⚗️ Experiments - finding your way as an artist
Quite often, when I talk to people, I find it almost amusing of how they imagine the life of an artist. Of course, it is generally assumed, that all painters are starving and that the life they chose is just another poor decision they made, because their awkward personality forced them this way (giggle)..
It's also widely believed that painters only work, when the muse kisses them. OK, true... thank good she does that every day around 9am, as one of my colleagues said it so nicely once.
I usually start my day with a cup of coffee in my office, checking mails and what else is going on and then I move on to painting or in my woodworking shop to build a frame or something.
But since I easily get bored when something becomes a routine, I always want to learn and try new things. Which also means a lot of experimenting, trial and error. It took me some 20 years to perfect my hinterglas technique to really gain full control over the outcome.
With the discovery of steem, crypto, blockchain based art and all that, I became very interested in exploring the possibilities of digital art, particularly in combination with my traditional work. Platforms like MakersPlace are making it possible, to create unique digital files. These tokenized images can then be collected and traded, similar to physical art. One advantage is, that you can even add movement to your art!
Creating art is one part, but if that is your job, it makes no sense, if nobody gets to see it. With the internet today, there are a lot of options. Almost too many to keep up with... unless you can employ someone full time to do it. So, again a lot of learning, trying, failing and finding the right way.
Posting to the steem blockchain has become a thing I enjoy doing on a regular basis... with occasional ups and downs. New platforms and struggling with changes or sites not working... A big source of aggravation is the new way steemit handles pictures. All downsized... for economical reasons. Supposedly 😡
I like to see pictures at high resolution and since I think others might enjoy that too, I had created my "zoom in" series. So far, the posts still seem to work and so I think I'll try another experiment here. The first picture above is a detail of "Divina Commedia". A pretty good size pencil drawing on glass. Let me start with another detail:
So far, when you clicked on the picture, it took you to the larger file, to better see all the details. Lets see, if it works on the whole thing:
click ☝️
Finally got it to work with linking the images to an external server. Not the best solution, as busy adds a link warning as you want to go see the larger picture. If anyone has abetter solution, I'd greatly appreciate every good hint!
I enjoy reading your comments!
❤
If you like my work, of course I appreciate your upvotes and resteems
All photos/scans by me of my own artwork done in my special technique as introduced in What is Hinterglas?
See more of my work on BeScouted
Thank you for being here for me, so I can be here for you.
Enjoy your day and stay creative!
Botty loves you. <3
Amazing pieces, Reinhard ! I really love how experimental you are * ___ * These really look gorgeous, and each experiment bring a brand new spin to your style <3 Wonderful~
And I think, your creations SHOULD be viewed at full resolutions, they are simply too stunning !!!
You are always too kind! Experimenting is a key ingredient for me. Even with a tiny painting I'm doing right now, I changed major elements four times, until I was entirely happy... unfortunately, there are often too many options :-b
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Many thanks. As always, I really appreciate your kind attention!
Beautiful pieces! I am also going to have to check out how you do the "click to zoom" method, as I have also found that the small size here on Steemit takes away from what detail can be shown. I look forward to checking out more of your work!
I see a lot of artists going this route, since steemit changed the way with showing images in low resolution only. See you around :-)
Hahaha, yes, most of people see us as starving and hardly making it, looks like history gave us that mark.
I have a friend that was asked from someone if that someone could join him and be present for several days during his work in studio.
And my friend said, yes, you can but you will be bored as hell, since I just work for hours and don't speak. For me, inside there is whole universe happening, but you can't see it and feel it just by watching me :)
Also agree with you, with this new media and all possibilities given, we can spend a day in front of the screen, but than, who would paint :) ?
Hahaha... yes, would be the same here. People have asked me to see me working and I just know it would put everyone to sleep!
Spend the day painting and the night by the PC ;-)
I, too, always find it interesting what people think or say when you tell them you are an artist. I do think people think it romantic and in some ways it can be, but the BIGGEST misconception is of the tortured soul trying to fight their inner demons on the verge of insanity and not getting any work done, thanks to Hollywood for that vision.
I, like you, am very scheduled. I mean if you don't work on it everyday then you won't get anything done. I have been frustrated lately as my shedule has to be so flexible with my move, but over all I am still working everyday, finding time to get it in, because again people (such as my house mates) don't really understand 'work' in that sense. But, I soldier onwards.
I am happy with the digital climate and do really believe we are in a new Artistic renaissance WITH the aid of digital. I am also always surprised by other artists reactions when you say 'digital art' I think it is viewed much as Photography once was, but that is now very much accepted as an artform and museums are filled with them.
I think to be an artist you MUST be open-minded to all new things and you must also be Disciplined, because those few lucky people who make one painting a year and sell it for half a million dollars are few and far between and I bet they worked pretty hard before they got there (or they had the money and connections to hire a good agent/pr team) Let's face it, art is at it's heart, a business as well as an expression of self and society.
Hahaha... yes, that tortured soul thing! No idea what fascinates people so much about that.. But then again, most people are fascinated by serial killers too. As long as they are not in their house I suppose.
To me, "digital" refers to a tool more than anything else. Its still the artist making the decisions. Even with glitch art, where a computer "comes up" with something, you still have to decide, if you keep something or make chages, and how to go on... I think we are just at the beginning of all this. Yes, like with photography almost 2 centuries ago.
It's surreal and I didn't realize it was one art piece at first. Nice details and the light and shading is amazing.
In some way I can relate to your story.
Yes, that colored version is part of a bigger piece.
Haha.. yes, there are a lot of experiences many artist share!
Your work is absolutely beautiful.
Thanks a lot! Glad you like it :-)
Made this post using busy.org, but I'm not sure, what is worse at this point. This or steemit. The animated gif only worked when its seen on the busy.org site. Steemit replaced it with a static image and I had to edit the post there to make it work. At least there the link to the larger files works better (without link warning)...
Hey Reihard. Thanks for the thoughtful post. I can somewhat relate to confronting limitations of new platforms. I only signed up for steemit yesterday and it took me a while to figure out why I couldn't comment, vote or post anything. I also think we are used to everything being easily accessible and on-demand, which makes services and websites that have a steeper learning curve tricky to work with. That being said, I am excited and looking forward to posting more art content, as well as engaging with other artists such as yourself :) Hopefully we can figure out the platform, and perhaps even get features that cover unmet user needs while doing so.
Thank you for your detailed answer. Yes, posting to the steem blockchain has a pretty steep learning curve. On any of the related platforms, particularly if you want to get into it a bit deeper. At least now there are tons of resources and how to's everywhere.
One of my most important tools is steemworld.org/@yourusername, gives you all the stats as well as your own voting power and all.
Would be nice, to see a "introduceyourself" post. A lot of people also use that to show they are "real" ;-)
To post art, you can also use https://www.ntopaz.com/ or https://elegance.blue/