I'm back! yes, I'm back from vacation and ready to start my second year of blogging. It was nice to take a week off from my day job and focus more on what I'm doing with my artwork. Speaking of my art, be sure to see my latest painting "Valentino Rossi" if you haven't already. This is by far the most detailed painting that I have ever done and I'm looking forward to do one again in the future. This week sometime it will be packaged up and sent to it's new home in Florida. While I was on vacation I [...]

Tonight is the last of my favorite blog posts that I wanted to share with you this week. I'm going to wrap up my one year of blogging celebration with one of my early posts from last July. I didn't have anything on mind that day until I turned to look at my digital camera, and my post was born! Here it is again on how the digital camera made things easy for me. "I was going over in my head what I wanted to post in my blog today when it hit me. I looked over to the right and saw my memory [...]

Today I have for you my second favorite post in my "series" to celebrate my first year in blogging this week. I posted this the day after Christmas last year and was just blown away by this aarticle "An Artists Recipe For Life" by artist Jody Hudson and had to use it for my blog. I hope some of you enjoyed it the first time, but if not, here it is. "Be insouciant with a smile. Laugh on purpose. Lie in the dark field and watch comets. Look danger in the eye with unwavering mirth. Wink, flirt, kiss and admire romance and beauty in others. [...]

As I mentioned in my newsletter on Sunday, it was one year ago this week that I started to blog. This week I share three of my favorite posts from my first year starting with this one from a couple of months ago. This one was one of my favorites due to the way the gentleman talked about what he learned along the way in his art career. "I thought I would Today I have for you an article done by Barney Davey from Art Print Issues. This was the result of an interview he had with artist Milton Glaser in 2001 who [...]

The other day I shared with you one of the biggest art shows in my area, the Three Rivers Art Show. I have for you today a bit of a correction on a couple of things. The show runs for three weeks not two as I mentioned, and Point State Park is not being used this year as I guess their is still some more work to do in the renovations there so it has been moved to the Gateway Plaza Area of the city. I'm planning on seeing it next week some time if I can as I'm busy on my own art [...]

The other day I talked about how I got the power tools that I use in my business to make frames for my oil paintings (if you missed it you can see it here ). Today I want to share with you why I'm glad I never threw away my old "technology". As you know I'm wrapping up work on my "superbike" commission and part of that is putting a frame on it. I got a nice frame for a good price that is the right shape for the painting only larger. To make the frame the right size it needs [...]

Today to close out this first week of summer weather (at least in my area), I thought I would talk about a question artists get from time to time, "what is that?" This is a question most commonly coming from a viewer pointing to a certain area on a painting. Nine times out of ten there is nothing wrong or ignorant about it, they are just naturally curious. The one time out of ten is handled a different way, and I'll save that for another post. So how do you handle this question from a serious viewer? You can tell them what you [...]

Today I thought I would ask a question, are artist stereotypes dead? When you decide to get serious with your art you always are on the lookout for good advice on how to go about it. One of the sources that you end up going to are other artists as well as "art world" professionals. One of the first things that you are taught are the negative stereo-types that the general public has had toward artists for centuries. They are the following, artists are mentally ill, artists are "flighty", artists are not good business people, and the final one, art is just a scam and [...]

Today I thought I would share with you one of the biggest art events in my area, The Three Rivers Arts Festival which gets under way this weekend. The event lasts for two weeks and takes up parts of downtown Pittsburgh and Point State Park. For those not familiar with the Pittsburgh area, if you have ever seen a nationally televised sporting event here on T.V., it is the triangle area in the front of the buildings with the water fountain and the grassy area in between. This is where they set up the free music which really makes this a great time. [...]