included oil painting. I knew if I wanted to go to the next level (whatever that was) I would have give it 100% of my time. It would also be fair to say I leveled out or lost interest so it was probably an easy choice.

Over the following decades I opened my dusty paint box twice, after 20 or 30 paintings later I would close it again. Not that I couldn’t paint, I just didn’t see it leading anywhere. It wasn’t about time, because my time was always my own and my paintings sold in the past so I had no financial constraints. I believe it lacked a serious challenge, no goal, and no real reason to do it other than a pastime and I didn’t need a pastime!! As a designer I had the creative issues covered. I was dealing with space light and colour and I spent a life time manipulating it... How could a painting compete? Then it couldn’t!!

Everything changes with time and I got weary with design projects, to counter the boredom I would only do projects I’d never done before. That worked for a few years. Then I got lucky. The California economy went in the toilet and as a designer “we are a luxury item” and “we got shelved”!!...Lucky!!! Well…at first I didn’t think it was funny, but it happened fast and the timing was right, besides I was finished with it (design) and no intentions of hanging on for what might be a long recovery process. One day, and I don’t completely remember why I opened my paint box (now totally unusable). I resupplied it, got a few canvas panels and cheap little table easel and on March 16^th 2009 I painted my first Alla prima (all at once) canvas in two decades.

#1 (no Title) 14x18 oil on canvas panel 3/16/2009

As you can see it wasn’t that bad, in fact if it were for sale today it might even fetch a price. The real value of this painting is not the money it might bring but that it got the ball rolling. The big question for me was “where could I take it”. The following day (after sleeping on it) I developed a simple business concept with goals and the game was on!!