Being aware of the sheer scale of the natural beauty all around us is a key part of our sense of our well-being
We can find this in a small garden, a park, along a river
or lake, large or small
We can witness it in birds and animals
We can walk past it many times in our homes or at work.
Examples of it can be in pictures hanging on our walls.
Vow to spend moments each day, taking notice of it.
Feel the pleasant & soothing impact on you as you do it!
Thursday, 22 April 2010
The Pay Back For Choosing To Do Something For Ourselves
I am pleasantly stunned by the immediate and great response to the article I posted yesterday on www.submityourarticles.com on the Marvels for Giclee Printing For Artists. Should this appeal to you to try to have something you have painted copied in this way, that would be a bonus for me.
But what I hope sincerely would be a bonus for you would be a realisation forming in you that you can make something like this an unqualified "Want To" for yourself.
Maybe you won't take me too literally. Perhaps you would like instead to write, to cook or dance - the choice of what we can do is endless. It matters not what you take up as an interest.What is key, is your "wanting to" do it, for your own satisfaction. It's solely for your pleasure and sense of achievement which is key. There need be no "Have to" about it, at all!
Life today for so many of us is a long succession of "Have To's" or at least "Ought To's". If that is not actually the reality of our lives, it can still be our perception and put us under more pressure.
Doing something that is our's; doing it at our own pace; doing it because we want to get better at it, these are not self-indulgent and selfish actions or motives.
Of course, it goes without saying that to take up something manically, with total and utter missionary zeal at the expense of other commitments would not be good idea. But finding the times in the week when one can learn new skills is a great way to relax and restore belief in ones creative powers. That is a great feeling and provides an object lesson to those around us that having a more balanced lifestyle is important and achievable.
And there is one hidden secret lesson in all this. A tutorial in simplified psychology! Show yourself how easily and quickly you learn the tricks of the new activity of your choosing, and it will show you how powerfully the mind can respond to your deep desire to do something.
That's all very different to learning a "Have To"!
With your new skill learned or well towards being acquired, then you will have the stark proof of the high worth of this recommendation:-
Faced with any new "Have To" or "Ought To", look for the value to you in it, look for the value to those you love and those you care about and respect. The more of that value you find and can cherish, the quicker you will achieve the goal and draw great satisfaction from it as a choice rather than a imposition.
I confess I have come late in life to this form of copying technology. I cannot imagine anything that could have helped the amateur artist more to market their work effectively and economically. The cost and versatility of this form of copying has fallen dramatically in recent years. Any artist should check it out.
The cost of the scanners and printing machines has dropped and the size at which they can function has increased. As a result many more speciality copy shops and printers have them or have access to them. But what is far more material is no longer does one have to finance hundreds or even thousands of conventionally produced copies, such as lithographs. Now one can order the art print pretty well as one wants one and in reduced or enlarged sizes, compared with original. This means their use on greetings or other cards becomes a formality.
And one can only describe the art print quality as embarrassing. Why! Because the standard of reproduction is so phenomenal that it is impossible to tell the copy apart from the original. Does this allow unscrupulous behaviour. I guess it could. But what it does allow is an artist to sell excellent prints of their work at economic prices to those for whom an original would be too expensive.
You still can benefit materially from going to a printer who is skilled in Giclee printing and who has an acute eye for colour tints. There can still be a degree of man management of the scanning and reproductive process that can make that ultimate copy.
I have also come across artists prints where I have then discovered that they have actually set themselves with their own machines. They have acquired the necessary training. They are not only producing their own fine art prints, but producing them for others. The fact that printing can be achieved on various surfaces, canvass and watercolour paper included, means they can develop entrepreneurial businesses very simply. Being able to produce affordable art from their own studio, is a huge bonus.
Sometimes erroneously referred to as Iris prints, Giclee art prints are reproduced on 8 to 12 colour ink-jet printers. They are designed to respond to the very high resolution scan already conducted on an original by squirting the ink on to the paper to match the scan exactly..
The achievable advantages seem endless! The ink can be the best long-lasting ink enabling one to give 15 year warranties on them against them fading if the usual sensible precautions are taken. The high definition scanned image of the original can be stored digitally to be used as required.
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If you are an artist, do check it out on the internet. It presents so many exciting possibilities. Even if you have produced just one masterpiece, you have it copied for your family or friends.
Have you wished you get one or more of your pictures you have painted converted into art prints. I have just posted a short article on Giclee Printing on submityourarticle.com/articles/www.submityourarticle.com/articles/ which should be available to read tomorrow 22nd April.
It is a very quick and economical method of getting copies of your pictures done for friends or family or for selling. Many printers have this ability now that the scanners and printers necessary have come down in price so much. So if you just want a handful done, it is perfectly feasible.
Shortly to be added to the website, will be a Fourth Gallery of Temples and Spiritual Buildings. A notoce will be posted hear to confirm they are available as Fine Art Prints
I have found creating a type of Tattoo effect on watercolour backgrounds to be a very therapeutic activity as well as very rewarding. I have “tattooed” Boats, ClassicalBuildings, Dolphins and Penguins, but truth to tell, it can be done for any form of image.
There are two quite separate disciplines involved here.
One discipline requires that, within an uninhibited flourish of no more than 15 minutes, one can produce a free flowing watercolour sky and background. It can be in full colour or in monochrome.
The second discipline calls for the painstaking and minute detail of an image created by ink pointillism – blue ink on full watercolour, or say, black ink on monochrome grey, or sepia ink pointillism on monochrome sepia. This can take 2 to 10 hours depending on the size and complexity of the image.
I am left wondering if there is more than one type of artist residing within each of us or whether it is just me! One for flourish and one for detail!
