Shared Things - Fiftieth Birthdays

No stress here.

My five-oh birthday is coming very soon. Guess who I share this remarkable event with?


Also, this guy.


We were thinking of a reunion tour, but they declined, saying they didn't know who I was. Fine by me.

C.A.W. Creative Artist Award

This is a list of my award giving:

Excellent Blogs

Meg Lyman
Julie Oakley
Maggie Stiefvater
Tracy Helgeson
Lisa Hunter
Joan DaGradi
Robyn Sinclair
Elijah Shifrin
Stephanie Smith
Deborah Paris

Made Day

Julianne Richards
Martha Marshall
Elizabeth Love
David Novak
William Lehman

Brilliante Award

Petra Voegtle
Tracy Helgeson
Deborah Paris
Lloyd Irving Bradbury
The Gang at Moleskine Exchange International, present party excluded
Adam Cope
Ann Nemcosky

Arte y Pico Award

Eden Compton
Vivien Blackburn
Harry Bell
Joan DaGradi
David Cornelius


Looks like I must really like Tracy, Joan, and Deborah because I awarded each of them twice! Some people never get meme awards from me, such as Corrine Bayraktaroglu (Jafabrit), or Kim Barker, because they are the ones giving me the award every time. Either that, or I look and see them recently receiving the same award!

I did create a virtual medal of art, called The Art Medal, which is presented with some fanfare and a letter. It is a more-serious-than-the-standard meme award and is characterized as the recognition of artistic courage. The sole awardee is Corrine Bayraktaroglu.

The Creative Artist Award goes to:

Jennifer Phillips
Mad Silence
Kate Beck
Joanne Mattera

I ask these bloggers to write roughly 100 words about artistic creativity and post them at their blogs.

Thanks, again, to Kim Barker for giving me this award!

Response to Orange

Pinks & Greens
7.8" x 6"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Violet Woods
6.25" x 9.2"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

The Bunkhouse
6.5" x 8"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

In thinking about the Orange post by artist Kate Beck, I wanted to revisit my own responses to orange. None of my artworks shown here are based on orange, but they rely on it to stay together.

Put a different way, orange misused can ruin a color composition. Orange is a poison, or a pleasure - it depends on how you use it. I did some orange based works a few years ago, but I don't have a record of them. They were rather crude, I think, but their color compositions held together.

One comment I'll make about the artworks posted above is that they don't resort to blue or green to counter-poise the orange. I'm happy about that, as those colors are too obvious and I want to say "easy" to turn to when making an orange composition.

Consider this a post where I begin to formulate my ideas on an orange-based series. It has been a long time coming, and I think Kate's post has given me the inspiration to git'r dun.

As a point of reference, here is a page with many Wolf Kahn orange-influenced works. Kahn has admitted that "Orange is a vulgar color, more than a little pushy." It takes an adventurous artist to play with orange!

Advanced Composition Study

See my Five for Friday tips blog for an in-depth study of perspective today.

Artist Interview-a-Palooza

Abstract Reds Over Blues
20" x 12"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
Collection the Artist

Via Harry Bell, at Boogie Street, comes this blog project called The Pulse: an Artist's Survey. It is hosted by Seth Apter, of The Altered Page blog, and it features 95 artists answering 7 questions. Save this for a rainy day, and you will enloy all the new artist link surfing you know you love.

Creativity

Kim Barker, of Australia, is a great one for memes and awards. She excels at this activity, having created the Top 101 Artist's Blogs list. I want to say thanks for adding me to her list with this award: The Creative Artist Award.

I, too, created an award, which is The Art Medal. Unlike the standard blog award, this meme is given out very, very sparingly, and without much link activity associated with it.

But, I am a fan of blog bling, and will pass this creativity award on. After me, I will ask my awardees to write something original about creativity. Say, 100 words in your own opinion on the subject of creativity. As I usually do, I'll contemplate whom to award, and get back to you soon.

