I can has art advice pls?

[thedreya]

Dear persons who read this,

I am working on a new painting, it looks (kinda) like this so far (my photographic skills are lame):

Comments

I really like it

[sirinde]

There's really good movement here, the fish is rendered really well. I love the colors, the way fishy is see through.

The composition is lopsided, which is probably the point. I'm not sure if I like that or am unsettled by it... If that's something you're playing with, then keep doing it! See what works.

[baronalejandro]

The top right seems kind of blank to me - it seems unbalanced cuz there's something in the bottom left, but not the top right. I dunno. Maybe I just like symmetrical stuff.

[thedreya]

Thanks for your input, folks!
You both picked up on it and you're right, it's definitely a lopsided composition. I think subconsciously I was thinking about a balance between positive/negative space, and to me the emptiness of the upper right helps convey the motion of the fish. My sister said it made her think of a yin-yang, which immediately made sense to me. She also said that if I didn't know what else to do with it, I should leave it be. That sounded like pretty good advice to me so I think I will indeed call this one done.
Fish Fish Fish! I shall be asking you again, since I am currently working on a picture of a leafy sea dragon that is definitely unbalanced and not on purpose at all.
Thank you!

[soucyn]

Well, I'll tell ya how I feel about it. Another artisan once told me, "there's no higher award then the Ben Franklin Award. When people are willing to pay you money for your art, nothing else really matters."

So, would you be willing to sell it to us? If so, what kind of price would you think about? Cause, we think it's awesome and it would work really really well in our bedroom.

[thedreya]

Wow. You are the third person to ask me if they could buy it! That is amazing and I am really honored that you and Lady G would like to own it.

Here's what I am thinking: I need to find a way to take a high-quality digital photo of the painting. The most important thing to me is to have a quality digital image of the original for my portfolio. Once I have a good digital photo, I might as well have giclee art prints made and offer those for sale, possibly even in sizes other than the original 8x10. I will probably sell the original as well, since stretched canvas doesn't pack well.

The tricky part of it is getting the quality digital photo. I need to ask the art community around here on how/where to get that done, and then check out some printers. So! I think that by the time I see NC again (thinking about a visit in March on my way up through to Maine) I should have either a print or a painting.

[soucyn]

I'd talk to Charlotte about getting a good photo of it. I bet she could get it in the right light and all that good stuff, and I know she has the heavy duty camera to pull that off.

But ok, keep us in the loop as far as prints and/or the original go. We were thinking something a little bigger than 8x10, but I think we're still interested in the original canvas.

[thedreya]

I think I am going to be revisiting the fish-and-circle theme and I really like your ideas of using lighter colors and golds instead of the blue. Maybe that's what I need to do with that useless yellow canvas I have sitting around.

[thedreya]

Oh I made the canvas yellow. Only it's canvasboard, not a stretched canvas, so it is TAKING FOREVER TO DRY. Grr. So I just scraped most of the yellow paint off; I don't know what the heck I'll do with that piece of crap. I will use a nice stretched canvas for more fishcircles.