And Now You Know The Rest...

Ocean Shores Jetty
February, 2009
8" x 10"
Pastel on Pastelbord
Casey Klahn

Sad to hear of the loss of radio legend Paul Harvey on Saturday. Harvey knew how to hide a surprise in his prose, and he knew how to deliver his comments so you'd have to listen. I think he's one of the reasons that I occasionally adopt a twist in my pronunciation when speaking expositorily - it gets the listener's ear perked up.

Lloyd Irving Bradbury had a post (Building Blocks) on February 12th, before Harvey passed away, with a great sentiment from the keen commenter. Bring a tissue when you go there to read.

And, it wouldn't hurt to add a pregnant pause
to one's soundtrack occasionally...

A note on the artwork - a post about the field work for this ocean painting is here.

Photo Session

Towpath in Winter after WK
8.5" x 11.75"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Tomorrow is a deadline, and so I finally got the photos taken for this set of juries. I may have to make some changes after seeing a couple of the pix - nothing like taking it to the wire!

Here is the Kahn copy as a proper jpeg. Of course, it doesn't go out to any juries - I get to keep it myself.

Plein Air - Tree on a Granite Bed

Counter-Clockwise from Bottom Right: Sketch, Color Study and Finished Work

This gives a flavor for the scenery in northeast Washington, with the pine tree growing among granite slabs. I am only now getting a break-through with my plein air work, I feel. What I learned from this work was the value of returning again to the same site to nail down a piece. Plein air doesn't have to be an instant success or a "do or die" thing.

Again, I surprised myself by getting it right over a gray ground, which has been trouble in the past.

Tree On a Rock Bed
August, 2008
@ 6" x 7"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Silver Forest Clearing

Silver Forest & Clearing
Pastel
6 3/4 in. x 5 3/5ths in.
Casey Klahn

This is the last image in a series of three. The others were Experimental Colors, and New Pink Ground. I photographed them on the easel and posted about them here.

Remember that Monday is go-to-market day for buying fine art. My originals that are framed and available are posted at caseyklahn.blogspot.com.

Mere Creativity

Author C.S. Lewis

"No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake, and what men call originality will come unsought."

Clive Staples Lewis, by way of Juliette Aristides, Classical Painting Atelier.

Thin Posting Lately

Tree Study in Turquoise, #2
@ 6" x 5"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

The posts have been thin this week. The good news, though, is that I have been getting in the studio more, and I took a plein air trip to the coast. I am working out the paintings daily, and will post some soon.

Today, a grant proposal deadline (private fund) looms. Gotta get off the blog!

Charcoal Jetty

Jetty
4" x 6"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

I made an unexpected trip to the coast this weekend. See my painting set-up and how I handled the image that this sketch begins at Pastel.

In response to requests to reveal my lessons learned from another artwork, the Kahn copy, here is what I wrote:

(In short-hand)

1. Atmospheric.
2. Plastic, with a blue-black element that pulls one in.
3. Black trunks on blue-white.
4. Divided perspectives, like in Stan Miller's Venice "gate, canal and court" image.
5. High key ultra-marine "highlight" behind center of focus.
6. Gestural willow trunks.
7. Gray paper shows through as lane or roadway.
8. Cool paper tone/warm foreground is enough to counter-act this.
9. Back-light, but no cast shadows.
10. Apply this technique to new snow scenes?
11. "Winter Towpath, After Wolf Kahn".
12. Window-pane effect.
13. On sanded ground, not cold press.

Others have written to urge me to move on from WK, and I appreciate the input more than can be told. The thing about blogging is, an artist reveals much of his back story. Does it harm one's professional appearance?

If you think about it, we all have influences and artist mentors. I make no attempt to hide mine, but the flip side of artist blogging is that a public in-depth record is being revealed of the artist's methods and growth.

Monday Holiday

Sorry - no post for Go-To-Market Monday today. I went to the coast on a sudden trip, and am recovering from the long drives each way. I'll have new photos and art to post, soon, though. As always, my sales site is caseyklahn.blogspot.com.

Copy of You Know Who

Towpath in Winter after WK

8.5" x 11.75"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

In the past I have been greatly distressed to Google images of you-know-who, only to find other people's art posted and the SE is too stupid to know the difference!

I'll keep the name mum, but you know who I copied here. The difference being that this is a pastel copy of an oil painting. I learned so much from this direct copy that light bulbs were flashing off in my head. Another great Modernist once said that a picture should create its own light.

On a personal note, I have revived my understanding of the dark gray card - a color that I had been "off" of for some time. I will post a better picture after Lorie gets a session with the Nikon.

