Link to My Art Page on Facebook

Here is a link to my new art page on Facebook. Please take a look. Hopefully now that I have a better idea of what I am doing everything should start working properly.

Yesterday I had fun playing in my studio. I am figuring out a few things in preparation for some paintings I want to do in the New Year. Here is an example of what I was up to. It's very simple printmaking using foam, and not the subject matter I intend to use in the painting but just a quirky fun piece.

Now On Facebook

You will see I have put a link to facebook on this page. All part of finally getting up to speed with Social Media. I actually found it difficult to set up a page there for my art as opposed to a regular facebook profile. I'm not sure why the instructions for facebook pages are less intuitive to use. Anyway please visit and leave a comment. After all this effort it will be nice to have some visitors!

Golden Sax Slide Show

When I posted this I didn't realise that music came with it. I never have the sound on on my computer so when a friend mentioned the music I checked it out, didn't like the music and turned it off. I now have to add music if I want it.

No Naked Walls:
Golden Sax Art Slideshow.

As you can see I have posted an art slideshow of my painting Golden Sax. A lot of people ask me how I go about creating a painting and because I actually remembered to take a series of photos while I was painting this one, I thought it would be fun to create the sideshow and let you see the process. There are all these amazing applications on the web that do fun things and I think that www.Slide.com is a great one for artists to use. Let me know what you think.

"Social Media:"
The Way to go for Artists?

Over the last week I have been learning about social media and Twitter. According to some predictions: In 2009, there will be 18 million U.S. adults who access Twitter on any platform at least monthly. That represents a 200% increase over 2008 levels. Usage will reach 26 million U.S. adults in 2010, a further 44.4% climb.” That's pretty amazing. But is social media and twitter of any use to artists and will they need to use it in the future? It appears that social media is a great promotional tool for artists but that at present, not many people actually buy art online. Here is one online gallery owners opinion. But then I have also heard several gallery owners say that they do sell online and that they are moving more to internet sales however they have actual physical galleries, a reputation and customer base to start from. Perhaps there is some information out there that will help the self representing artist decide. Check this one out. Reasons why the majority of artist are failing online.

I would love to hear comments from other artists on their feelings and experience with twitter and social media.

Drawing the Nude

Life Drawing at the AGO

The last few weeks I have been going to the drop in life drawing session at the Art gallery of Ontario. It's in a really super space. The room is huge with a very high ceiling and they have several classes going on at the same time and the life drawing is at the centre of it all. What I like is being able to walk around during the break and see what the people in the painting classes are doing. It's a great atmsophere and I have already met some very nice people.

My life drawing is pretty rusty but even after a few weeks I can feel it starting to come back. I have posted a photo here of one of the pages from today's session. Because the poses are very quick, the average lasting around 5 mins, I like to do several on a page. I'm not concerned about making something pretty, it's just a matter of getting something down. You may wonder what all the marks are across the figure, well it's just to break up the shapes and if I do a lot of images on the same page it starts to build interesting patterns. It's great to be back drawing again after all the goings on of the last few months.

No Naked Walls-

and now twitter

I spent yesterday getting myself on twitter. Everything I have read says that it is a must to be on and that social media is going to be huge in the coming years. I'm not yet convinced but I thought I should dive in and see where it leads. Doing a custom page, which the experts say you really need to make it stand out from the millions, was quite difficult for me and I found it hard to find simple instructions on how to go about twitter customization. Most of the instructions on the web assume a pretty good understanding of photoshop however after a day of playing around I learned a lot. I used the painting Jazz 1 as a backdrop but this may change. Any comments would be appreciated plus your feelings about the use of social media. Oh, my twitter page is susanneclarkart