Art Blog - Carol Anna Fullerton Samsel

I was watching Tim Gunn's Guide to Style on the television. There was a life coach on the program, and he asked a client to write each thing stressing her on a ball. Each ball was then tossed into one of two baskets. One was for things she could do nothing about; the other was for those she could control. I thought this might be helpful for me to do, so I placed scraps of paper and three bowls on the kitchen table. One bowl was for things I could control, another for things I have some control over, and the third for issues I have no control over. Here's the list of things I can change. I'm behind in the housework. Today I did some kick-butt housecleaning. From 6:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., I got more done than I'd have believed possible… Continue reading… 0 comments

A few weeks from now, I'll need to varnish Young Lion. I made a decorative edge around the canvas, but since then I've handled the work and touched the edge many times. Before I varnish it, the sides of the canvas must be degreased. But how? Soap could leave a foamy residue. Perhaps I should use a 10% alcohol solution. *** Yesterday, I also experimented with the easiest way to photograph the drawings in my sketchbook. I was most successful when I photographed outdoors between noon and 1:00, so that my shadow was cast away from the page at a slight angle. Feet apart, standing over the drawing, I photographed it straight on, with the camera set on "full sun." The paper came out slightly gray, but much brighter than with other methods I've tried… Continue reading… 0 comments

The "be patient" part of painting is hard for me. I want to work and rework areas before they're ready. The good news is, it often leads to happy accidents that enhance the painting. The bad news is, it often creates yet another mess I have to fix. I also referred back to The New Acrylics: Complete Guide to the New Generation of Acrylic Paints, by Rheni Tauchid (Watson-Guptill Publications, Nielsen Business Media, New York, NY, ISBN 0-8230-3159-4), to see how I could eliminate the air bubbles and/or pinpoint craters in the paint. [How do you identify a type A personality? By someone using a magnifying glass to examine the surface of their work.] Anyway, Tauchid says that warm air and/or low humidity levels cause paint to dry unevenly… Continue reading… 0 comments

I am working on a gessoed hardboard panel for the first time, and it's very different from canvas. I both love and detest the ultra-smooth surface. The good part is, it's great for washes and making clean paint lines. The bad part is, it shows every flaw_every inadvertent scratch; every speck of dust; every fine cat hair that falls off my shirt. I love the watercolor-like washes I've achieved and don't want them changed as the painting progresses. To protect them, I covered the area with a layer of varnish. When I work on canvas, I apply varnish with a brush. But with the hardboard, I see every brushstroke; and tiny bubbles within the medium are obvious. I applied a second coat of thinned varnish with a fan brush… Continue reading… 0 comments

I'm working on two paintings and, as usual, I'm tempted to give up on one and concentrate on the other. The larger is 24 _ 30"_medium-sized by museum standards, but large for the space I'm working in. I'm trying to keep a home office, paint, and eventually quilt in an 11 _ 11' space. Sometimes, I spend more time tripping and moving things around than I do actually painting. And now winter has arrived, and to reach into my coat closet I have to squeeze around the canvas. Yesterday I moved things around quite a bit. It opened up the center of the room, and it was amazing what a difference that made to my psyche. Unfortunately, I can't leave it like this permanently because opening the space means putting a work table across the face of my file cabinet… Continue reading… 0 comments

Whatever I finish by December 31, I'll copyright as a group. I submitted my name as a beta tester for the new digital submission system the Copyright Office is working on. Submitting photos of the work electronically saves a good bit of money. If I submit by mail it's $45 for the registration fee, $3 for postage, and $28 for ten 8 _ 10" prints. A total of $76. If I register online and download the submission, it's $35. Excerpted from An Artist's Path: Two Years Toward Professionalism, p. 10. http://bit 0 comments