Experimental Colors

Bright Trees Through
@ 8" x 5.5"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

These experiments are from three weeks ago. Unfortunately, that is the train of getting the picture taken, etc. I am onto some actual works now, and I did a copy of a Wolf Kahn work that I'll post soon, too. I learned so much from that copy that I'd like to share with you. I was "over the moon," as they say. And, since it can't be sold, I get another artwork for my own.

Go To Market Monday

Blue Trees in the Middle Distance
7 - 3/8ths" x 5.75"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
$245.00
Shipping Included + Tax (%7.7)
Buy It

I think that some outside of the box thoughts can be refreshing. I enjoyed reading this and this from Seth Godin and Kerin Rose. Seth doesn't overlook the artist in the marketplace. When art is considered a pillar of civilization (follow with me, now) it becomes a resource for all in the same vein as education, business and manufacturing. Seth is a great one for turning to creativity for 21st century life, and where better to look than the arts?

I have been following a 2 year goal setting plan since the start of 2009. For some reason, the concrete goals haven't been materializing, and I wanted to discover if the creative freedom necessary for me would thrive better before the goals are set. Kerin's "my 2 cents" struck a chord with me. I think I said somewhere recently that I wonder what new ideas might come out of my studio if I felt that I had no chance of selling anything? What do you think of all this?

New Ground

New Pink Ground
@7" x 4"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Small study with some new color ideas.

Cast Studies

Classic Man
@ 22" x 36"
Graphite, Charcoal and Conte
Casey Klahn

Deer "Cast" Drawing
14" x 12"
Charcoal, Conte and Compressed Charcoal
Casey Klahn

This is the first time this drawing, Classic Man, has been posted. My Basic Drawing Class, taught this winter, touched on cast drawing. I made the Classic Man as an example for the class, but it is really only copied free-hand from an instruction book. However, we did execute the deer skull from "life"- as it were. We make due at the atelier Klahn the best we can.

You might be confused at seeing realist works in black and white coming from The Colorist blog! Even though I am a self taught artist, I still insist on a traditional foundation. Be afraid of no knowledge, I always say.

Art Market Monday

Turquoise Forest

13" x 9"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
$700
Shipping Included + Tax (%7.7)
Buy This Original Pastel

The audience at The Colorist has increased recently, and I'd like to take this chance to introduce my art. The following brief describes the abstract foundation of my work.

Gesture and intuition combine in my abstract art. Intuition, not intention. Color choices are simply not derived from nature, but from internal sources.

"Automatism" is an old term that could be applied here. Drawing for drawing's sake, without idea or content. Color has it's own intrinsic purposes and reasons - ideas of it's own.

Am I controlled by my medium? Perhaps, but no more than most.

What are my ideas? To express color as the dominant element in the formal qualities in painting. Color can be the strongest element, and I think that in this age we have yet to plumb it's complete depths. No content; no meaning. No subject, other than red and blue. Yellow, green...these are my subjects.

With a hat tip to Joanne Mattera for the title idea. She is running a great series entitled Marketing Mondays, which is of interest especially to artists who market their art in today's economy.

In the Breed

I was driving to the city yesterday, past snow-clad fields, and I noticed a farm dog running like his tail was on fire. I thought to myself, " I wonder if he's...he is! " He was facing down a coyote intruding in his domain, and then I noticed that it was two coyotes.

"...courage is essential to the artist." Henri Matisse

I regarded that as an amazing display of courage by that dog. A pair of coyotes can easily defeat even a full grown deer, and the matter was simply that the dog had his range to defend and nothing was going to keep him from doing that!

The antipathy between farm dogs and coyotes is well known, and as a matter of fact the dog's behavior was common to his breed.

What characteristics are common to your own breed? The artist is known for artistic integrity, and presenting an abundance of that is having courage.

For a review of these traits, see the following posts: Artistic Integrity and Artistic Courage - Get It!

Have you defended your artistic space lately?

Plastic Color

Four works on the easel, awaiting good photographs.

The studio was humming this weekend, and I got four works done. Three sketch/studies, and one medium sized pastel. If you want to count failed works, then many more were done!

Four New Works

At Pastel, I posted some words on plastic color, as part of my Tree School series. Find out why I don't paint my trees green.

Plasticity in art is important to understand. "Plasticity is the quality of the presentation of a sense of movement in a painting," said Mark Rothko. Another less developed theory of plastic qualities in art refers to the three-dimensionality of the visual arts.

Deadlines for juries are looming, so I want to get a series done so as to submit four to five images that agree with one another. I hope to photograph them in a day or two, and you'll get to see them, too.

