Why would someone buy your/my/any art?

I found myself asking this question the other day as I walked around amongst other beautiful artworks.

Putting myself in the position of the buyer not just for the perception of my own art but also if I was in the position to buy any art which would I buy and WHY?
I didn’t quite answer my own question…

Today, I came across this article from Empty Easel -  Why Would Someone Buy Your Art?

What do you you think?
Have you bought art before? If not why ?
If so, why did you choose the art you did? and did you buy an original as opposed to a print ? Why?

Pondering the questions please let me know your thoughts

“Rose Alike” – Belinda Lindhardt
Artwork size: 44   X 68 cms
Framed: 78  X 91cms

I think we are done

This artwork will be on display and for sale this coming weekend at the Central Coast Grammar School Spring Fair Art Exhibition.

Details to come

“Life’s Lessons” – Belinda Lindhardt – Acrylic on Canvas
Copyright 2010

As we grow we teach others our life’s lessons learnt.

In our passing our teachings will continue to grow in those generations yet to come.

Those lessons learnt are our legacy that will live forever.

Progress on my latest work: As you can see,  I have added lots more layers of colour particularly on the yellow pear and some of the red.

For Artists: One of the things when I am at this stage of working is to be always checking my values.  I constantly check a black and white reference of the pears just to make sure I have the values of the shadows in the right position and that they are dark enough.
It’s really important with a round object like this to also use  pencil strokes in direction of the contours of the object you are creating.

This is where it’s really important to have knowledge of how the object is 3D / real life.   I tend to imagine how that curve is rather than try to copy what is on the photo. If I was to copy exactly what i see on the photo then  I would get a very flat looking piece.
This is why drawing from life regularly is so important even though you use  a photo as a reference in your final artwork, its important to understand how something REALLY is in order to capture that.

This is my first coloured pencil piece where I think I am going to leave a lot of the paper white. In most of my pieces i will  generally cover all areas of the paper but  I don’t think it needs it in this instance, we will see how it progresses when I get further to the end.

That’s it for now, on for more layers.

June 2010 Coloured Pencil Workshop

In conjunction with the CCAS (Central Coast Art Society), my workshops for the society are coming up on June 2nd & 16th 2010.

These workshops are some of the very few colouredpencil workshops using dry pencils happening in Australia and I am excited to providing these again, I hope some local coloured pencil artists and artists wanting to find out more information will come along and have a great morning of pencils.
Last year I was so inspired to have such a lovely group of people from all levels and teach them all about pencils and its been fantastic to see some of these artists exhibiting coloured pencil artworks following this workshop in both CCAS and various Sydney exhibitions.

This year I want to again try to cater to both artists who have had no coloured pencil experience as well as those who came last year so depending on how many we have of both on the day see how we go.  I will try to specify that if you are a beginner please try to come to the first workshop as I will cover beginner techniques specifically on that day.

I will also try to have some supplies for sale on the day such as stonehenge paper and some polychromos and prismacolour pencils. One reason being that you as can’t get prismacolors up here on the coast. If anyone is at all interested in purchasing anything else let me know ASAP so i can cater for it. I was considering perhaps purchasing some Zest-It as there were many people interested in this last year– anyone?

Time: 9:30am to 12:30pm

Location: Gosford Art Gallery – the Studios
32 Web St, EastGosford NSW

Cost: $10- Including Morning Tea

Date 2nd June 2010 – Introduction to Coloured Pencils

This workshop will be covering an introduction to using coloured pencils. We will cover different coloured pencil materials, artists, techniques, supports, skills and process used in creating coloured pencil artworks. In this workshop you will come away with an understanding more about working with coloured pencils as medium as well as being exposed to the basics in creating coloured pencil artworks.

Date 16th June 2010 – Continuing on with Coloured Pencil Artworks

This workshop is where we will go beyond the basics working with complimentary colours, planning an artwork more advanced blending techniques.
I will demonstrate my processes with various supports for different effects and speeding up work time. From this workshop participates will gain exposure to different ways of working with pencils used in completing a coloured pencil artwork.

Reference materials and photos will be supplied on both days, however if you have something specific you wish to work on please bring it along.

Materials: As a guide it is best to use quality artists pencils and good quality paper for pencil work or you will be frustrated with the results.
So please bring along:  Stonehenge paper - can be bought in large sheets at Eckersleys (cut down into more manageable sizes)  or bring along your best drawing paper.
Pencils: Either Prismacolour or polychromos pencils in at least 3 values of the 1 colour of your choice eg. light blue, medium blue & dark blue & white pencil.
Cotton buds for blending and makeup pads if desired.

I will have materials available for artists to “try” on the day and I will have a small supply of papers and pencils to purchase if you wish but not required.

You don’t have to be a member to enjoy the society so there is no excuse hope to see you there!

Here are a few flowers I created this afternoon.

This obviously is not supposed to be a work of magnificent art and its not particularly useful for anything.

It is what it is and it’s a creation.

We can look at a piece of artwork and find it hard to justify how can that 1 peice be worth so much money.

I admit it’s true art is not particularly a necessity in life like food or water we CAN live without it.
In saying that though artwork  challenges emotions – sometimes thoughts an opinions, sometimes just reminders -  for example Having a picture of a beach scene in your house might remind you of a family holiday or person you met at the beach or maybe a location you want to travel to.

Seeing an artwork can provoke a response in people that will mean different things to different people. Same in business having a particular colour, style as your branding or logo  or artwork on your product may also encourage your customers to buy your product over another.

For the person who creates, living a creative life means that you have many experiments and challenges that leads you to the 1 you maybe putting out into the world.

For the customer what you are investing in is all the years the person has invested in themselves to acquire that skill it doesn’t just come without commitment and work despite however talented  it takes work.

For the creative its hard but VITAL that you remember that everything you create leads you to the next, the creation exists because you have created it – it is not YOU nor  can it be your only investment of your skill. You must push on.

This not only relates to artworks but to systems, processes, projects other things you may also create in your life – i think it particularly relates to cooking myself.
If you like to cook you know sometimes recipes work sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes you might experiment and add a bit of this or that it might be great, next time you might try to add those again, or omit them depending on how it turned out. Doesn’t mean your going to stop cooking, next time in another recipe you may try the same ingredient in that to see how it turns out. That is the creative process.

So here are my flowers for today, what you see is the result of an experiment of trying new process and papers that didn’t work out how i wanted, so rather than push on and continue with the whole flower I stopped at one petal then turned it into a flower digitally and  then manipulated it by changing its colour and then I  added a leaf I created the other day.

Is it a masterpiece NO, is it a creation in itself – YES.
Is it less creative than if i had pushed on and created the whole flower? Will leave you to answer that one…

It is what is and tomorrow is another day and so there will be another creation.

“Red Onions” by Belinda Lindhardt

I saw these glorious red onions at the vegetable shop still attached to their green bits   It’s rare that you see these like this and thought how great they would be to paint – I think I might be a bit strange to be inspired by fruit and vegetables…

Here is my fun little illustration for Illustration Friday this week, this weeks theme is “propagate”.
As a mum of two boys these lego men propagate all over my loungeroom floor and my house on a daily basis, how they multiple like this I really dont know but they constant.

This illustration done with a combination of vector and pixel illustration.

Seeing Sketch