Anyway... I did some figure drawing from Virtual Pose 2 (a book with CD by Mario Henri Chakkour, Design Books International, 2001, ISBN 0-9666383-5-2). Figures can be projected from the accompanying CD onto the computer screen, where they can be viewed at different angles. The lighting on the models is excellent, helping to define general form and muscle. The program has a zoom feature, but when the images are magnified they become blurry. And there is no way to select which part of the figure to zoom in on. The program zooms on the torso only. Perhaps I'd like to render the feet; the face; the hands. Nevertheless, it's a very useful product. I'd like to digitize the drawings I did; also various studies from my sketchbook… Continue reading… 0 comments

The hard part about turning something creative into a business is that, until you make money, others see it as a hobby rather than an endeavor. However, you have to make the art, the music, or the screenplay before you can sell it, and people see that period of pure creation as play. This is a difficult period for me, because I'm someone who's always seeking approval. The trouble is, if I follow the paths of others, I'll never be satisfied_haven't been so far. Will always have a sense that I sold out. Resent others who didn't; who got somewhere in spite of resistance. In the past, I've always given up. This time I'm going until. Until I succeed. And if I die trying, at least trying is living, not just existing… Continue reading… 0 comments

Driving back from the art store yesterday, I was scolding myself again. I do that a lot. One of the ideas behind my staying home and not working out is that someone has to take care of the house. The house is hardly in disrepair, but even when it doesn't need much attention, I deride myself and apologize to Sam for spending so much time on my craft. For the first time, I realized what I was doing_and to the extent. Does anyone who isn't in the arts apologize for spending time at their job? I caught myself saying, "I need to get some work done." My brows furrowed. "Wait a second. This is my job. I'm doing my work." A turning point… Continue reading… 0 comments

I have a loose vision of a new painting titled Migrations Past and Present, a hardboard panel with the repeating forms of wildebeest passing across it. Some of the forms are etched into the medium. Some are transparent. Some are sculptural. The first question is: How am I going to stamp repeating forms into the medium? My solution is this. I'll get some oven-bake clay, roll out slabs, and cut silhouettes from these. This way, I can press the baked clay forms into the wet medium; or lay the clay forms on the board and spray paint around them. I went out yesterday and bought some clay. While the oven heated, I flattened the clay with a rolling pin, and then carved around Dura-Lar templates with an X-acto knife. It worked pretty well, and the clay was easier to carve than expected… Continue reading… 0 comments

I read an article by Ellis Widner in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (Sunday, November 18, 2007). It was about a woman named Sheila Holland Cotton. Cotton started out as an English major and worked as a book publisher and editor. A museum director came to her with a book proposal, and they became friends. When the project was over, she asked the museum director to look at her artwork. He said "if she finished twenty paintings, he would give her a solo debut show at the museum." Cotton quit publishing and within two and a half years was selling her paintings and earning a living from it. It seems as though in everything I read, twenty paintings is the key. The starting point. At least I have eight under my belt… Continue reading… 0 comments

I asked for Sam's opinion of Jaguar, since he happened into the room while I was working. [Sam is my husband's nickname.] He's reluctant to offer opinions; afraid it will inhibit my creative process. Usually, though, he only says what I already know. He said Jaguar was all right, but he thought I wanted to get away from realism. He thought The Red Road Home [an impressionistic landscape], with its loose intuitive style, was a breakthrough; but now I seem to be going backward. He also noted that I seem to do better when working from my imagination rather than a photo. He's right. I didn't stick with my original plan to produce generalized forms without looking at the picture. I looked at the photo a lot, and worked with a small brush. The combination moved the work toward photorealism… Continue reading… 0 comments

Gradually, I'm learning that the artwork isn't about me. It's about the piece and its will to be born; to become a separate entity. It's born of a dialogue between artist, medium, and subject. Each has input, but ultimately the work forms its own character; creates a fresh dialogue between itself and the viewer. Then the artist must let go. There's another entity demanding to be born. November 18, 2007 I got back the photo proofs for Young Lion. Unfortunately the prints look better than the actual painting. I used a lot of metallic and interference paint on the canvas, and the camera picked up an array of colors not visible to the naked eye. The actual painting is mostly brown; the photographic colors loud and lively. This posed a dilemma… Continue reading… 0 comments

