Annual Review: 2013: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, and other sites

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Introduction

The year was a general success despite a slump from October to the end of December.

I enjoyed painting trips to Egypt, Uruguay, New York, Minas Gerais, and exploring further Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. I spent a few days working in freezing London too.

  Luxor- the Winter Palace from Hotel Susanna, oil on card, 12 x 9 cm

In Uruguay, oil on card, 12 x 9 cm

A Chinese restaurant in New York, oil on card, 12 x 9 cm

Boa Esperança, the central square, oil on card, 14 x 14 cm

Mafra, simple houses, oil on card, 14 x 14 cm

 

Sao Francisca de Paula- road out of town, oil on card, 12.5 x 18 cm

All the trips were too short, and I shall try to extend them in future. It is necessary to have a few days simply to acclimatise to a certain place, to settle in, and relax.

I sold reasonably well, with sales at the Royal Academies in London and Scotland, and at Dubai Art Fair, and to various private buyers.

I used various sites to show work:

Flickr

Flickr messed up their site with an ugly and frustrating redesign.

However, I  continued to use it, partly out of habit, partly because I have already invested quite a deal of time in putting work there, so that it is really a complete catalogue of my work, and because I could not find a better alternative. I usually show pictures in about ten groups. I have 721 followers, up from 612 last year.

Blogger

The number of followers increased only a little from 70 to 78.

Facebook

This site again prove to be good for feedback, contacts and sales. Please feel free to add me as a contact there if you wish.

Deviantart

I stopped regularly using this site as it is really just for teenagers to exchange pornographic  manga cartoons and kitsch. I have 55 "watchers" up from 51.

ArtStack

This site is elegantly organised and a pleasure to use. I sporadically loaded pictures, and these were stacked 77 times. I shall use it more.

Plans

I am going to Salvador, Bahia in January, and to Morocco in March. I wish to do a further trip in late July, but I haven`t decided where.

Thanks

Many thanks to everyone who helped me in 2013: buyers, followers, family and friends.

There are a good number of people online who have been supportive, but whom I have never met. I found their comments useful and encouraging. 

Happy New year to you all.

 

Carnations 5, oil on card, 9 x 10.5 cm    SOLD





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Annual Review: 2012: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Saachi, Deviantart, Art and Artists

Spines of pochade carriers

Preamble

The year went reasonably well, with trips to Tunisia, Chile, the UK, Italy, and Pernambuco in Brazil.

These trips were all too short, and all too crammed, emphasising the necessity to allow passages of emptiness and to risk boredom during the trips. Boredom, or some form of mental  irritation is necessary for creativity.

My expectations of destinations were nearly always confounded. Probably the best place to paint was for me Valparaiso, but not for the Whistlerian, nautical inspiration I had expected, but for its crumbling stucco and steep hills. Italy was good but not as good as I had hoped, failing to surprise me, surprise being the essential ingredient of inspiration. But how can you plan surprises for yourself?

The next trips to come will be to Egypt, the UK, Bolivia  and perhaps Finland.

There were a about twenty sales altogether primarily through The Union Gallery, Edinburgh, and Rose Issa Projects, London.

I experimented with larger formats: this was not entirely successful and I will return to the smaller size, which is a little smaller than a postcard.

Disappointment and frustration are normal in the pursuit of the creative arts. This is either the disappointment of abject failure, or the slow mindlessness of mediocrity.

The former at least has the virtue of announcing their arrival boldly, the second is more common, less obvious, harder to combat. I`d say the good ones make up about 20 % , then there is a massive grey area of about 60% and another 20% of abject failures.

There`s no way of avoiding either of these, no pill, or technique. You can try to come up with broad creative theories but these have their limits. What is inspiring one day becomes tired and pointless on Friday. And so on..

So, like fishing, painting is largely a game of patience: regardless the weather.,you put in the time, and  hope something good comes of it eventually, and that someone else likes it. 

Flickr

There are 612 followers, up from 545 last year. I make no special effort to find followers, though all pictures are shown in about ten groups.

Blogger

This time last year there were 59 followers: now there are 70: not as many as I had hoped. But sites such as this necessarily have a very limited public.