On another topic, I recommend Joanne Mattera's Marketing Mondays.

First Fruits

First Fruits in the Studio
Artwork and Photo: Casey Klahn

In many ways, the products of my new studio are the first fruits of my labor. This still life was inspired by the drawing class that I taught in November. I haven't painted many, and they teach me a great deal about the picture making process. How to create balance in the picture plane. How to keep my value scale under control. The use of brown as a neutral. My own stylistic ideas of drawing an apple.

As often happens in my busy studio, I framed and gave away this picture before I got a proper picture of it. I am working on that process, and the hope is to be more stream-lined so that set-up (tungsten lights, cords, camera, where to put the images, etc.) is less stressful. But, since I gave it to my daughter, who is a budding young artist herself, it was easy to retrieve and get this photo for a record.

The frame shown is 11" x 8" and the pastels shown in the trug on the shelf below are medium sized Unisons - not the standard ones which are smaller. It occurred to me that pastellists might get a mistaken sense of perspective because of this.

Cup of Joe Update

Cup of Joe, anyone?

Best to stay warm in this winter of spotty electric power, and heavy snows. I saw my life flash before my eyes the other day when that power pole split! Then, I realized it was just an arc of electricity shooting up from the insulators. Today, the furnace repair man will come to look at our oil furnace. I hope he can get that back up to speed, especially with temperatures under 20 degrees F.

I'm almost finished with Blogging Tips for artist bloggers. I promised to "type" my own blog, which I have done but haven't finished the copy on that post. One blogger friend has The Colorist designated as an "e-zine," which is close, but I have a slightly different take.

More Coffee? What else has been keeping me busy has been my return to the studio. After being sick, I am now able to re-start my productivity. Last year's art had its ups and its downs, but mostly I wasn't that active in the studio. The three months leading up to my December operation saw no artwork created at all.

I choose to see the good in this. Cup half full. No, I mean is you cup half full? Here's more coffee.

I have been in the searching stages to define my art directions, and the break gives a time for reflection. We'll see what happens. I am happy to be getting some blue landscapes finished, as well as some still life works. Photos pending. For purchases please look to my blog, Casey Klahn dot blogspot.

And on the Internet and blogging front, my ArtSlant profile continues to grow and receive viewership. The blog Pastel is featuring a series on how to draw/paint trees. The latest installment, Tree Admiration, takes you on a chef's tour of different artist's styles and how they treat trees.

I found Pam Farrell via Joanne Mattera, and she has a series of studio visits posted as the ISBP (Interactive Studio Blog Post). Studio inspiration, anyone?

Finally, I want to make sure you know that two local pastellists are now writing blogs. I enjoy exhibiting with these two superb artists, and I know you are jealous of my getting to view their art booths at the fairs. So, to make it up to you, I provide you with these links to their new blogs. Marla Baggetta blogs here, and Sheila Evans here. Enjoy.

Wyeth Love

Passing Poles. Repairing the Damage From Ice Storm '09.
Photo: Tom Wells.

We have power back, and 28 new power poles, after the great Ice Storm of ought-nine. I turned on my computer after being out-of-touch, and learned about the passing of artist Andrew Wyeth on Friday.

The news and responses to the passing of Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) have all been posted. "His work has iconic status in the history of American art," was said today in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Wyeth lived in Pennsylvania).

The blog post that does him proudest is this one by Charley Parker. See a recent painting by Wyeth there, instead of the famous one of Christina which the reporters and critics chose to post. Artist bloggers do much better with these things, in my opinion, and Charley shows us how.


"Really, I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as your love goes," 1965, A. Wyeth.



My favorite paintings by A. Wyeth are the Helga series. Not because it was a "scandal", as so many deem it, but because Wyeth had the clarity of mind to do the series without outside interference. He kept the 250 or so works out of public view until he finished them. I feel that the spare qualities that he is known for are portrayed best in these works.

Culture Monster writes about the viral qualities of the Helga pictures.

The Telegraph (U.K.) has a fair article here. I enjoyed "Of Time and Andrew Wyeth", by Christopher Orlet.

For a fine serendipity about the important American artist's passing (and, after all of the elitist invective, I just want to hear artist's views on Wyeth now, thanks) see what Jennifer Phillips in Seattle did in her post Reflecting on Andrew Wyeth.

Ice Storm '09

Frosty Fencepost
Photo: Casey Klahn

Our power is off and on, so I'll post this with haste. It is the great Ice Storm of ought-nine!

Yesterday, the two kids and I were driving home in the van. To our front, I watched in awe, and then in fear, as great arcs of light shot sky high, and then a power pole snapped in two and came down. I was watching the slow motion, B&W, silent movie of power lines and pole crumpling and I thought, "is this going to hit us?"

