• Category: Artwork
• Posted: 2024-02-29 17:13:10
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El Jaleo Study

Last year, I went to a John Singer Sargent exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. One room was dedicated to his amazing piece, El Jaleo. While the original was not present, the exhibit displayed an extensive number of studies, drawings, and references he used in preparation for the masterpiece. There was an adjoining room that displayed various paintings he had done that were copies of pieces by other artists he admired. 

I was fascinated by the collection not only because I admired his work, but it gave me insight into his process and the incredible amount of preparation he went through. Some of the initial studies are great works in their own right.

One of his copies was of a piece by Velazquez and it was in this moment that I understood the concept of a copy as a study. I've attempted to copy the look/feel of paintings I've admired, but I never set out to outright copy. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that staying within my own comfort zone did little to further my abilities. I felt I needed to copy a great work and what a better start than El Jaleo itself.

The original piece is huge. 11 foot wide by 7.5 foot tall, matching it's original scale was out of the question. With an abundance of canvases on hand, I decided to use one I already had and ultimately settled on a 12" x 9" panel. This size would provide two challenges: first, the proportions were different so I would have a taller image than the original and secondly, the much smaller size proved difficult to communicate detail in some areas of the orignal. I told myself from the beginning that the goal was not a duplicate but a piece that faithfully communicated the look/feel of El Jaleo.

The most important look/feel of El Jaleo in my mind is the representation of light and shadow. The dramatic shadows on the back wall; the dancer in the foreground bathed in bright light; the piece on the whole communicating motion.

While I never intended to create an exact copy, that intention got lost somewhere during the process and the whole piece stalled while I obsessed over the last few areas. I botched the first attempt at the dancer's face and then kept putting it off, psyching myself out on my ability or not to do it justice. As time dragged on, the self-doubt grew and I did anything I could to avoid finishing the piece. 

Then it dawned on me, or specifically, I remembered my initial intent and more importantly that working on 1/10th the size of the original I would never be able to match the detail. Once I allowed myself that, I finished it in one session and a short one at that.

This is not a faithful copy of the original, but one I'm happy with nonethless. My palette is a little more blue grey on the back wall whereas the orginal is more green grey. I didn't stretch the composition to allow for my canvas' extra height, but rather just added headroom. All the elements are present although I treated each a little differently. I do feel like I've captured the dark/light. It is the same, but different. 

No one will ever look at my painting and mistake it for the original, but it nonetheless was a great opportunity to stretch a bit more as an artist. It's yet another experience working in oils that makes me more enthusiastic with the medium. 

While this will stay in my personal collection, it's something that will have an impact in a small way on future paintings and as such, I thought I would share with visitors to the site.

• Category: News
• Posted: 2023-12-02 11:16:51
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New Lower Pricing on Prints

I launched the smt art store in September of this year and three months later, I feel like I've learned a lot in the process. The impetus for starting it was a few things: 1) moving to market and sell my own paintings; 2) offering lower priced prints of same; and finally, 3) beginning to sell my photography work. Leaving behind the gallery representation and going it alone took a leap of faith, but one worth doing as I've laid out in prior posts. I knew I could market and generate traffic to the site and have. It's the rest that has taken longer to refine.

I had a lot of people tell me through the years they wish they could afford my paintings. I don't feel like my paintings are super expensive although I don't crank out couple hundred dollar pieces throughout a month. My process for each piece can take anywhere from a week to months. As I began selling paintings, I take into account the full process from concept to completion and price accordingly. With selling through dealers I found I had to raise the sales price to account for commissions, shipping etc. and ultimately got to a point where they were priced too high in my mind.

The store has provided me the ability to drop prices substantially on my originals. Offering prints of my paintings gives fans of my work opportunities to own smt pieces at substantial savings. The canvas prints, while lacking the texture of an original, nonetheless are faithful recreations - I've seen a few of these first-hand and am extremely pleased with the finished product. I'm also really happy with the photography canvas prints. I first started offering framed prints and they were pretty lackluster. The canvas prints are next level.

With the sales platform and viable products, the final piece was pricing and that has been a work in process if I'm honest. The original print vendor I was working with had an overly complex shipping model that was going to add hundreds to my monthly operating cost, not to mention the time it was going to setup and administer. As it turned out, that should have been my first red flag working with that vendor. I had multiple issues working with them and ultimately dropped them and after finding my current print partner, built my product line all over again. I should have moved off the free shipping model at that time, but didn't even consider it.

As I've set and adjusted pricing, it was always taking into consideration that I would have to cover shipping and so my retail price reflected that. Shipping can vary a great deal however, especially since I sell in multiple markets all over the world. I really couldn't set too competitive pricing because shipping was an unknown until the sale was processed. I've done my best to work within those boundaries, but ultimately there were sales where I didn't make much of anything and others where I made quite a bit. Ultimately I decided free shipping wasn't really benefitting anyone - especially my customers.

Effective December 2, 2023, the store platform was changed to add flat rate shipping at checkout for all prints (original paintings still include free shipping). Pricing for prints have all been lowered -  some substantially - and existing discount codes are still valid. If you would like to get a 15% discount, just subscribe to my email list and one will be forthcoming.