How to write an Artist Statement Bio

Writing an Artist Statement
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I am not claiming to be an authority here, but I do know a few things. There are many different ways to skin a cat. Sorry, PETA
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Tailor it to the Audience

You need different artist statements depending on who you are addressing. Is this to a Gallery, for the general public, or for the Internet.

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Bio/ Artist Statement
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A lot of Artist Statements will be a combination of a Bio and a Statement. It could include a picture of the artist in action, shows you have done, awards, Galleries that represent you, etc. Have you taught, or given demonstrations? Are you a full-time artist, how long have you been painting, where have you studied. Maybe you include, contact information ( online and off), phone, address, Website, Email, etc.

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The Artist Downfall

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A lot of artist are almost apologetic when talking about themselves or their accomplishments.

Play up your strong points. It is often what you don't say that is most important. Don't try to make an award won at a County Fair into a big deal. People will see through that. You can say that you are an award winning artist. Just leave it at that. It's true! You are! You just don't have to volunteer that it was at a County Fair. Have you taught art to 5th graders? Then you can say you have taught art. You get the point. You don't want to lie. On the other hand you don't want to minimize what you have done.

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Personal verses "Just the Facts Maam"
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If the Info is for a Gallery it may be more of, "Just the Facts Maam" More business like. Hopefully you are meeting the Gallery owner in person. You're going to have a relationship with the Gallery. They want to know your art process, but not endearing stories, at least not initially.

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If the info is at an art show it will be a little more personal. Hopefully you will meet and talk to your customers as well. You better, if you want to sell

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I think most people agree that on the Internet it is very important to be a little more personal, so that people can get to know you. You are just 1 of a ga-zillion people trying to sell on the Internet. You need to make them feel that they know you. It's ok to be business like, but it is easy to come across as gruff, when the person doesn't have the benefit of your smiling face. Especially when you are dispensing payment/ shipping terms and policy's, all very impersonal.

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The Statement
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Sometimes a Statement can be about , why you do what you.
and or
How you came to the point of doing what you do.
and or
The actual process of how you do it.
and or
(Your Art Theory)
Your belief of how art should be done or should be viewed
( Art Mumbo Jumbo) This never made a lot of sense to me.
I
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Sample
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Combination Bio/ Statement
click the link
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This was done for a particular art show. Normally, I will have contact information on the top. For this audience, I thought the most important thing was the shows that I have done, so I put it on top. As I didn't expect that they would take the time to do a lot of reading. Some shows will actually ask you to describe the process of making your art.

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Random Stuff

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This is some of the Information that I have on some Internet sites
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About Derek:

Derek is a full time, established, award winning artist and has been painting for over 20 years. Derek exhibits at the top ranked juried art shows in the nation. He does about 20 shows a year in 12 different states. He has been featured in print and interviewed on television concerning his art. His Baseball abstract "You're Outta Here" is displayed in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Sports Art in Indianapolis, Indiana. Prints of Derek's paintings grace the walls of 4 and 5 star hotels. He lives outside of Memphis, Indiana, which is a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky with his wife and 2 sons. He lives in a restored 1924 farmhouse and has a working studio/gallery that he built in a barn behind his home.

Why I paint:

Painting took me quite by accident. At the age of 26 I had a serious back injury. As I lay there watching TV, I happened upon PBS. I saw Bob Ross doing painting demonstrations. He is the fuzzy headed guy painting happy little tree oil paintings. I had an epiphany watching him paint a scene of a waterfall. I purchased some Oil Paint, and 6 months later I started selling paintings. I have never looked back.

Process:

I usually have a very basic idea when I paint a painting. The more I think about a painting the easier it is to get bogged down in the details, and then I can't even muster up the courage to start. If I just have a basic idea, then I am then free to paint, and let the painting just happen. I usually paint with no drawing or sketching. I draw with the paint, mixing colors on the paper or canvas. I do a lot of negative painting. Instead of painting the sky and then the tree, I will paint the tree and then paint the sky, redefining the shape of the shape of the tree. Often in the middle of a painting, I will see something happening and I have learned over the years to always go with the feeling. When this happens, an abstract may turn into a landscape or a sunset may turn into snow scene. It took me many years to get to this level of freedom. When I first started painting decades ago, my paintings were very tight and I used very small brushes. I would draw everything out first, in great detail . With each passing year painting becomes more like play.

