Artspace: evolutions

flowers and more flowers.....

7/16/2010

Well, I have been quite busily making more flower pictures---so many, in fact, that I decided to give them a web site all of their very own! So far, I am working on my second "gallery" on that site. I have 25 images in the first gallery, and 9 or 10 in the second gallery so far. So no doubt there are some there that you haven't seen before. Oh!---the url, in case you would like to visit that site is: www.flowershow.webs.com. Also, I continue to add to my gallery at Imagekind from time to time with some of my newer images, and I have recently updated some of the t-shirts and other products at the cafepress location so they now incorporate some of the flower designs too. I think I have their url's somewhere else on this site, if you would like to visit them.

Now I'm trying to figure out how I might possibly use some of these images in a commercial way. I think some of them would work very well as note cards or greeting cards, and now the question is how to go about getting them created and marketed. I suppose I begin by contacting some greeting card companies to find out who accepts free lance work, how they handle submissions, and stuff like that. I certainly welcome ideas and suggestions if you have any that you think might be helpful!!!!

Web site updates

6/14/2010

Happy Flag Day! I have made a few changes to my web site. I have reordered some of the pages and edited the text so that my web site now reflects, I think, the "evolution" of my artistic creations-----first the early paintings, then my more recent paintings and the collages, and then my computer-generated art pieces. For my computer-generated works, now I'm showing the color-edited versions of my paintings first, followed by the more extensive digitally manipulated works, and finally I have added a new page to show some of my more current computer-made works (the flowers). The flowers are what I have been making most recently, and I think they show some "evolution" in my style at the computer----I've added a few more techniques that I've learned, and these pieces feel more like painting with the computer than some of the earlier ones did. What do you think?

Updates, New Look.....

3/10/2010

I have been making some changes to my web site here and there. First of all---a new look! A different design, which I think is a nice change and shows things off well. What do you think?

I have also done a bit of re-editing on my text, and have changed or rearranged or edited out some of the images and included some new stuff. I changed out two of the slide show and put in two newer ones that show some of my more recent work. One of the new slideshows is one I just put together for St. Patrick's Day, which is quickly approaching, begorrah!!

What else is new? Oh, I added some of my St. Patrick's Day images to my "seasonals" gallery at Imagekind if you want to check that out. Coming soon over there: Easter pics! I have loads of bunnies and Easter eggs to upload.

So take a look around my recently remodeled site and let me know what you think. Heck, invite the neighbors in, alert the media!

Collages!

10/27/2009

I got a new scanner/copier/printer and have been learning how to use it. So far, I have scanned 7 of my collages and added them to my "Collages" page. I've got quite a few more that I can go through, so I'll probably be selecting and adding more from time to time. What do you think of the new additions?

Art, Accident, and Discovery....

10/11/2009

I haven't written in here for a while, but today I thought I would put down a few of my thoughts about my art and my creative process.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend quite a while back, and we were discussing one of my paintings and what it was "about". I think I said something like "Well, if I could put it into words, I wouldn't have to paint it!" Nevertheless.....

Lately I have been thinking about how accident and discovery play a part in my art. Often when I start to work on a painting or drawing or whatever, I might have no idea of what I'm going to make. It might be something like "I think I'll put some of this color here and see what that looks like....." and then maybe a certain brush stroke or texture on the canvas or shade of color suggests something else to me, an object or a figure perhaps.....then maybe I bring that out a little more and add something else...... Sometimes, I might actually start out with some idea of what I want to do, but then I have to "find"it in the canvas---and what I'll actually end up with is anybody's guess.

Or if I'm making a collage......I might start out with a particular image I like and build a picture around it or start with several images and see what seems to go together, and I move things around and try out different backgrounds until I have something that I like.

And in the things I've been doing lately with the computer, something similar seems to go on. I'll start with an image and try out a certain effect to see what it does. Or I'll see what I can "find" in an image by squishing groups of color together and distorting or fuzzing things until, voila---I have turned Marilyn Monroe into a cat! Or I have made a landscape into a pumpkin or something......

So I guess that, whatever the media or method, I'm generally trying to let myself be guided by my unconscious or subconscious processes. It becomes play, and accident and discovery certainly play a significant part.

.....Now, if I could only figure out how to make money out of doing this...........

New Gallery!

7/17/2009

Imagekind has recently expanded, allowing me more gallery space there! I have added a second gallery, and so far I have uploaded 14 images from my recent creations using some of the editing effects I have been playing with lately. Since Imagekind has been generous with the space available to me, I will be adding more images there as I come up with results that I like. And I have managed to enlarge some of the images I have recently uploaded, so that means that some are able to be printed in larger sizes. Feel free to visit at www.jwilliamd.imagekind.com/artspace ----bring your friends, relatives, kids and neighbors, make yourself at home, enjoy the art, and come back often!

Slideshows

6/26/2009

Lately I have been exploring some of the photoediting functions that I had not been using, and the results have often been surprising and sometimes delightful! I have put together a number of these into slideshows and have added a new page so that I could include them here on my website. Let me know what you think of them----how do you like the new images, and what do you think about the slideshow format?

Even More!

6/2/2009

I just added a new page with 10 images of my earlier paintings. These paintings were done in the 1980's, and my technique and style were quite a bit different from what I do today. I used a pallet knife and painted directly from the tube with no mixing of colors. Also, I sometimes used an applicator tip that screwed onto the tube of paint and allowed me to extrude paint in thin lines onto the canvas. Sometimes I even used a bit of glitter in some paintings (---what can I say?--it was the '80's!!) Quite a different look from my later works, don't you think?

New Additions.....

6/1/2009

Just a quick note to let you know that I have put a few more of my paintings on my web page. Also, I have put 3 new images on my on-line gallery at imagekind, so you might want to pop over there and take a look! I think I will get out my camera again and take some pics of some of my older works to put on my site. Most of my older works are quite different in style and technique from what I have on this site, so I'll probably put them on a different page of their own. So check out my new additions, and stay tuned for more to come.......

Success!!

5/8/2009

Break out the champaigne!! I finally figured out how to get my images to the right size to upload them to Imagekind! Whew!!---no small feat! I can't tell you all that I went through to get this done, but I can tell you that there were moments that I thought I was down to my last nerve! I have begun to upload some of my images and will be adding more soon, now that I know what to do. To go to my gallery at the print-on-demand site, you can go to www.jwilliamd.imagekind.com/artspace.

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I have been drawing, painting, molding, gluing and coloring stuff for as long as I can remember. I've not really had much formal training in art aside from classes in junior high and high school and a couple of art history and art appreciation classes in college. So I guess that makes me mostly "self-taught".

I have worked as a social worker for almost 30 years (yikes!), and before that I spent some time teaching Head Start and working in a medical laboratory (not at the same time, of course!). So I've done a lot of other things, but through it all, I have always painted or drawn or created art in some manner. It's just something I seem to have to do.

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