My words on creativity:

It isn't easy to be creative as an artist. That may sound funny, but I hold creativity up as the chief mission of the artist, and in the land of two dimensional art it is hard to find new avenues for expression. You will find other artist's ideas compelling, and the classic artists were tremendous copiers. One thing I can say is interact, for heaven's sake, with the works you are interested in! What makes them attract you? What place do these works have in the broader art world? What can my work possibly add to the bigger corpus of the art world? Look out for triteness and the overdone content. On the other hand, take what is common and give it your signature.

Item of Interest:

See Alyson's post on Art Documentaries.

Through Alyson's ArtBizBlog, I found my way to: Rothko's Rooms.

Family Days

Air Show Crowds

Pass Time for Your Blogger

The family spent some time off of the farm last weekend. The Air Show was a big kick!

I'll be gone til Monday. Be good!

Review of Bellevue ArtsFair 2008

Lovely Wife Helping with Set Up

Where Did I put That Coffee Cup?

Lots of Art on the Walls

I'll rely on this pictorial review of the Bellevue fair, since time to write copy is so limited. I'll be at Family Camp Wednesday through Sunday. See you after the break!

Quick Key Link Buttons

Your Portals to Reference Heaven

The popular link buttons on the right hand margin of this page are easy for you to make. They resemble computer keys, and represent quick key-stroke access to a particular subject.

Why Make Quick Key Links?

The genesis of these little label-linkers was the incredible traffic that I was getting for the search query: "Jackson Pollock". I was amused and bewildered at first, because I had done some light-hearted and entertaining posts about the great Abstract Expressionist, but I didn't consider any of it to be really meaty content. Nothing new or scholarly, in other words.

I realized that the numerous visits that I was getting here at The Colorist seeking Jackson Pollock were coming in from students doing research. Of course, my Google rank has something to do with the search engines coming here, but I felt a certain obligation to make sure that these art history students had real content to find. I wanted to provide a comprehensive jump-off point that would point my kind readers to the Pollock meat - the best internet resources quickly found.

My Quick Key Link Buttons, which now include Washington State Art Bloggers, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jackson Pollock, also needed to fit my own criteria for good link etiquette. I want first to have my link seeker find most of his links on the first click. I am not opposed to taking my reader on a tour of blog posts at The Colorist, where he will find all posts labeled "Da Vinci" for instance, but I really dislike being required to hit the Enter button twice to produce a result. Clear, quick, thorough and concise is the goal. If for one reason or another you can't get your visitors to your subjects in one click, then create a bridge post called "Jackson Pollock Researcher," or the like, and have it provide the link to all of your labels to that subject.

How To Make Them

Do you have a traffic-nexus subject that you notice gets numerous hits on your blog? All of your chilled cucumber recipes? A lot of posts labeled "Space Sprockets"? Review your blog labels about this subject. You may need to go back and add labels to posts that you have in mind, if you've been remiss about good labeling.

Hint: create one post with the label of the link button, such as "Jackson Pollock Researcher," and then have that be the only post you label as such. In that post, offer your readers to select your standard label about the topic: "Jackson Pollock."

Select an image to use as your button, and size it properly in a Photo editor like Photoshop. My quick links are 83 pixels by 51 pixels. Making them uniform keeps your blog tidy, and gives the system a clear vision. I also have created my "buttons" as faux computer keys, to give the idea of a quick stroke on your keyboard. BTW, the image on the Pollock link is his painting titled "The Key." This took some tricky Photo shopping, but it isn't rocket science, either. All you need, though, is an iconic image that signifies your topic.

Open another window with the blog page you want for your button. Cut or copy the URL (to your clipboard).

Now, on your original blog page, open your layout page (Blogger), select Add A Page Element, and select Picture. I browse for the 83x51 jpeg that I have stored on my desktop and select it, and then in the URL link box, I paste the address of my blog page which you have placed on your clipboard.

Save and review. You should have your spiffy picture that links to a post, or set of pages with a label, on your blog. MAC users, talk among yourselves. I'm sorry that I have no idea how to translate any of this outside of PC methods.

Another solution is to send your reader to a Squidoo Lens or unique web page that you have designed. I am working on my own Squidoo Lens, now. The thing about these lenses is that you want to have something very original, and with a certain amount of authority, if you want it to be worthwhile. Using a post and label target, however, translates into multiplied visits to your blog. And, quality content and systems keeps your readers coming back.

Washington State Blogger Button

Add to my growing list of "Label Buttons", seen in the right hand column of this page, the "Washington State Art Blogger" button. When you click on the button (a map of Washington State), you will be taken to all of my posts at The Colorist with the tag featuring my local art bloggers. We few happy souls need some links, I say. If you are aware of any others, please let me know!

Students of art history may also enjoy my label lists reached by hitting the "Jackson Pollock Researcher", and the "Leonardo da Vinci" buttons. You will be rewarded with clear and comprehensive link lists for these famous artists.

Beck's Interviews its Label Artists

Remember the Beck's labels? Here is the group of young artists who are label makers, and who are being interviewed in an intimate setting. They awkwardly hold their bottles, and some are rather shy, I noticed. I thought it was a very fun and enjoyable video!

The artists are: Riitta Ikonen (Finland), Tom Price (London), Simon Cunningham (London), and Charlotte Bracegirdle (UK). Becks web reveal of the labels is here.

Studio Life

Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt, 1906
o/c, 79" x 59"
Henri Matisse

In my studio, several threads are being woven at the same time. I am reading a biography of Henri Matisse, who was a noted Fauvist and a pillar of Twentieth Century art and Modernism. I had just finished a couple large volumes on World War Two, and feeling like I needed another big tome, so I found this @500 page whopper on Matisse. Then, feeling all smug about myself, I realized it was the second volume! I grabbed the Taschen Book on Matisse to round out the visual side of my study, and I'll be hitting the Amazon site to chase down that first book.

When it comes time for me to post on Matisse, you'll see the heroic as well as the staid side of the great Frenchman. Would you be pleased to exhibit your painting at salon, only to be openly reviled and mocked? How would it feel to have the patronage smearing the still-wet oil paint with their fingers just to amuse themselves? Stay tuned for more on the colorist whose shoulders we all stand upon.

Because my exhibition schedule is through for the summer, I am taking advantage of this time to Get Organized. That means I am doing filing, computer back up and cleaning, studio organizing, goal-setting, calendaring and what not. I see by my notes that I took the G.O. class from Alyson Stanfield back in November of 2006, and that led directly to this blog and much coherent forward progress in my art career.

As a means of clearing my head, I am getting outdoors and refining my plein air methods. Look for a beautiful post on Eastern Washington farm country painting at Pastel, soon. You will be treated to my elaborate and Rube Goldberg talents of securing my easel against the ever-present wind. In the near future I will be putting together a workshop for pastels, and I am exploring the possibility of putting my less color-dependant (more realistic) artwork into print. You'll be the first to know about that here at The Colorist, BTW.

On the home front, my two Lieb Kind will be in grammar school soon, and that translates into three full-time days a week for Daddy Klahn to be an artist in his studio. Woo Hoo! Next year, when my littlest is in First Grade, I will finally be a full time artist - a life long goal. Now, I take the attitude of a full timer, which sometimes helps, and sometimes hinders, studio progress.

For a touching display of home life and sending the child to Kindergarten, see this post from last year. Also, next week will be family Bible camp, so I will be out of touch with you starting mid week. Sun, lake shore, a small amount of someone else watching the kids, camp fires, a little bit of plein air painting, some rock bouldering (a type of climbing), and no house chores. Ahhhh.

New Washington State Art Blogger

Miki Willa has moved from Hawaii to Washington State, and now qualifies as a Washington State Art Blogger. I am collecting those under a tag of Washington State, and it is no easy task. Yesterday at Pastel I posted about Miki's current great adventures - including a dream vacation that she is live blogging.

Also on the Washington State art front, be sure to hook into the Artist Trust for artist's calls and grant opportunities. Another Washington resource is the Washington State Arts Commission.

Weblog Award

Presenting my choices for the Brilliante Weblog Award! Thanks to Pollocksthebollocks for the award.

Kudos to the following blogs that I have enjoyed reading lately:

1. Petra Voegtle
2. Tracy Helgeson
   
3. Deborah Paris
   
4. Lloyd Irving Bradbury
   
5. The Gang at Moleskine Exchange International, present party excluded
   
6. Adam Cope
7. Ann Nemcosky