Another joy of this kind of medium is that with the sky and background already painted, you can carry the unfinished picture in a roll and with a pen and some peace and quiet, one can finish the image with the minimum of equipment to carry..
Yet another bonus is that, given the intensity of the dots in the pointillism image, the final pictures can then be reproduced as fine art prints in enlarged or reduced form with impunity.
I have found it has provided me with a great way to create relaxing and pleasing pastoral or water scenes and then to really work on the detail of particular types of images of subjects that I love.
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It is possible with care to super-impose the pointillism images in a way which does not make them appear stamped on the background. This is achieved by using the pointillism to heighten the intensity of the background here or there, maybe with eddies on the water, or intensifying movement in long grass.
The light created in the watercolour background, strangely, does not offend the eye. Instead it appears to the eye as reflected light.
I hope I have inspired you to try it too. There are good instructional books on pointillism.
Use good standard watercolour paper and high quality water colour paints. The pens I use are Pilot pens and I use mostly size 1 to 3 and just occasionally 4 or 5. Most good art shops, office suppliers and stationers stock them.
Do leave comments or questions on my blog if you need more help. I have posted some examples there for you to look at.
My sincere hope is that you will gain the relaxation and therapeutic advantages I have derived from this mixed media form of art.
I am pleased to say that the website www.sirgerrynealeartprints.com is now launched. There is a payment provider, Paypal, on the site which enables the choice to be made to buy anyone of the four sizes of art prints - A5 A4 A3 A2. Delivery should be allowed within 21 days from the order. GN
Gallery Quality, Colour Matched Giclee Prints Of Calm And Gentle Morning And Evening Scenes, Of Boats And Waterscapes, And Of Animals - Such As Elephants, Dolphins and Penguins. The Reproduction Prints Of My Pictures Are Either In Full Colour Or In Monochrome Shades Of Sepia.
The Prices Are The Same For Each Print, Varying Only According To The Size Of Each Print.
I have found great peace and tranquillity in watching the movement of boats and animals in bright sunrises and sunsets. I confess I fell on this form of mixed media artwork by accident. I had painted traditional watercolours. I had produced on white backgrounds portraits of my grandchildren, boats and churches in black ink pointillism.
I first tried to impose back ink pointillism images onto colour back grounds and it did not work. I then thought that possibly the eye would be better fooled if the pointillism image was in blue, and that was exactly the result, although the correct intensity of the dots in relation to the background colour is key.
I then thought a similar but monochrome effect could be achieved by a sepia wash and a sepia pointillism image imposed on it. I tried it and my faith was rewarded. It also worked beautifully, enabling me to complete waterscapes, as well as pictures of elephants and temples, almost as though they were like old faded black and white photographs.
Extraordinarily, this medium, whether in full colour or in sepia only, facilitates the reproduction from the originals in enlarged or reduced sizes without impacting on the colour or image quality.
My sincere hope is that you enjoy them as much I enjoyed creating them. Should you buy one and not like it, then please return it to the printers and your money will be refunded.
So far I have painted over 70 pictures in this format, but not all of them have yet been prepared for the Giclee printing process.
The prints are from original watercolour mixed media paintings by me. The end effect is achieved by way of the sky, the medium distance and foreground being painted in watercolours or in sepia alone, and then having the subject of the picture imposed by ink pointillism.
These have then been expertly scanned and colour matched to capture the same ethereal quality of the originals.
Many animals appeal to me, but there is such a wonderful
humility and grace about elephants, dolphins and penguins
While they are clearly very different, they do seem to lend
themselves to being painted in this mixed media form.
The sepia picture of a substantial yacht in a raging sea bucks the tranquil trend of all the others! I cannot remember what had angered me, given that I so rarely am angered, but I can remember needing to paint this picture to help me vent my spleen!
Posted on the site are examples of Mixed Media Watercolour and Pen Pointillism affordable art which I have painted and which are available as Gallery Quality Colour Matched Art Prints.
I have been fascinated for years by the ever-increasing research data emerging on the ways we can pattern our thinking to our benefit or our loss.
Often we do not realise we have done it or what triggered it. Its origins can lay in our childhood or in our more recent past.It can affect dramatically how we can cope with change, trauma or taking on a new role or starting a new business or activity.
I am intrigued by the discovery of cognitive tools which adults can use to rid themselves of the effects of inhibiting behaviour. It can inhibit a person in their performance at work as well as at play.
I write and mentor on these topics, tailoring cognitive solutions for people and seek to promote any person or institution doing the same thing.
I have written a novel called "Squaring Circles: From The Dark Into The Light", which I am excited about and it was published in June 2011 in paperback.
1. Keep all your work from the very start , and in that way, as you progress you can see how far you have come.
2. Learning from books is as valid as going to classes.
3. Draw or Paint what you like and want to paint, not what you think others will like. Enjoyment & fascination is key. Draw funny pictures, if you want to! I have!
4. The more capable you become at drawing, the more effectively and speedily your painting skill will grow.
5. Read! Study! Read! Study! Read! Study! And of course draw and paint too. Vow to never stop learning new tricks and techniques.
6. Become a magician with your pencils or brushes, learning how to trick the eye of the beholder of your picture!
7. By the time we go to meet our maker, I am assured that we will still not have got it absolutely right, so we should enjoy the journey!
8. Don't stint on the materials you buy. Get the best. And if you get fine art prints done for the family, don't economise on the standard by doing them on a photo-copier! I would recommend you have ALL you art prints done on the giclee process. You won't regret it!
9. Get some of them properly mounted at least too. You will feel really encouraged by the way it presents them as finished work.
10. Use every opportunity you have to study any other painters' work which you like. Then try them yourself. Experiment enthusiastically. You will never copy exactly and will find that slowly you will absorb more and more ideas as you create your own style.