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I hope this helps
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If it did, please feel free to comment. It's good to know that people are listening. It keeps me motivated.

Correcting a Painting - acrylic painting of fall trees

This is another repainted painting. A dramatic difference in this one. I think! When I painted this painting, I really didn't mean for it to be a super realistic painting. I actually like this painting, but it didn't seem to get a lot of attention. So, what the heck!

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What could be done differently?
Think about it before you see what I think!
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Before

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Too Many Warm Colors

Again there are mostly warm colors. The Lavender is cool, but it is a warm cool, because Lavender has some red in it

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Let's add a Greater Sense of Depth
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On the left side behind the red trees you see some light from the distant field.

On the right side you are not really getting the feeling that the field is receding all that much.

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Change the shapes
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Notice the overall shape of the red trees and the yellow in the sky. They both form a circular shape. The painting will be more interesting if we can break these shapes up into a more uneven, interesting line.

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AFTER

Original acrylic Painting of fall trees
12x24 on canvas
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What did I do?
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I added Depth
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I layered the painting in Values to give a sense of depth. Light, then dark,light then dark! I lightened the distant Lavender trees, then I put a dark row of trees in the distance. Then I defined a distant field and made it a very light value. From back to front,Light,Dark, Light!
I added some darks to the red trees, to give them more dimension.

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I changed the shapes.
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I made the distant Lavender trees much smaller. I made the yellow tree a little taller and skinner. This also helps to give a sense of depth. I changed the shape of the red trees and actually defined a single small red tree.

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I Added a Cool Blue
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That is really all it took to balance the warm and cool colors
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Having done all of this, I have to say there are no perfect paintings. There is always something that could have been done differently. You could paint for years on a painting and never actually finish it.

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Try painting a painting with your only focus being on warm and cool colors or maybe layering your painting with light and dark values. If you focus on one specific thing for a while it will then become part of you. You will then begin doing it as a gut reaction, without thought.

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This painting is in my Etsy Acrylic store

How to correct a painting - large acrylic impressionist painting on canvas

Too Many Cool Colors
&
Too many straight lines
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This painting had the opposite problem as the last painting. This painting has too many cool colors.
The changes that I made weren't nearly as extensive.

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Before
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This whole painting is almost all cool colors. Design wise there are a lot of straight lines that need to be broken up. Some straight lines are OK, but this painting has gone a little overboard. The land, the shoreline and the water itself, all form a straight line.

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After
-large acrylic impressionist painting on canvas
18x36
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What I Did!
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To break up the line that the grassy field formed, I added the trees on the horizon.

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I also added the warm yellow field. This warm are against all the cool colors really makes the painting pop. When I painted the yellow field, I brought it down to the waters edge, again breaking up the straight line that the green field formed.

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To break up the line that the shoreline made, I added some more dark bushes and reflected them down into the water.

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The bushes on the horizon and and on the shoreline, also serve as a visual stop, to keep your eye from going off the painting.

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I hope this correction series is helpful. It is often hard to correct your own paintings, as you have locked yourself into looking at the painting in a set way, and have a hard time deviating from it.

How to a balance warm and cool colors! - original landscape painting acrylic panorama

Below is a painting that I repainted Before

This is the original painting. It isn't a bad painting, it just doesn't have the pop that it could have. It has 2 basic areas that could be improved.

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1. Light and dark values
2.Warm and cool colors
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Light and Dark
There are to many mid tones in this painting, no real dark areas. Notice the green field area in the foreground, and the background are the same value. They are also the same value as the distant mountains. This isn't giving you a sense of distance.
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Warm and Cool
The painting is almost entirely warm colors. The combination of all of the mid tones and the warm colors give this painting a very soft feeling, no pop.