 Also, there have been changes to Blogger which make it harder for people simply to "click" and receive the blog automatically.

Facebook

I continue to show work here, and occasionally to sell work through this site. It is a very good site for artists to use: others image hosting sites are very specific in their publics, reaching groups of people with particular interests in art, painting or photography. Facebook sends the work into a wider network of people.

Deviantart

51 people watch me here: it`s not much of a site. It`s messy and thinks of itself as being very trendy and smart, when in fact it is simply messy and nerdy and teenage.

Saachi

 I stopped posting here: it is a waste of time as it is entirely dominated by the sort of people for whom art is a career.

If you are going to seek a career, chose something in which there is a clear career structure with reasonably objective assessments of ability: the law, medicine or academia.

If you wish to make money then stay away from the creative spheres: sell toothpaste or car tyres, something for which there is a settled constant demand, which doesn`t require careful  storage or transportation, go out of fashion, become irrelevant at the say so of some lisping pantyhose in New York,  necessitate interpretation or, worst of all, involve ego on such a massive scale.

Art and Architecture

I more or less stopped posting here as well: it didn`t seem to go anywhere

Films

I started posting little reviews again, just for the hell of it.

Thanks

I received a fair amount of encouragement and assistance, and must thank those who bought pictures and let me stay with them over the last year, and those who offered feedback, positive or otherwise.

Painting is often a fairly solitary business. Being  misanthropic, that is part of its appeal: nonetheless the expressed interest of others is always welcome.

Specifically, I thank Lise and Felix Colyer, Chris Anderson and my parents.

Urubici, boys playing football, detail.

Annual Review: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Saachi, Deviantart, Art and Artists

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Preamble

The year has essentially been good, with a decent level of production, some sales and positive gallery contacts in Edinburgh.

In terms of quality, the work varies. Art is not craft, nor is it decoration: it's an experimental research, and the products of any artist necessarily vary in quality. A percentage of work -even whole weeks or months- can be spent in futile searches. This is not enjoyable, but the alternative is to lean into insipidity or mere craftsmanship.

This year, however, has consolidated somewhat: when I began blogging a couple of years ago I was in a very uncertain phase, trying many new media, and techniques, and themes, in an attempt to find my feet.

I elected to follow the path of "itinerant painter", humbly in the footsteps of painter-heroes such as Turner and Lear. I felt that this would be a way to combine the pleasures of travel, of observation, of personal reflection with the delight of painting, and allow me to escape from private ruminations, which are rarely, in truth, of much interest to anyone else, even when lent artistic form. With this role, I joyfully visited Italy, Malta, am touring Brazil, and will, in February, go to London, Scotland and Tunisia. 

Ergo, over the last year, I have been considerably more focused on painting "pochades": portable small paintings about the sises of postcards, or even smaller.

My production, naturally, varies in quality: there are a fair proportion of "duds": at least 15%. There are works which are, I think exemplary, perhaps one in thirty , and then there is the grey mass, whose quality is never easy to discern.

It can be said that making very bad painting is better from an learning perspective than making mediocre ones, in that they illustrate faults with much less ambiguity. Contrawise, when things "go right", I always hate that touched by the hand of God feeling, which both athletes and artists share on rare, brilliant days: such instances teach nothing, even as they lend moments of ecstasy.

Like many artists, I possess a "blind spot" when it comes to judging my own work: things which seem wonderful to me on the day of painting, on the next appear meretricious. Others, which I dismissed soon after making, later seem to possess some interest. 

Flickr

This site remains excellent for attracting new viewers. The fact that I can show my work in various virtual groups allows me to find new followers. The site is elegant and easy to use.

There are 545 followers,  up from 454 last year.

Blogger

I have been posting here steadily, with commentaries. I went through a period of posting film reviews on here too: later I came to the conclusion, from reading other online film reviews, that I have little or nothing to add to the good work done by many well known critics, my own opinions really differing little from theirs. Ergo, I slowly stopped publishing my reviews.

The indexing system is superb, allowing : rapid thematic connection between postings. Choosing keywords is not easy: too general and it is useless, an too specific fill fail to connect one post with another. Should there be separate keywording for "sea" and "sea painting" for instance? But, as my blog develops, which keywords are useful will become more obvious.

