The Framers Forum

Not that I can paint at all ... but I'm forever having to explain to people that this guy (Darren Baker - on DeMontfort's books) is not a photographer!

"It's from a PAINTING? - You're kidding!"

He's doing a portrait of the Queen soon plus he's the (or 'an') official artist of the London Olympics - heaven knows how much his originals will go for after that. At the moment It's about £10,000 ('Trade')

Moulding BTW is a Nielsen 'exclusive' from the 'Contempara' range ..... but I bought it from Ashworth & Thompson!

Actually, I wish I could take photos as good!

They are very impressive Robo, always loved a lady in red.

The only person I know who does such good photographic quality paintings is Steve Gray - Spit on this forum. I don't think he does people though, but his motor bikes, churches and cottages are brilliant. Have a look at his bikes on this website: http://www.classicbikeart.co.uk/

Pah!

All well and good, I suppose.

But when he finally gets to grips with this art thing, he'll be able to do this kind of stuff.

You are right John, it should pave the way to fame and glory. I bet other artists are bricking it!

I've always been impressed by photo-realism but I get the impression that this kind of art is looked down upon by the art world, not sure why, although those bricks are growing on me

I like art that takes real skill; not just an idea that someone got before anyone else did - I'll never see a Jackson Pollock as anything even close to art.

There are great artists who are very poor painters and great painters who are very poor artists. Copying a photo, no matter how well executed, is draughtsmanship. The art comes in the decision to do it in the first place.

What's the difference between copying a photo and sitting in a field copying the scene your looking at?

Nothing.

Although it would depend on whether you took the photo or someone else.

I have had people bring me photographs asking me to do a painting of the photograph. I tell them why not just frame the photograph? All they are going to get is a (very expensive) copy of the photo.

There again, if someone went out and took a photo and copied it in paint, it's a different thing. The art is in their choice of what to photograph. The actual applying of the paint (no matter how well done) is the donkey work.

People sneer at a lot of modern art. Sure, any fool can stack a lot of bricks on the floor. The point that they miss is that left to his own devices, the said fool wouldn't have thought to do it in the first place. If you accept the premise that the purpose of art is to provoke an emotional response, then the bricks succeed on many levels.

prospero wrote:There are great artists who are very poor painters and great painters who are very poor artists. Copying a photo, no matter how well executed, is draughtsmanship. The art comes in the decision to do it in the first place.

There are people who paint and there are painters, those who know what to leave out. We have a great illustrator on our books, who can paint exceedingly well. The trick will be to art direct here and get her to make suggestions in her paintings and not just exactly what she can see.

However art publishers usually prefer illustrators or commercial artists as they know how to work to a brief.

possibly a controversial direction this topic is taking - imho nothing can be argued until the concept "ART / ARTWORK" is satisfactorily defined and that can easily be books full - ( While doing my Fine Art degree I had a lecturer who could theorize over a blank canvas for hours - and make sense on top of it) a Mark Rothko deserves his place just as much as a Chuck Close................

It could be argued that if it were possible to define what ART is, you wouldn't need to do it in the first place.

Yup .... that's possible.
But a windblown newspaper lying in the gutter says nothing - just rubbish - whilst a painting of that very same subject hanging in a gallery can ooze social comment on a number of levels - so there are definable parameters whether we like it or not.

This guy would probably get lots of commissions, but art I do not think it is, I would describe it more as portraiture - even though that can sometimes qualify as serious art. The red ladies seem to lack any originality or emotional content for me. There are probably thousands of low paid painters in asia who could knock out that kind of stuff in no time.

These days there are lots of ways a photo can be traced, so arguably not even much draughtsmanship is necessary. Plus if you do that and the original is huge, then reduced in size for print, they will appear even more impressive/detailed than they are. In medieval times I believe mirrors were used to project images onto canvas to be traced - these days you could do it with a large format printer via various methods. So sometimes if the proportion and image is too good I think that can be suspicious.

I'd much rather have something with a distinctive style and freedom of expression, or that made me think.

In the case of the red ladies I think I would prefer the original photos to a painting. Impressed by the realism but don't like the end result.

prospero wrote:Sure, any fool can stack a lot of bricks on the floor. The point that they miss is that left to his own devices, the said fool wouldn't have thought to do it in the first place. If you accept the premise that the purpose of art is to provoke an emotional response, then the bricks succeed on many levels.

Are you trying to convince us that the pile of bricks outside your old caravan/workshop is Art? And when is it going on display at the National Gallery?

Well I didn't consider entering my compost heap for the Turner Prize.



Bet it would be in with a chance. I would call it Study in Entropy #36 or something suitably arty-farty.

Ok - wharraya fink of this painting - I did it!
Be brutally honest - which will be dead easy after I tell you the story.

Was looking at the latest offerings from a ltd edn publisher - came across a set of 4 prints at £99 per print - black rectangles (the 'vase') with a green line ('stem'/'stalk') a white blob with fuzzed edges ('flower') against vibrant coloured backgrounds with the odd random line going through the lot for no apparent reason - thought 'even I can do that' and did - not copied - just along those lines - sold everything I did at over £300 each!

Then I started giving the vases some shape and making the flowers more like flowers - kept the stems (so thin they'd never support the weight but what the heck); kept the loud background, sold a few like that too and haven't bothered since.

Called this one 'curtain call' - just because the background sort of looked like curtains ....... and the flowers could be taking a bow - added the shadows after I thought of the title. Sometimes the title can be a clincher!

There ya go John. There's #### all to it.

I think it`s about time you finished painting & grouted those tiles Robo...

If you need to find something arty to say about your self try this link!
http://10k.aneventapart.com/Uploads/262/