Original acrylic painting landscape panorama
24x36 on canvas
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AFTER
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The Darks

Notice the foreground darks are better defined, giving more separation from the distant field. This adds a greater sense of depth.

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The Lights

Notice the light area in the sky. The light area in both painting is almost exactly the same color and value. Because I added more darks in the 2nd painting, the light area looks much lighter.
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Cool and Warm

The biggest change is in the sky. The first sky is all warm. The after painting has a large area of cool blue playing against the warmer yellow.

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I have another painting that I repainted that I plan to show you in my next posting.

How to paint with creativity! - Original watercolor painting water reflections fall trees

Happy Accidents

I heard an art teacher type, say the other day, that he hates to hear someone talk about having happy accidents when they paint. The point is well taken. If you don't have any painting skills, everything you do will be an accident, I mean the total loss kind of a, you better hope you have insurance kind of accident.

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Inflexibility

The problem with a lot of academics is that they plan their painting out in such detail that there is no room for deviation. There is little chance that a happy accident can happen when you, paint in an inflexible manner.

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We are all failures!

You are going to make mistakes, everyone does. Every mistake is a, mistake, or it is an opportunity to be creative. The easy thing to do is quickly correct it. It will be your first impulse. Resist!

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Look for Ink Blots

Before you correct that mistake, look at it for a minute like an Ink Blot. What do you see? Does it look like anything at all, if it does, then make it so! If you do this, it will add a new dimension to your painting. You will find yourself doing things in a different way than you normally would have done. It will be exciting, I guarantee.

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So, was it a Happy Accident, or was it simply a mistake.
"Rocks and Trees"
original watercolor painting water reflections fall trees
7x10
$48 in My Etsy store
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At some point in the future I will photograph a happy accident, as it occurs, and show you how I dealt with it.

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My Happy Accident

I had intended for the green grassy area in this painting to go all the way down to the water. I inadvertently made the center area a little darker than I wanted. There were a couple spots where the paper was still white. The dark area looked to me like a dirt drop off and the white spots looked like rocks. So, that is what I made them. I have painted similar scenes to this before and have never had a dirt area or rocks. If not for my Happy Accident, I would have painted the same thing I have painted before,because we tend to paint what we are most comfortable with.

Artist advice - How to be an artist

Artist advice - How to be an artist

Are you an artist, or a business person. There are many artist who are technically good, but their work doesn't sell. Then there are artist who's work is just OK, and they can't stop selling.

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I often have parents come up to me at art shows and ask what advise I would give to their 14 year old budding artist. I say, "If your he or she, wants to be an artist, then he actually will be a salesman, so he should go to college and get a marketing degree and a minor in art. If his art skill are good, his marketing degree will help him be successful. If his art skills are excellent, but he doesn't know how to market himself, or talk to people in groups, and individually, he will fail.

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What does an artist do!

You have to present yourself in written and verbal form to Galleries, the general public. You might what to give talks, demonstrations, or give lessons as a way of promoting yourself.

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You need to know about price points, so that you know how to price your paintings.

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Your going to have to do research, to learn how you can cut your cost and find the cheapest supplies, outsource, figure out how to Wholesale.

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You need to know who your market is, and figure out, where is the best avenue to reach them.

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To some degree, you going to have to do some accounting.

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You may Physically have to learn how to make frames and matts. Or invest in machinery to help you make then, in order to cut your cost, so that you make more profit. If you are a full time artist, you will lose a fortune if you are having a frame shop do your framing for you. Unless they are giving you a heck of a deal.

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The toughest job, with the highest turnaround is Salesman
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Not only are you a salesman, you are selling yourself. Not only are you selling yourself,, you are selling something personal. The reason that sales people don't last is because they can't handle the rejection. When you are an artist, the rejection is worse, because you aren't selling a vacuum that you have no emotional attachment to. You are selling yourself, and it is hard, to not take it personally, when you don't sell.