So now the site concentrates almost entirely on my own art production.

There are  now 59 followers, up from 43: I rarely get feedback though Blogger, however.

Facebook

I've been showing work here steadily through the year. It is quite effective as it bridges social networks and art sites. I recommend it. It has been good for generating sales and interest. I have  "friends"- few of who met me there specifically to follow my work.

Deviantart

This inelegant and fussy site is not much good- I think it''s primarily aimed at teenagers. I have now 39 followers, up from 10 last year.

Saachi

I have found this site utterly useless in terms of making contacts with other artists, rarely receiving comments or any interest whatsoever. My feeling is that it attracts strictly careerists, and they have little notion of community. I will probably stop posting here.

Art and Architecture

I have joined this site a few days ago. Let's see how it goes: http://artandarchitecture.co.uk/

I feel a broad sympathy with it's objectives, though it isn't elegant.

Annual Review: Flickr, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Deviant Art, Saachi online

The ruins of  consciousness, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm

Flickr

There are 454 contacts on Flickr, from 380 a year ago. This remains the best showcase for work, having the  most elegant and easy to use system for downloads. Each picture is shown in 10 groups, which help enormously in showing work to people. The quality of other peoples' artwork on Flickr seems higher than the other image hosting sites.

Blogger

There are 43 Followers: this time last year there were 8, a notable increase. The indexing system in place has improved my site considerably, making it much easier to use. The addition of film reviews widens the scope of the blog: initially I had reservations about including film reviews, fearing that the blog would thereby lose its focus.

However, I judged that the reviews are a focus for creative ideas and values, and as such have a relevance to my own artmaking, and that, in any case I had already included things on the blog that weren't directly related to my own art.

I tend to think a catholic approach to blogs is better, making them more enjoyable to follow, so long as they remain reasonably consistant.

Twitter

There are now 51 followers on Twitter from 42 a year ago. I posted links fairly regularly here until about 6 months ago, when I more or less stopped: Twitter did not appear to bring increased traffic, and I find it an annoying site to use.

Facebook

I began posting paintings on Facebook at the end of March. This is useful as it connects me to my friends and to their friends and so on. I have sold paintings through picture files on Facebook.

Deviant Art

I began posting work here again, though I dislike this site, with it's silly teenargot nomenclature and messy layout. There are now 10 followers. I have showed work in some online groups there.

Saachi online

I began posting work here. I have made 3 contacts since joining in mid- September. There do not appear to be online "groups" within Saaachi online in which to display work. The quality of artwork displayed by other artists is often on Saaachi is shockingly poor.

Overview

Of the sites about the best ones remain Flickr, Blogger and Facebook. I shall continue with the others for the time being.

Artwork

I have been steadily working on small landscapes since February 2010, after a period of quite wide ranging experimentation. There are about 230 of these "postcards". There is a balance to be struck by between following an accepted format, and gaining from the benefits that acrue from exploring a given aesthetic language and becoming overfamiliar with a format.

Boredom is the enemy of art, and it remains to be seen how long I can continue working in Florianopolis on such paintings without becoming tired of it. At such a point it is essential to change artistic course without shame.

Travel is inspirating, and I wish to spend less time in Florianopolis, which is a very limited place, and more in other parts of Brasil and abroad. I will shortly visit the mountains and Rio Grande de Sul, and spend a month in the UK in July. Money -or rather the lack of it- is really what prevents me from travelling more, as I have few responsibilities, no pets, property, houseplants or lovers. I am trying to earn more money teaching and selling paintings: if you like the work here, it is mostly for sale, so please do not hesitate to contact me.

I am also looking for models to sit for portraits, so if you can help, please let me know.

Stories

Having no live audience- something I miss from the London River Writers' group and Decongested forums, as well as literary friends there- storywriting has taken a back seat since coming to Brasil. I shall continue to write occasionally, however: there are ideas that can only really be explored in fiction, and I enjoy the interaction of stories and pictures very much

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Thanks

Happy New Year to you all.

Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback, bought art, gave encouragement and ideas.

If you have any suggestions please let me know.

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