Now I know that the great tension down these lines keeps them in-line with their original aspect. Mostly. So, it fell along the road side, but across our neighbors' road, and so I dialed 9-1-1. There are over two dozen poles down, by my reckoning.

I was shaken up, but we made it home fine. What next, winter?

Tree School at Pastel Blog

A new series begins today at Pastel.

More Art Blogging Tips

Ponte Vecchio - Old City
@7" x 6"
Graphite on 70gr. Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

Being an artist blogger is a many-headed hydra. Just like the traditional art gallery, you want to understate your presentation. Be fully functional as a sales vehicle, and yet keep a lid of decorum on it. The theory is that fine art is an exceptional thing - not base like most commodities or products.

Self-representing, but not grasping


This explains, in part, why art galleries can seem ostentatious and off-putting. (It wouldn't hurt the gallery staff any to greet each patron, BTW - just my 2 cents) Art bloggers, prepossessed with the rank of the fine artist, must not turn around and trash the reputation of the fine arts. Art blogs, like all Web 3.0 entities, suffer from the canard that new media has a lesser status. That is changing, and we art bloggers must be the agents of that change. High quality, but also revelatory. Decorum, without being stodgy. Self-representing, but not grasping.

self-importance and über-angst


Having said all this, here are some tips for being read. Previous posts in this series are here: Art Blogs & Art Blogging. What good is it to write and post, but not be found by your public? Don't do your own patrons a disservice, and stay hidden under a front of self-importance and über-angst.

Think of ways to get links back through your blog. Each page is a unique web entry, and you want readers finding your content throughout your blog. Organize and label your entries, and offer easy access to them. Do place active links within your posts to recent posts in a series. Remember to stay topical with internal links.

You'll notice that I use blogger's picture tool in order to create internal links in my sidebar. How to choose content for internal links? Your art, in it's different genres or mediums, is a good place to start. I offer My Drawings, My Artworks and My Abstracts. When I notice an unusual number of hits coming in for a certain search query, then I offer a tool for my readers to pursue that subject. Leonardo da Vinci, and Jackson Pollock are examples. Don't worry, though. I won't be creating a Teri Horton button soon. Another good internal linking system is the blogger recent comments tool.

I also list external links that are related to any other presence that I may have on the Internet. The Fine Art Department is a collaboration blog where I am featured, and Casey Klahn dot blogspot is my art-for-sale site. An artist profile and community website that I participate in is ArtSlant.

One major outside feed to The Colorist is my second blog, Pastel. It maintains a purpose and a life of it's own as a low key blog focused on the art and medium of pastelists.

meaty art and artist content


My favorite way to drive traffic is with meaty art and artist content. The Artist's Traits series was a recent lengthy thread. Past threads have included famous artists like Mark Rothko, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri Matisse. You need a true and genuine interest in your subjects, and these modernists are my favorites. A contemporary favorite artist is Wolf Kahn, and I once did a series of drawings after his style.

Art Blogging - Tips & Types

Deer "Cast" Drawing
14" x 12"
Charcoal, Conte and Compressed Charcoal
Casey Klahn

Art Blogging has been like a vapor cloud; a ghostly apparition just out of sight of the greater blogging world. In a form of reveal, Wikipedia now has an entry on Art Blogs. (Hat Tip: Madsilence)

Don't rest on your laurels just yet, fellow artist bloggers. You will note from the list of important bloggers in the Wikipedia entry, that only about a third of those considered important are authored by artists, and even then, these are not all formatted as blogs where the artist posts their art on a regular basis. The bulk of the list are arts professionals, such as writers, gallerists and critics.

But, if the fire burns in your belly to share your art and ideas on the Internet, nothing comes close to artist blogging for achieving that. Think of it as the modern equivalent to van Gogh's letters-a journal of your direction, art and beliefs.




We have been describing, in loose terms, the types of art blogs that you may use as a departure point in starting your own blog. The blogs typed so far are much more than the sum of these descriptions, but observing them closely may give you some guidance.

To date, we have described these types of artist blogs: art didactic, D'autre (other), and medium-based. And, lifestyle, art-form and spare.

Now, I want to discuss the Instructional, Process and Art-for-Sale art blogs.

Instructional

Already mentioned in a previous post, James Gurney's Gurney Journey is a one-over-the-world instruction blog for artists. Ever wonder if illustration and fine art jive together? Gurney provides the answer: yes. His paintings are very fine, and I particularly enjoyed his reports on his recent trip to North Africa. See Port of Tangier and Rabat Alley.