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I could go on and on

So, what is my point! Nothing in the long list I have given, has anything to do with creativity and the actual producing of your art work. The sooner you start thinking of yourself as a business person, the sooner you will start to make progress with your art career. That means that you have to dedicate time to thinking about the business side as well. You have to do some research to learn whatever it is that you need to know. Study, do your homework! AH, Dad, stop it! As my son would say. You may need to take a speech class, or whatever it takes. The sooner the better.

One of my abstract paintings
Original acrylic geometric abstract

in MY Etsy Acrylic Store

How to paint reflections on water - original watercolor painting trees lake

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"Colorful Sunset"
original watercolor painting water reflections trees lake
5x7
$35 in Artist Derek Collins Etsy Store
Questions?
Please add your comment or question!

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How to Paint Reflections in Watercolor
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Misconceptions!
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Water is not Blue
Water has no color, it reflects what ever is around it, be it sky, trees, or Star Trek groupies.
The color of the water may also be determined by what is under the water. If the bottom of the
stream is mud, the water may be brown, if it's mossy, it may be green.

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Water reflections are not the same value as the sky
The value and or color of the water is going to be darker than the sky. You may look at a scene and say, "They look the same to me!" But you have to make it darker anyway, for the sake of perspective and maybe to add balance to the painting. Also, just to differentiate the sky from the water

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You can see in the painting above, the darker water in the foreground focuses you eyes back up to the brighter colors, and the center of interest. If the foreground water color was lighter, your eye would go right off the painting.

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Don't Make Waves
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We aren't painting "The Perfect Storm", we are paintings still or nearly still water. We are painting a totally flat surface. The water has to be smooth, the colors need to be blended together and have a smooth appearance.

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Do

Have fresh paint ready, don't use dried up paint, you need color and you need it quick. You should never used dried paint. Every time you add water, you dilute the paint, it ends up being a lot of water and very little paint.

Here We Go

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With a large brush,wet the entire paper in one direction, when you are finished, without adding more water, go over it in the opposite direction. You are just trying to insure that the water is spread evenly

Notice the Sky is lighter than the water
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The Sky is light Cerulean Blue, the water is darker Cerulean Blue, in the foreground it is Ultramarine Blue, an even darker Blue

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In the sky I used Cadium Yellow, in the water Ochre, a darker Yellow, you get the idea here.
The colors that you use, aren't as important, as getting the appearance of a glassy surface.
If it looks like a smooth surface it will look like water.

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I painted the sky in this order

From the horizon upward, first the Cadium Yellow, then on top of it, Cadium Red, which blended and became a soft Orange. The Lighter colors to the darker colors. Then I painted the Light blue Sky with Cerulean, then over top of it with a dark Purple, which was Ultramarine Blue and Alizarine Crimson. Again the lighter color, then the darker color

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Alternate if your Bold

Use multiple brushes. Paint the yellow in the sky. Then immediately, paint the mirror, but darker Ochre in the water. Paint the Lighter Cerulean in the sky, then immediately paint the darker Ultramarine in the water, etc.

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Wet a section at a time if your timid
Wet the Sky, paint it, then wet the water and paint it. You can always re-wet an area if need be.
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Re-Wet the Water

I obviously painted in the trees and land, now back to the reflections. Now, I'm going to paint the trees, reflecting in the water. Normally, I would just re-wet the area below the trees, but I thought the water color was a little to bright. So I mixed Alizarine and Utramarine Blue and made a dark purple. I did a wash starting at the bottom, as I moved upward the wash lightened.

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Paint the Tree Reflections

You don't want the paint to spread too much, when you paint the trees. You want the paper to be just wet enough to diffuse or blur the edges. If it spreads too much you won't be able to get a shape that looks like the shape of the tree.

Add the Tree Trunks

I added some highlights to the trees. I thought the tree reflections needed to be a little darker, so I darkened them a little more, being careful to keep it soft. You want the water to be pretty much dry when you add the tree trunks. You don't want the paint spreading, the reflection of the tree trunk could then be 3 times the size of the actual trunk. Then I added the tree trunks, and immediately added their reflections in the water

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Piece of Cake
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Please add your comment. I hope this was helpful, if it was, please let me know. If something was unclear, let me know that also. Maybe I will expound on it further. Derek