Artists and their materials.
Mr. Tudball
I'm curious to hear your opinions.
While it is a good idea to buy the best supplies available, there is
a law of diminishing returns that keeps me from wasting unnecessary
money on a technical aspect of my work that will not be appreciated by
the consumer.
For instance, there is a quiet debate going on in another dank corner
of RAF about the quality of Windsor & Newton's Winton brand. While I'm
the first to agree that they are student grade paints, I see no use in
paying excessive amounts of my easily-earned cash on the raw product
that I use to create paintings.
Consider me the Tyson™ Chicken of the art world. Tyson could spend
up to four dollars per chicken, even more from children who name their
chickens and treat them as pets. Say for instance, the child who comes
into financial hardship and is forced to sell his pet by a cruel
step-parent who tells him that chickens are for fags and sissies, or
worse yet, artists.
Tyson could spend all this money on high grade, industrial strength
chickens. They instead choose to grow their own and end up paying
approximately forty cents per chicken including expenses.
Since I'm busy enough slinging out paintings, you won't find me
hunkered over some lousy churning bowl with a pigment smasher in one
hand and a hankie in the other wiping sweat from my brow.
I would rather invest all my time painting. I plan to retire at age
33. I'm on a schedule, for god's sake, and I intend to keep it.
Cheap paints suit me fine, just like cheap chicken suits Tyson.
A couple of thousand per couple of hours painting, split fiddy-fiddy
with my hustling dealer suits me fine at this stage of my career. I'm
not one to make waves. I do my thing and do it well, stick to the
fucking plan, crank out the slop, study some, study some more, a color
from rembrandt, a brushstroke from sargent, 10 years copying the masters
and here I am doing it. This is why I put in the time this is where I
want to be. It's all going just as planned.
So off the midnight tangent. First time in 90 days I had a chance to
think about anything other than 30 paintings in three months. I finally
finished slinging this batch and they are nearly half-sold two days
before the show opens.
Pricing delemma, by the way since I'm on a tangent. Two thousand for
12x18 inches. 9000 for 4x6 feet. Quality is better at 18 inches. 12
paintings at 36x48 priced 4250 per. whattya gonna do? price by quality?
try to get off the midnight tangent only to fly into another.
I'll just finish where I started.
When some of the finest works of art were produced with a piece of
charcoal or sepia ink and a quill for fuck's sake, why should I or
anyone waste money for more pigment per ounce?
If you master your skills, you can make do with spit and turds. Finer
results with a twig in
the sand than all the flailing with that tiny tube of old holland will
get you.
All that being said, I wonder what, if anything, I did just now other
than purge some of this pent-up hullabaloo from my weary,
solvent-riddled brain.
Did I ask a question? Did I state my case? I vaguely remember something
about chickenfucking and Tyson. I believe i touched base with mass
production art. Maybe I should just delete this.
MAybe this will start a trend on this godforsaken newsgroup that I keep
coming back to for no real reason whatsoever. Pissing into the wind is
highly discouraged at all levels. putting pickles in a bowl and pouring
milk in it and serving it to your unsuspecting spouse really is a fun
thing to do once or twice a year, just to keep things interesting.
Where are your pickles? I dare you to pull them out of the vinegar
and fling them in the faces of the stooges that sit and read and read
and type and argue and never even need to buy a new tube of paint.
Yammering stammering deleting rereading correcting spellchecking so that
it all turns out to seem as if it came from someone intelligent rather
than being who the fuck you are and letting the pieces fall where they
may. Open up and quit censoring. Be a hilljack if that's what you are.
Be a snooty, prissy pants wearing bitch if it tickles you. Be the drunk
falling into the toilet at the neighborhood watering hole. Be the
asshole at the museum or resturant who never flushes the toilet when
he's done, that motherfucker.
Just be something and quit whining and bitching and moaning to people
who could give half a fuck if you die or never show your face again on
an obscure newsgroup in a dark recess of usenet in a miniscule corner of
an ever-expanding fake goddamn world called the motherfuckingshiteating
lifewasting internet...(ebay excluded...keep on selling me shit because
I'm a consumer and will keep on wanting needing more and more useless
shit until the world stands up and gives me the old heave ho)
Bonnie
"Mr. Tudball" <Mr_Tu...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:847-3D9D...@storefull-2191.public.lawson.webtv.net...
I'm curious to hear your opinions.
I can see your point on the law of law of diminishing returns. I used
to make my own stretchers, use Belgian linen (had a fairly inexpensive
source) 3 coats of hide-glue, and 2 coats of lead ground. How labour
intensive is that?! Silly me, I could've used the time in painting.
Now it is really difficult to get lead ground (ah but it was a
beautiful surface and took your paint like a man, it did) Then I
switched to Gamblin oil ground, and replaced the glue with Golden
medium 100. Yup I don't make stretchers anymore, in fact I now paint
on masonite with ground directly applied. Sure all those traditional
steps make a nicer surface, but I have decided to use the time in
painting. Does anyone use acrylic gesso? It really sucks ha ha - but a
thin coat of some sort of acrylic medium helps. I still don't like it
though.
ßonnie
WoN ereH
>
> While it is a good idea to buy the best supplies available, there is
>a law of diminishing returns that keeps me from wasting unnecessary
>money on a technical aspect of my work that will not be appreciated by
>the consumer.
> For instance, there is a quiet debate going on in another dank corner
>of RAF about the quality of Windsor & Newton's Winton brand. While I'm
>the first to agree that they are student grade paints, I see no use in
>paying excessive amounts of my easily-earned cash on the raw product
>that I use to create paintings.
>up to four dollars per chicken, even more from children who name their
Good thing you went into painting instead of writing. You woulda starved.
Debra
Ali Yupe
(ranting snipped)
Feel better now?