Another two notable instruction blogs are Richard McKinley, who blogs at Pastel Pointers, and Michael Chesley Johnson, who offers A Plein Air Painter's Blog. Both are pastelists and oil painters and their blogs are regular reads for a broad audience of artists.

Process

Adam Cope at Dordogne Painting Days creates his blog around his art, his locale and his near influences. Subjects, such as musicians, family, and market vendors are sketched in a lively manner. The south of France, well known for its art foundation, provides the landscape for his colorist oils and watercolors. But Adam's thinking about the painting process is the textual copy of this blog. Not surprising, as Adam teaches workshop painting holidays in this painter's paradise.

"This blog is about my life as an artist- my work and random thoughts about the creative process," Deborah Paris says at A Painting Life. In this post, Old School-New School, she gives some of the reasoning behind her current style. No blog today is as rich with beautiful landscape paintings as Deborah's.

Vivien Blackburn's Paintings, Prints and Stuff features her excellent works of these types from coastal Great Britain. Vivien uses widgets to promote her art that is for sale, such as imagekind and Etsy, and also Blurb which carries her book.

Art for Sale

Tracy Helgeson, also of Works By Tracy Helgeson, has created a simple and clean design for how to sell your art from your blog. See Tracy Helgeson dot blogspot. The concept is that one's blog can be so active with context, that patrons sometimes may not see a path to purchasing the fine art displayed. Enter the Art for Sale style of blog. Keep in mind that this type of blog will work best if supported by another web presence driving traffic to it.

My newest blog is a direct spin-off of Tracy's: Casey Klahn dot blogspot. In a "just the facts, ma mm" manner, each post is one artwork, with description, and a big Buy Now button from Paypal.

This series has many of us established art bloggers wondering aloud how we each have styled our blogs. My advice is to not think too hard, as we are each ourselves. This study is an attempt to sort out broad styles as a path to new art bloggers. And, what about The Colorist? What style does this blog fit into? Stay tuned!

Tip: Dip your toe in the water by creating a Beta version of your art blog. One way to do this is to limit the viewership to invited readers only. OTOH, my opinion is that a new blog will have very minimal readership, anyway. Especially if you avoid commenting at other blogs for a while.

Art Blogs & Art Blogging - Blog Styles

Under Riva Ridge, Italy
@8" x 5"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

What is your blogging style? If you are like me, you will begin with a concept, and after the blog is established (perhaps six months into it?) you may have a better idea of what the blog really wants to be. That is a natural process for the first time blogger.

The styles I am examining in this series are from blogs written by artists, and not arts professionals. This is to get you, the art blogger, closer to the style you want to emulate. There are some terrific blogs about art collection, and art news, but you want to blog about your art and establish a format. But what will your format be?

What is your blogging style?


In the post, Yard Birds, we discussed three art blogging styles: social, art form and spare. This time, let's discuss three others, which are art didactic, D'autre (other), and medium-based.

Art Didactic

Katherine Tyrrell at Making a Mark has this set of publications about blogging for artists. These are a must-review if you wish to step-off on a good foot at art blogging.

so ubiquitous that it is hard to find any peer blogs


The aforementioned Making a Mark is the ultimate example of an art didactic site. Katherine Tyrrell, who is nearly a daily poster of her own watercolors, pastels and colored pencil works, has developed a site so ubiquitous that it is hard to find any peer blogs. Who else packs so much valuable information into one place? Actually, Katherine's MAM blog needs multiple blogs and websites to contain her ideas, and so she has diversified by adding many different resource and art sites.

I want to start giving you multiple examples of a style, but it is hard to do with this one. Marion Body-Evans at Painting.About and Linda Blondheim Art Notes are in the same style, I think. If you wish to be "another Making a Mark", I would review these blogs,too. And study up.

D'autre Blogs

By D'autre blogs, I mean a blog by an artist that spotlights other artists.

Charley Parker is another ubiquitous art bogger, with the blog Lines and Colors. It is also hard to find another blog that equals his depth and scope. L and C is a format where Charley, an artist himself, features other illustration and mostly realist fine art sites. Emphasis: quality work. Charley is thorough, covering every artist from soup to nuts.


Another way to help understand the style of a blog may be to review their well-crafted blogroll. Parker's has the following categories: Art, Painting & Sketch, "Painting a Day", Illustration, Comics & Cartoons, Animation & Concept, and others as well. One good hint for blogrolls: when you have non-art links that you can't do without, establish an other or "off-topic", or friends category.

