Paul Balmer Cityscapes Two of my favorite painting subjects (at the moment) are still lifes and cityscapes. I like that the subject doesn't have to be that interesting to make an interesting painting, meaning that the best still life and cityscape painters are really alchemists. Ordinary pots and pans or congested and polluted city views can be turned into paintings of great beauty.

Paul Balmer is a South African born, Australian taught, NYC based painter doing some amazing cityscape paintings.

High as the Horizon - Paul Balmer


Gallant - Paul Balmer


Between Night and Day - Paul Balmer

He does some nice cityscape drawings and landscape paintings too.. which can be seen on his website here.  ¶ 11:55 PM 8 comments

  Mark Kostabi - Title This Painting A friend just let me know about a strange little online program called Title This by the artist Mark Kostabi. Kostabi hosts the show and invites art critics and celebrities on to title his paintings. The person that comes up with the best title for the painting wins cash.


Title This can be viewed online Here.  ¶ 11:55 PM 21 comments

  Artists Getting Business Savvy The Art Newspaper spoke with the British artist Keith Tyson about how artists are starting to take control of their career, rather than simply handing the reigns to the art dealer and hoping for the best. It's a theme that comes up more and more lately.

Here's a couple quotes from the article..
"Galleries will promise you the world in terms of production costs but it comes at the price of complete control. There’s a conflict of interest in having the people who retail your work being the same people that help you with production because they will try and own it." Keith Tyson Quote

"The bottom line is that you need to be in the centre making the decisions with the gallery working for you, rather than vice-versa." Gavin Turk Quote


I have no sympathy for the art dealers. I appreciate that running an art gallery is a tough business, but I'm happy to see them lose some of their power over artists. Most artists will probably still stick to the traditional artist/gallery relationship, but it's good to know that you don't have to sell your soul to one art dealer if you don't want to.

The Internet and business superstars like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons haven't been good for traditional art dealers. It makes me think of the music business and their unwillingness to change.
>> Being an Artist  ¶ 10:14 PM 5 comments

  Art Books and Art Blog Just so you know, I'm not dead, lost, imprisoned, or in a mental institute. I just needed a break and lots of ME time. Those that know me think I already have too much ME time, but I don't think you can ever have enough of it ;-)

A blog is a greedy beast that is never satisfied and I just decided to stop feeding her for a few days, which turned into a few weeks. I guess I was angry at Art News Blog for making me feel responsible to her, but we have made up and resolved our issues.

So, things will now be back to normal or as normal as they can be.

While away I have been painting and reading books about painting, which has been great. I went on an art book buying spree at Amazon and spent hundreds of dollars. I created a wish list at Amazon and realized that if I didn't buy the books for myself, they're not going to magically appear on my bookshelf one day! I felt guilty after buying so many books at one time, but I loved hearing the delivery van pulling up out the front with more new books for three consecutive days!

Here's a few of them.. (they're afilliate links from Amazon as I have to feed my art book addiction somehow!)













The rest are mostly diary/journal/info/bio type books on or by artists like Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne and Mr Damien Hirst.

I bought a mixed CD called Namaste too.. which is great to paint to..



Anyway, that's my sales spiel for today.
>> Art Books  ¶ 1:46 AM 19 comments