Just wanted to recommend Sarah Thornton's book, Seven Days in the Art World. ISBN 978-0-393-33712-9. http://www.amazon… Continue reading… 0 comments

I'm inspired by an article in American Artist Drawing magazine, showing the wonderful figure drawings of James Adkins ("Charcoal: An Expressive and Forgiving Medium," by Linda S. Price, fall 2007, pp. 16-25). In the article, Adkins says the most important thing is to get the general forms right; that too much detail is actually distracting. I'll try to follow his advice with Jaguar. In college, I learned to look at my work through a mirror for a more objective view. However, in "Long Pose Drawing: How to Keep it Energetic and Alive" (same American Artist Drawing issue, pp. 92 111), Dan Gheno says that looking into the mirror excessively can cause one to rework areas unnecessarily_oftentimes to the detriment of the image. He tells his students to use the mirror sparingly… Continue reading… 0 comments

November 15, 2007 I've been researching digital image resolution. My question was: Will adding pixels to a photo make the image sharper? The answer is no. Interestingly, on the computer screen, pixel count doesn't affect image quality at all. Adding pixels simply makes the images bigger. Are there any cameras that take higher resolution images than 2200 pixels, which is the maximum image size my camera handles? That's something else to research. *** I just started the underpainting for Jaguar. I want to quickly record color areas, and indicate which direction brushstrokes should travel to create general form. Once this is done, I hope to avoid looking at my reference photo as much as possible… Continue reading… 0 comments

November 14, 2007 I photographed Loki, a macro image of a lorikeet [a type of small parrot]. On the monitor, there were tiny flecks of white in the pupil of the eye, where minute bits of canvas showed through. Areas of pronounced canvas texture read as sharp, horizontal lines on screen. But when printed, the image was simply very crisp. None of the flaws originally seen were visible. I photographed a 10 _ 8" work titled Young Lion. It was fine on the screen, although not what I'd call crisp. When printed it was unacceptably blurry. I have to remember that monitor and paper are two different media. So here are two new photography rules: 1. The image must appear crisp on the computer screen. Details should appear clear for at least two zoom ins. 2… Continue reading… 0 comments

Do judges consider practical points when making their selections? When I went to one opening for a national exhibition, most of the award winners were present_and local. Coincidence? Promoting their own? Some galleries might give preference to works they think they can sell. They're in business after all. Where space is tight, the artist may enter three equally skilled works, but only one will be exhibited. There's a definite preference in this area for oil paintings. It seems to me, competitions benefit the organizations that hold them, rather than the exhibiting artists. They are like the various surveys I no longer participate in… Continue reading… 0 comments

November 13, 2007 I just ordered some 10 _ 8" prints from an online service_photographs of six works completed over a four month period_the first paintings I've done in over five years. I'm disappointed. Is this what my work really looks like? The camera doesn't lie. Or does it? Some of the images were beautiful on the computer screen; were slightly blurry or off color when printed. But the photo is a translation. The camera translates an image; computer software alters it further; the printer changes it still. I look through a catalog of art quilts from a conference I attended. The photos are clear, but fail to capture the details that draw a viewer in_the stitching; changes in fabric; the bleed of a dye. Is photographing the work necessary? To enter competitions it is… Continue reading… 0 comments

COMEBACK. SUCCESS AT AGE... Forty seven? Not a comeback. Forty seven is my starting point. The age I decided to become a professional artist. How will I know when I've achieved success? When I've produced a certain number of works? Attained a certain profit margin? I'll let you know when I get there. Until I get there, I'll keep this journal so that others can trace my footsteps_see the failed attempts, the internal anxieties, and be assured that, in spite of inevitable setbacks, success is attainable. For now I have three major goals: maintain this journal, become a professional artist, and inspire others to follow their own dreams at any age… Continue reading… 0 comments