Review the blogroll


Other D'autre art blog examples may be artist interview blogs. Angela Taylor had one of these at one time, but she is never one to stay in one place! BTW, she gets my mention for special purpose art blogging, where a cause is paramount. Her delightful art is spirit-lifting.

The thing to watch out for if you're going to do a D'autre blog, is that your own art may become lost in this format.

Medium Based

A medium-forward blog is one where an artist focuses the style of their blog around the subject of their art medium. My own blog, Pastel, is one of these. The reason that I began pastelsblog dot blogspot (Pastel) is that I was labeling so many posts "pastel", and the medium itself was a star player here at The Colorist. Some times, too, one's medium (or your art genre) can over power the message. Colorist art is not limited to pastel work, only, and I wanted to make that clear. In some ways, I needed to refine the direction of this blog by sorting out that aspect.

A number of blogs are named for the pastel medium, and also the watercolor medium. See Eden Compton Pastels and Watercolor Artist's Diary (Tracy Hall).

These genres can be a help as well as a hindrance


In some ways (my opinion here) the daily painting movement was being identified as an oil painting style of blogging. I don't think anyone ever intended that, but the strength of Duane Keiser's and Julian Merrow-Smith's daily painting blogs of oil paintings was so great that it took other non-oil painters coming on the scene to dis-spell that. Nonetheless, mediums do create groupings of bloggers.

Another grouping other than medium is genre, such as the drawing and illustration genre. These genres can be a help as well as a hindrance, IMHO. No art should ever be about its genre or medium only.

Lines and Colors may be drawing and illustration based, but Charley Parker pushes the genre upward and outward, giving illustration the broader fine art appeal that it deserves. Another artist who defies the fences that genre can impose is James Gurney, of Gurney Journey. This fantasy illustrator is actually one of the foremost painters and teachers online today. Charley and James are the mode-breakers - will your medium-based blog transcend the medium?

Loose Ends Tied Up - When It Rains...

Large Blade Clearing the School Bus Turn-Around
Photo: Casey Klahn

B O O M ! ! When it rains, it pours. We had a hard time sleeping through the noise of snow sluffing off of the roof all night. C R U M P !!!

Talk about your loose-ends being tied up! The school bus turn around by my studio trailer, north of the garden, is now cleared. The kids are finally back to school on a 2 hour late schedule. I get to go to the studio for some much needed art time.

The Big Orange Box ArtSlant profile has advanced to # 3 this morning. I needed to be in the top 5 to meet my goal. Thanks to all who went to that link.

In the words of actor George Peppard, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Looking Out

Looking Out
Photo: Casey Klahn

This gouge is our road to the outside world. I believe in the outside world. Really, I do.

If you wish to make contact with this "Robinson Crusoe", a valuable way to do this for me is to click the Big Orange Box in the sidebar at the right side of your screen. It is my ArtSlant profile, and it sums as exposure for me (elsewhere) if you do. That's why I have been hammering it every day this week. Thanks. More Art Blogging coverage soon.

Winter Yard Birds

Winter Yard Birds
Photo: Casey Klahn

The little ones are climbing the trees. Cooped up and stuck in snow world for a couple of weeks, and today makes the second day they should have been back in school. Canceled.

Personal subjects in art blogging are a matter of taste, I think. Is it the right subject matter? Isn't it supposed to be about the art, after all?



Your Blog Style: Lifestyle, Art Form or Spare?

The answer lies in your own style. Some artists thrive by blogging about their life as well as the studio, and it is a very successful strategy. A perfect example is Tracy Helgeson, who just completed a month of daily postings challenge. Of course, having the world's yummiest studio, a beautiful farm house in upstate New York, chicken-coop full of joy, and fantastic colorist oil paintings doesn't hurt her profile, either. Her blog style has created a story line that is compelling, and authentic. Yours will be your own individual story, of course.


Tracey Ullman with a paintbrush


This leads to another style of art blogging: the art blog as an art form. First in mind for me is Jafabrit's Art. Jafabrit tells the story of an artist's life but keeps it stylized by writing spare, centered copy. Her work is dramatic, with skulls, ravens and crows, and screaming faces on rocks. Her humor is dry British wit, but tends towards the outlandish kind. Think Tracey Ullman with a paintbrush.

Corrine (Jafabrit herself) knits tree ware, gives art to the cosmos on Fridays, and commiserates with her greater art community in her Ohio locale. Well, actually she does this worldwide, too. Her "Your Documents,Please" piece has circled the globe, and don't forget these blogs go out to the world wide web. As an added bonus, because her blog is an art form, she peppers the format with music widgets, talking heads, and occasional videos - always funny. I consider Corrine's blog, and her art, to be absolutely among the most authentic and original out there.

