Two more seascape studies, each with their own lessons.

In this painting of bluffs, I’m focusing on my grays and aerial perspective (distance). I tend to paint too dark, so I need to paint more studies like these. I focused on including very subtle warm/cool color variations, and show just a hint of light on the second bluff in (towards the middle). I remember a technique Barry John Raybould taught me: you take a base local color for an object, then divide it into three. Depending on the color, you mix a warm, cool and more neutral version of the base color, adjusting each new color to keep all three the same value. When you place these slight variations on the canvas, you create movement for the eye.

Shadowed Bluffs - Oil on Panel - 8×10

The atmosphere in this next study was completely different: a clear, afternoon light (around 2pm). I was working on a couple of challenges in this study.

First, I wanted to accurately convey the difference between the water and white water in both light and shadow. This takes a very careful study of value. The white water in shadow is quite light, yet not as light as the deep water in sun. The middle/left side of the painting shows a cast shadow from the bluff (it intersects the small rock). I pushed the differences there to get it to read properly. i did the same in the bottom right of the painting.

Second, I wanted to ensure the different types of shadows in the rocks read properly. For example, in the top right of the painting, one rock’s (on the left) right side is in shadow, but it’s facing the sky, so you’ll see the shadow is much cooler (and lighter) that the shadow next to it. That rock’s face was more verticle, so didn’t face the sky. As a result, it’s much darker and cooler.

Third, I wanted to show distance. One element that’s common in both the distance (top of the painting) and the foreground is the water and foam. You’ll notice that as the water moves back in space, I define less and less of the edges and color variation. I think it reads well, but not as well as Camille Przwodeck, who’s really good at this (see here and here). I am studying with Camille in Hawaii in February, can’t wait (join us)! The other element in common are the rocks. Again, I kept my most intense colors, sharp edges and color variation for the foreground rocks.

Rock Shadow - Oil on Linen - 9×12″

What do you think of these? Any advice?

Here’s another “rocks & surf” painting in my new seascape series.  I’m having a blast, playing with color and value, brushwork.  I’m loosening up, which feels great.  If it sells, it sells, right?  Art should be about joy (don’t tell the IRS ).

Carmel Bluffs - Oil on Linen - 9×12

I’m having a great time painting right now. I feel a break-through is either here or about to come! I’ve always loved the California coast, and so while this week I am forced inside my studio by near constant rain, I have lots of great photographs on my Mac to choose from.

Here are three new studies. In this first, I’m trying to represent the blinding light on the sea as I looked down on a cove in Point Lobos.

Blinding Light - Oil on Linen - 10×8″

In this one, I’m still exploring the color of ice plant juxtaposed against the rocks in shadow and the color of shadows in water.

California Coast (Late Afternoon) - Oil on Linen - 8×10″

I am very happy with this one! It represents the direction I want to go: bold, loose, simply stated. Lately, I’ve been painting over old paintings (after a brief sanding to get rid of the ridges). This has had an interesting effect on my technique. Because there’s a completely different painting below this one, I am forced to use more paint, which in turn I think has allowed me to lay more confident strokes. Not sure. I’m just going to keep it up and see what happens.

Cypress Cove (Point Lobos) - Oil on Linen - 8×10

Camille Przewodek teaches a regular Monday class at her studio in Petaluma. She’s one of my favorite teachers (her new series of marsh paintings are incredible), and she has a nice group of regular students.

We started by Camille offering a crtique to see what everyone had accomplished since she’d seen them last. I happened to have a couple of paintings in the trunk, so had something to show (Land’s End, Fall in Golden Gate Park). She thinks my brushwork has come a long way, and likes the expressive strokes, as well as my drawing and composition skills. She felt I needed to work on depth (which I agree with).

I’m studying with Camille in Hawaii in February–and can’t wait! I know I’ll learn a lot, and be inspired by the locations we’ll paint. I can highly recommend Camille for any level student (click for her workshop information).

As we often do, we painted still life studies outdoors, some students painted color blocks (a great exercise) while others painted a traditional still life. I set up a couple of plastic lemons, a green bowl and a cream pitcher. Here it is.

Untitled
Oil on Linen - 9×12 ($175, unframed study)

I thought I may have met my “end” yesterday, ironically while painting at Lands End beach in San Francisco.

Like many of you, I often hike to remote places to paint the perfect spot and find myself in the middle of nowhere. There are Mountain Lions to think about, snakes, made-up sadistic hatchet-yielding crazies–and then, there’re ourselves. My emergency was stupidly self-inflicted: While rocking out to Arctic Monkeys, and being completely in the zone (my painting was going well), I drank a big gulp of Turpentine (correction: I drank mineral spirits) thinking it was my water! Yikes! (Note to self: stop storing extra turps spirits in Calistoga bottles).

I called 911…”we need to send an ambulance, where are you?”. I could only describe vaguely where I was since I’d hiked 25 minutes from some unknown parking lot along the coast and I’d never been to this spot before. No one was around, so I couldn’t ask. All I could manage was, I can see the Golden Gate bridge! I was definitely in panic. I need an ambulance?

To make a long (embarrassing) story short…after hiking and getting disconnected/connected from 911 a couple of times, I eventually got connected to the Poison Control Center: “Gee, why did you drink that?” was the first question…then my age, am I breathing normally, etc. Luckily, the solution was to drink milk/juice (not water, and don’t vomit). I’m fine now.

Well, you’ve learned another lesson on my blog, don’t drink Turpentine or mineral spirits (just in case you were unsure on the matter).

Lands End (San Francisco) - Oil on Linen - 9×12

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Back to the Art: I liked the painting I was working on during this fiasco, so after resting a bit, I finished the remaining 10% at home. This ended up being a good study in grays, which are so important to achieving effective color.This isn’t the best photograph (I’ll get a scan when it dries), but the most intense colors needed to be the light-struck waves and the shadowed water. For the lightest crest of the white water, I used Titanium White with a little Hansa Yellow, a beautiful cool yellow on my palette. You’d think that a warm yellow like Cad Yellow would make for a better sun-light white, but I’ve found the cool yellows more convincing. The shadow side of the water is a combination of several colors, as frankly, I had a hard time arriving at the right color. I would say the end color is a combination of Magnesium Blue, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White.

For the shadow side of the rocks, I used a thin wash of Alizarin Crimson, killed back a bit with Sap Green, and probably a touch of Ultramarine Blue. The light-struck rock color was made from some grays on the side of my palette, adjusted here and there with warm and cool variations. Do you save your grays? After every painting, I scrape my left over paint into piles of analogous colors, usually one general warm, one violet, one green. These neutral colors provide a means of harmonizing color in subsequent paintings.

I wrote last month about my latest foray into online sales, Facebook advertising. I’ve spent time on Facebook for both my art career (including the Facebook Group, “Plein Air Painters“) as well as for work at Wells Fargo, where I manage their Social Media team*.

I think Facebook is doing a lot of smart things, and their new ads are no exception. Unlike many sites, Facebook contains a lot of information about their users, including their interests, gender, age, home town, etc. I know this worries some people, but not me. If by providing this information I see ads that are more appropriate to me, great. I’m going to see ads anyway, why not see ads that meet my interests?

Although I only started November 18, I do have some results to share that seem interesting. I’ve never purchased online ads (for my art career) before, so I don’t have much experience to benchmark, but I can calculate a “back of the envelope” ROI that seems pretty good.

When you start a campaign on Facebook, you can define a set of ads and see their aggregate click-through on a chart. This is mine (click any image to enlarge):

The more interesting information is shown in the Ad Campaigns tab:

The Ad Campaigns pane above shows my 6 ads running for this campaign. I was able to define very specific target user demographics for each ad I created. As you see below (left side of the screen shot), and ad consists of a small image and text. For example, in “Women Still Life Campaign”, I created an ad with a still life painting, introduced myself as the artist selling the work, and targeted women between the ages of 35-65, college educated, who like art (as defined in their profile).

When you define an ad target and enter the user demographic you want to see the ad, Facebook will tell you exactly how many people are in their community that meet your criteria. This is really helpful. In one case, I tried to get too targeted, and found there were less than 1,000 people that would see the ad. So defining your demographics is an art in itself: make it narrow enough to reach the people you think will connect with the ad, yet make sure the population is large enough so you’ll get ad impressions on the site and have a large enough pool of people to see it. For the seascape ad, I targeted both male/female, 35+ and selected only upper class coastal towns in California.

Here’s a campaign that’s doing particularly well, one that doesn’t feature my art, but my headshot (see the ad preview in the far right of the screen shot):

With my limited experience so far, I’ve found there are at least three key factors that make Facebook ad successful:

• Fine tune the $ CPC. You need to experiment with the CPC (cost per click) you’re willing to pay. I started at 0.11, and found I got very few impressions. The Facebook system will obviously choose to display ads at the highest CPC possible, so if you’re underbidding other advertisers seeking the same user demographic, you won’t get impressions, which means you won’t get clicks that can then lead to sales. As you can see above, I’m paying between 20-30 cents per click.
• Be creative. My ad that targets hikers has been particularly successful. I just thought, when I’m out painting, most of the people I run into are hikers and they seem the most interested in nature + art. Not surprising, right? For my still life ad–sorry in advance for being sexist!–I targeted older, college educated women. I’ve found that they’re the most likely to buy my floral still life paintings, so I transfered that practical experience to online ads. The great thing about their system is you can create lots of ads and experiment, see what works.
• Select the right image. The image you can select for the ad is around 100×80 pixels. Small! So, pick a painting (or fragment) that is really easy to “read” at that size. Also, perhaps not surprisingly, my most successful ad (in terms of % click-through) was the one that featured my headshot, not my paintings! I don’t know what to take that! Other than the fact it IS a SOCIAL network, so people are there to connect with others. If you present YOURSELF first, it appears people are much more receptive.

Have the ads been successful? I’ve spent $82.96, and I’ve received three email inquires and had a sale of two studies for a total of around $400. Bottom line, I’m not sure. I guess it was worth it. I had $400 in sales by spending $82. What do you think? I’m going to try this a few more months and see how it trends.

Also, thanks to Donald Neff for this article that also looks at how artists can use Facebook to target buyers.  It doesn’t talk about specific results (as I do here), but provides a good overview of how the system works.

* I should mention that my opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone, and not that of Wells Fargo. Disclaimer over!

It was a beautiful morning yesterday, so I’m glad I got out to Golden Gate Park. I went to North Lake in what’s known as “the chain of lakes“, where 41st Avenue cuts through the park. I found there a couple of what I think were pine trees, yet they were turning brown/red, but had greens in as well. Pine’s don’t loose there leaves, do they? I hope they’re not dying…I don’t want a painting about the death of a pine tree! Oh well. Also, this is a new format for me, 10×12″, not quite a perfect square, which I like.

Fall in Golden Gate Park - Oil on Linen - 10×12