If you are considering the absolute, most spare art blog that you can manage, think twice. The SEO gods want you to add copy to those pictures. This is the way their robotic algorithms compute. Picture...BZZZZZt-TzT (flicker, sput); Words...HzMMM nng- BTZ, AHHHHH. And the SEO deities like certain words better than others. Call it alms, or perhaps a dogma. My favorite SEO tripwires are Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson, Terri Horton, Vincent van Gogh, pastel, you get the idea. The problem is, these words don't all fit my narrative, except on very narrow occasions. OTOH, the posts live forever on the net, and garner traffic in perpetuity.

I will back up and say that images have their own pathway to the search engines such as Google Images. Here is a little research on this. Also, learn a bit about the alt attribute, and the title attribute of your images.

have a tissue handy as you cry at the results

If you have been blogging for a while, try a search of Google Images with the search query as your name, or as the name of your blog. Have a tissue handy as you either laugh or cry at the results. But, copy is still king on the Internet, since the default page on Google is text based.

Anyway, my vote for the best spare but extremely effective style is Robert Chunn's Alla Prima. Cunning and colorful still lifes posted on a consistent basis are his fare, but he has a program far more thoughtful than art only. Robert posts an art-related quote with every post, and try that sometimes if you think it is easy! Additionally, his spare motif includes his sidebar design. Precious few widgets, text all lined up and justified, and links. That's it. Think that's all? Have a closer look at his links - very exhaustive and organized. The outcome is a blog that very much matches Chunn's art, and tells the story he's after.

And you thought daily painting was the only format for art blogging! What is your art blog style? Next time: more tips, and types of art blogs.


Monetize Me, Bro:

Visit my profile page at ArtSlant here.

My art for sale is here.

Art Blogs & Art Blogging

Photo: Lorie Klahn

A number of clues have me feeling that art blogging is going to be a focus for many this year. It is free, which helps since general advertising budgets are getting slashed. In that light, I'll be adding this thread about my perspectives on art blogging. An outline would be: tips, theories and observations.

No one is in greater need of improvement at blogging than moi, and that provides my motivation for this thread. Katherine Tyrrell at Making a Mark has focused early on blogging this year, and I am catching on myself that this blogging upgrade series will benefit the artist blogging community. Katherine's new posts include how to use Google Analytics, and a poll on posting frequency.

In the area of design, Rose Welty has taken the ball on Cleaning Sidebar Clutter. My own "how to" on this is posted here: Quick Key Links. Good work, Rose! Rose has emphasized clean and neat, but I choose communication over being tidy. I once had my labels shrunk, but now am leaning towards having them available for clicking - sort of an impulse shelf. The one thing that I mull is whether to consolidate the number of labels down to more distinct categories. What are your opinions?



Art Blogging Tips

First, a rant. The Weblog Awards still do not have an art blog category. Hello. Photography? Hottest Mommy Blogger? Hobby? People often ask me if I think our culture is in decline. My answer: "what culture!?" Here is another loser award blog without an art category. I have written them, and now reside in their troublemaker files. Power to the people, baby. *endofrant*

This reminds me of my other blog goal this year: to get out-of-genre to expand my reader base. My wife reads Ravelry, which is mega big, but I can't really see going there, myself. I did get some link-love from Pin Tangle recently, and I thank them for having an interest in art - that's what we like to see in our culture.

In the same vein, I will be setting a goal of following through with an exhibit at my alma mater, Northwest University. They now have an art class, or department, but didn't when I attended in the 70's and 80's. I ran into an old classmate at the Bellevue ArtsFair who is now a Hebrew prof., and he suggested a show. An exhibit there would be outside of the art gallery fold, and provide some extra exposure. And frankly, it would be a cultural event.

So, outside of genre blog interests should be just that - authentic interests for yourself. Mine include Christianity, the military, particularly WW II and the Civil War, Italy and blogging and marketing technology (a little bit).

Here are my favorite blogs in these categories:

Christianity - Faith and Theology

Military - Michael Yon

WW II - Ordinary Heroes: Six Stars in the Window

Civil War - Civil War Blogs

Italy - Living in Florence

Marketing - Seth Godin


Another discovery of mine has been the art community website ArtSlant. I have avoided many such sites, usually because of issues with their layout. ArtSlant has an attractive layout, and meets my goals, so far, of cross-exposure for my art, and for The Colorist. Hat tip, Julianne Richards, for recommending me there.

Snow Planet and Kudos Inbound

Snowed In
Photo: Lorie Klahn

Home Front

Friday, January 2, 2009.
The neighbors called tonight to say that they were plowed out for the first time in several days. I thought that we (who live alone at the end of our road) were the only ones isolated. The interesting part is that the snow excavation for our neighbors, at our "road head", required a large plow (read: diesel locomotive-sized snow blade in front of a grader), another road grader and finally a bucket loader to do the job. Sheeesh!

Oh, so the upshot is we are still isolated. I have been harvesting game birds for dinner.

Saturday, January 3, 2009.
The plow came this morning and just cut a swath through the snow. Whew!

I had envisioned skiing out to the neighbors for groceries, and pulling them back on a sled, as I used to do mountain climbing. Instead, Lorie went out to the grocery and that was an interesting event. The one she wanted to shop at was closed for snow load issues with its roof. When she did get to a supermarket, everyone was commiserating about being snowed-in for up to seven days. It was a group of snow refugees, busted-out and getting provisions!

Barn, Sun & Snow
Photo: Lorie Klahn

In Blog Land

Welcome readers from Making a Mark. I am very happy to share two other recognitions from bloggers this week; one from Julianne Richards, and the other from Miki Willa.

Miki is participating in the portrait challenge at Different Strokes. I am amazed at the fun of seeing so many portraits created by talented artists, and Miki's first effort is a huge success, IMO. Seems this first-timer effect is going around - first Robyn Sinclair creates an etching that is first time genius, and now Miki has done the same thing with her first pastel portrait. Give me some of whatever these two are having!

Miki said this kind thing about The Colorist:

The Colorist: Casey Klahn has more than one blog, but this is my favorite. He shares information about artists he admires, ideals he aspires to, and he promotes other artists whose art inspires him. I especially enjoyed his series about artist's traits. Casey and I have very different styles, but I am learning from him about stretching my usual color boundaries once in a while. That is a good thing. He is also good about responding to comments.

And, Julianne, The Colorspeaker, has introduced me to ArtSlant, which is an art networking site that allows you to post your blogs and other linky things. See Julianne's profile here, and mine here. See my blog post at ArtSlant here, which I swear took me all of about 3 minutes to cut and paste from The Colorist.

Julianne says the following about The Colorist:

This is a blog by an artist for artists. He will often do series of posts of which I have highlighted and given the link to a personal favorite. Anyone serious about living a life of creativity, aka "as an artist" will benefit from Casey Klahn personal insights, thoughts on becoming a better artist, for ARTS sake, and much much more. And last but most definitely not least, is his own artwork, of which most certainly is extraordinarily unique and not to be missed. The rest of everything is what they call in the south, "just gravy." Stop by.

Thanks to Miki and Julianne.

Newsy Schmoozy

The holidays are over, and the new year has begun. 2008 was a year I'll be happy to leave behind, although it was not without accomplishment. I had this studio post in January:


My studio now looks like this:



The reveal of my studio was posted under the title Studio Interior.

I did exhibit at the Bellevue ArtsFair 2008, which was my sixth year in Bellevue.

Another expansion of the *Klahn art empire* was participating in Tracy Helgeson's collaboration blog, The Fine Art Department. It led directly to the creation of my art-for-sale blog, Casey Klahn dot Blogspot. You might know that I have emphasized the blog-content side here at The Colorist, and have not really made it a big, commercial enterprise. Fair warning, that will be one thing changing for 2009! I am a big believer in capitalism, and I will be looking for new ways to monetize my blogger life. Adverts? Probably not. Product endorsements? Possibly- I have already done this a few times. I have a scheme to begin blogging for commercial entities, but that won't involve the happy land here at The Colorist.

For no reason I can possibly imagine, my post about my fiftieth birthday went ballistic in the Stat Counter. Is it me? Michael Jackson? I think it's Donny, but you be the judge. Again, for the record, I don't share the exact birthday with either Donny Osmond or Michael Jackson, but we share the same age. Well, it turns out that Michael and I are only a few days apart...

Most memorable in blogging was my series on Artist's Traits, which had a great and rewarding response from my readership. The traits of Commitment, Courage, Creative Integrity, Decisiveness, Excellence, Generosity, Knowledge and Self Understanding provide a foundation for my goals this next two years. I am going to work in a biennial format because I have some tough challenges looking forward, and I want to fit my expectations into a realistic outline. BTW, the impetus for thinking about traits before goals came from Alyson Stanfield, the ArtBizCoach.

Finally, I don't want to forget the support I have received from the Karlson/Gray Gallery in Langley, where my sales have been very heartening. I don't underestimate the bedrock value of my collectors to my artistic pursuits. I want to encourage the gallery owners who do find their way to this blog to contact me, as I need more gallery representation.

My final words on 2008: