Let's Explain This Something Right Now

Today, I am donning the hat of a "Guest Blogger" at Gail Sibley's blog, How to Pastel. The occasion is to explain to Gail's readers what the inspiration for my 100 Still Life works is. Go see if I did that, please. 

Still Life Works.

The Size is Right

Windswept Height

5.25" x 9"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

See Casey Klahn Art - Intimate Sizes, at smallpastels.blogspot.com, to find affordable sweeties.

The Art Noodge - Frosty Felicitations

Frost Ribbons, photo by Lorie Klahn (c)

Frosted Pine Needles, photo by Lorie Klahn (c)

 By the breath of God ice is given...

Job 37:10.

You already know there are a number of blogs that emanate from this house.  Now, new blogs are going from here into the ethernet, but not written by me!  Introducing:

The Art Noodge, by Lorie Klahn. A blog where international relief and development ministries are supported.  Buy Art!  Help People!

My wife Lorie enjoys photography and manipulating photos with various software such as Photoshop and all manner of Apps.  She is a talented photographer, and over the years her work has appeared on The Colorist.  Do visit her new blog, and please follow as she posts fine art photography, fun crafts and activities.

The Art Noodge.

Seven Years at The Colorist!

I Mac Smack

Got a new Mac!

This is my first post on my new iMac, which is Apple's desktop  computer.  Here are my observations, reasons (and hopes) for this new platform and how it will effect studio life and this blog.

1. I was impressed with the way Photoshop opens right now!  I am considering updating to CS 6 (Creative Cloud) because I've been capable of completely locking up my pse and use the program constantly for workshop flyers, image manipulation, image filing, and blogging.

2. The kids and family can use the 27" screen for movies, and I for art movies and You Tubes.  When HD TV became mandatory  we left trad TV behind and only use computers for our moving picture entertainment.

3. It lacks the 10 key pad, but I can buy one down the road if I miss it that badly.

4. My otherwise slow internet speed (we get our feed terrestrially and it is as good as we can get living in the country) is a bit faster now, as are most functions with this computer.  My understanding is that background froof doesn't compete for time like it did on my old PC.

5. I can visit other art blogs more frequently, which has been lagging for me as my PC's performance slowly ebbed over time.

6. A fixed-station desktop (iMac) will yield back the time that I have been spending powering-down my Toshiba, packing it up, taking it out to the studio and setting it up for my music (I use Pandora).  A lot of time has been wasted waiting for that elusive broadcast wave to seep out to the studio from the house.  I will try to leave my old laptop there all of the time and play music that way.  If all else fails, I may get Sirius.  Anyone out there use satellite radio in their studio?

7. Another benefit of the desktop is that I can eat and drink here without the fear of spilling on the laptop!  I survived 2 Toshiba laptops, both at about 4 years apiece, without a mishap.  Also, I am poor at backing up my data, and I did dodge that bullet and retain my data from that time.  

8. Solid State Drive technology.  Boot times will be significantly reduced.  Lifehacker says this about SSD:

Launching applications will occur in a near-instant. Saving and opening documents won't lag. File copying and duplication speeds will improve. Overall, your system will feel much snappier. 

Nice Knowin' ya, old computer!

What all this means for you.

1.  More consistent blogging as far as frequency.  More entertainment, more info, and more fun!

2. I will not become a Mac-vangel.  It isn't that important to me, and I have a skepticism of the big claims that Apple makes about it's products   I enjoyed the joke somebody made about Macs being "sprinkled with unicorn tears."  

3. I hope the greater speed and efficiency of this system will yield more time for the studio!

4. More You Tubes/ vlogs from The Colorist.

One Oh One - Blog Topics

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Don't tell me you have nothing to post about:

100 Things I Love About Art
Highlight a Master Artist
Compare Two Master Artists
Your Subjects
Review Your Exhibit

Goal Setting
Photo Journal an Event
Studio Description or Photos

Other Social Media Besides the Blog
Museum Visit
Museum Highlight
List of Links Out to Other Art Blogs

Interview
You Tube of an Art Topic
Tips On Your Media
Art History Topic

Rant
Praise

Personal Story
Personal Opinion
Art Lesson That is Authentically Different
How To Do a Blogger (Wordpress) Task, such as embedding a hotlink in a comment

Guest Blogger
Art News
Take Apart One of Your Paintings

Your Drawings
Group Drawings On a Topic
Post Off Topic (Cuisine/Auto Repair/ Target Shooting/Macrame)
Your Bio

Resume
One Sheet

604 Ideas
Book Review
Highlight a New Blogger
Write an Essay

Make That Essay Into a Series
Take a Poll
Find Out What Your Social Objects Are and Post Them

Meet Another Blogger (Post a Picture)
A Local Attraction
An Obituary

Mind Map Your Blog
Post About Your Mother
Foreign Country
A List of Your Favorite Posts

Your Other Blog(s)
Your Website
An Orginization or Society
Coffee

Illuminated Umber Slope

10" x 16"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Technique That You "Own"
An Art Goal
Your Works from Art School

Art Materials - Something Obscure
Anything That Really Interests You
Something That Happened To You That Was New, Odd, Unusual or Funny.

Newsletter Update
Holiday Greetings
Cats

Another Art Form - Not Your Own
An Art Genre, Such as Portraiture
Participate in a Blog Project
Become an Authority Blog

Any Event That You Find Interesting
A Magazine Article
Research That You Have Done


A Movie Review
Report On An Historical Art Movement
Your Upcoming Exhibit
Post a Fantastic Photoshop of Yourself on the Banks of the Seine with van Gogh

Vincent et Moi

An Interesting iPhone App
A PANO Outside of Your Studio 
Highlight a Great Post on Another Blog and Make a Link

Make Up a Silly Prize and Award it to Someone
Any Excuse to Post a Link List of Your Blogger Chums
Your Insights on the Business of Being an Artist

Your Sketchbook
Write a Formal Critique

Your Influences

Small Studies
The Art Festival 
Quotes

Your Slideshow
Your Video

Details About Your Palette
Your "Take" on the Color Wheel
Tricks for Establishing a Value Composition
Studio Tips

An Art Tool You Made Yourself
Patrons or Collectors
Your Faith and Art
Why You Paint or Draw in Your Style

Art and Health
Art Philosophy
Your painting Holiday or Road Trip

Press Release
Motivational Words, Sentence or Essay
Photos  or Paintings of Snow

Another Artist's Studio That You Admire
Any List That is Topical
The Year In Review


Post Your Latest Artwork



This post was bumped from 2011.

Art Blog & Page Updates

Portfolio Blog

Casey Klahn Art, Portfolio of Available Works, is my new effort at making the art in my studio available to viewers.

My current and available medium and large works will be posted and updated there.  The new blog will be linked on the "Portfolio" page at this blog.

All of the Pages, which are tabulated at the top of this page and under the banner, are in the process of being updated.  There is much workshop news, and since I wrote the last bit, 2 new workshop venues have been added.  More news to follow.

Fun Time at Tumblr

Tumblr is extra much fun.  The blog posts are very easy to do, and it is kind of like a world wide blog and your slice thereof.  My Tumblr Blog.

Tomorrow we'll be back on summer vacation.  I will stay in touch, but won't be prompt.

Favicons for Blogger

My wife, Lorie, took some great promotional images, and we immodestly used the following inspirations for our efforts: 

this and that.

Blogger has now provided, after probably 5 years of requests, the ability for you to embed your Favicon (icon) with a simple upload to your Blogger design page.  My own struggles with keeping a Favicon on my blog may finally have been resolved by this new tool.


The icon that I used to have which was posted at an image hosting site just disappeared one day.  I suspected that it was a Windows update that caused this action, but it turned out to be the demise of the hosting site that was to blame.


My recent efforts involved embedding an icon in the code of my blog template. That was successful, except for the problem of my icon being present with IE and Firefox, but not on Chrome.  I tried to research a fix for this twice, but came up against some walls that stumped my feeble technical mind.


Now you can ignore the image hosting site, and the funny HTML embeds that most of us have no idea how to work.  Just get your image in a 16 x 16 pixel size and you're ready to apply it to your Blogger design page.  Woo Hooo.


Get the basics on Favicons:

Shoestring Branding




Some Favicon ideas:


Making a Mark
Lines and Colors
Astrid Volquardsen

Bill Hosner

Words on Words

Blog Remodel Underway

Sketch WW II Climber
11" x 9"
Charcoal, Pastel and Compressed White Charcoal on Rives BFK
Casey Klahn

The Colorist blog is undergoing a remodel, and that includes new tabs, a sidebar clean up and a new banner. The strategic concepts were aided by the rigorous mind mapping which I posted about here and here.

One thing already accomplished is a revamp of my profile by:

1. Killing the blogger profile widget and adding a picture that links to my blogger profile;
   
2. Updating my picture at my profile (and then I had to go around to my other communities, like Twitter, etc., and change those to match);
3. Cleaning up my blogger profile page;
4. Placing the profile in my tabs rather than in the sidebar.

Further cleaning will involve deleting as many sidebar widgets as possible. I have added a few that I feel I will want after the clean-up, so it looks more crowded than usual now. My criteria are that they have utility. I value widgets that link within the blog, those that link to other content I have placed on the web, such as an artist statement, other blogs, website or whatever, and those that link to other authors' blogs. Next, there are the blog awards, which gives a reader a sense that "this blog has enough merit for me to read." There is the Follow widget, which I have found to be my easiest way to read around the blogs I like. Ditto the bloglist with thumbnails, although I find it to be so space-filling that I keep mine short. Time to clean that one up to reflect current blogs, too.

More widgets are there, as well, but I admire blogs like Steven LaRose whose blog Fish or Cut Bait, is so devoid of marginal clutter that the result is a page that reflects a graphic statement I like very much. It points more readily to his content, but I also love the contrast it provides to his rigorous abstract art. Cool.


Tech crazy, yet?


Labels have become a tag cloud, thanks to the input of my readers who voted for this. For now, I opted for the blogger version. Maybe a better one will appear later.

Next post: Banner Banter (including a How To make a banner and post it).
Still to come: Keeping Tabs. Find out what have I decided to do for blogger tabs.

How To Mind Map Your Blog

"I must create a system,
or be enslaved by another man's,"
William Blake

The Mind Map of The Colorist blog was posted a week ago Monday, and you may wish to do this exercise for your own blog. My goal in doing a mind map was to clean up my busy sidebar and sort out what kinds of data I may want for the new Blogger tabs.

The following describes how I did my mind map.

detail - center of the mind map

I began with the identified subject in the center of the blank page, and drew radii with subjects that I found easy to describe based on what I like to write about in the blog. The broad subjects included Art essays, Art History, My Art, The Art Blogging Community, Casey Klahn (it is my newsletter), etc.

I skipped the rule about using color (go figure!). I think in color when I draw, though - that's part of my whole job description. A rule I will follow next time is that one should pose the subject as a thesis statement or as a question, not just, "The Colorist." I should have written: "what are the components of The Colorist?"

Next, I consulted my labels, and then I described the sub-branches by associations of content with the main branches. For instance, "My Art" has several sub branches such as abstract and landscape genres. Also, the broad category of "Art Content" broke down into the associated subjects of "art philosophy" and "education."



The finding of links between the broad subjects, or a systems analysis of how subjects connect, was illustrated by double ended arrows running between the main branches. This is the most problematic area, and I think the worst represented by mind mapping. Systems are more complex than this 2 dimensional scheme, and they have multiple associations, not just those that are easily illustrated by an arrow. Anyway, the object was to get some systems identified, and to find groupings that will help me pull together types of content for my tabs and my sidebar widgets.

Below, I drew a pop-out that attempted to scheme some broad concerns of the blog. I want to keep my blog focused on ideas, and not so much on myself - people get bored with that. That's why I drew the overlap as a little bit of the artist's self, a better amount of content (ideas) and a whole lot of action (painting and drawing). The outside influences of culture and others I described as "world."




Like with the Borg, all ideas can be assimilated, but when you get the crew of the star ship Enterprise involved, all bets are off. I would say the same thing applies to the artistic mind. Artists are (or should be) the most individual souls on Earth. Systems that artists work within may not function for other offices. Create your own sets of ideas and make your artist's blog a "Mind Map" of your own personality.


Extreme Navel Gazing Links:

Brainstorming
Mind Mapping
Argument Map
Disney Mind Map 1957

Funny gif by EFAmbros

Banners and Badges

#1. New banner, gray with green.



#2. New banner, brown with green.



#3. New banner, green with orange.



The time has arrived to replace my aging blog banner. Here are some designs, and I am asking you to vote on your favorite. You might expect me to be a whiz at design, but I have too much respect for that profession to think that I can just rip out designs like a pro. It is a skill I struggle with. Help me out by voting for the one you think should top The Colorist blog.

There is a school of thought that says you should get straight to the content in your blog, and not delay everything with a big banner. The idea is to either dispense with the banner and go with text only, or place the thinnest banner at the top of your blog. My own view is that I write an artist's blog, and I want visual impact. The little picture icons that are now part of blog rolls do a nice job of headlining each new post, as does the post title. The majority of readers are fed by their subscriptions, and recognize the blog plenty well when they get here.

Except that now you'll be seeing a fresh banner. But which one? Please vote in the poll at the right hand sidebar. In addition, I will offer a brag banner for those who so desire to advertise that they are one of the smart readers who visit here often. Whichever banner is chosen, I will be complimenting it with a badge like the one below.





The How to Mind Map Your Blog post is written, but I need to tweak it a little more. Stay tuned, mind travelers.

27 Art Blogs To Watch 2010

Artist Donna Zagotta, of Notes From the Studio, Donna Zagota's Art Blog, asked her readers to name their favorite art blogs so that she "could create a list of hot art blogs to watch in 2010." The Colorist was one of the 27 Art Blogs to Watch in 2010, posted February 15th., 2010. If you follow the link you will be astounded by the many kinds of art blogs that she has noted. I am proud to be on the list and I had a great time reading and following the links. Thank you, Donna!

Artist Mary Anne Cary has also given The Colorist a Sunshine Award, which I gratefully acknowledge. I have an idea of how to pass on this sunshine, which I will be working on soon. Thank you, Mary Anne!

Next post: How To Mind Map Your Blog.

Mind Map of This Blog

Mind Map of The Colorist Blog. Click on the image to read in a larger format.

Cue the Twilight Zone Theme. We are going to mind map The Colorist.

Here is the theme music for this post ( Right Click to open a new tab).

The reason for this exercise is that Blogger has introduced tabs. You know the ones that make Wordpress blogs function so well? They take you to static pages that live (as I understand it) within your blog and I assume they accrue to your blog's statistical performance. I already use Google Page Creator (soon to be replaced by Google Sites) to direct readers to static pages, and the links have been via badges or icons that I place on the sidebar.

The mind map is my way of gathering the cluttered strings of this parachute that is my blog. I am trying to discover what sorts of things are interconnected. Which subjects would function better if found via tabs? Which want to be found via badges in the sidebar?

In addition to the mind map, I also listed my sidebar items by function. I look forward to reducing my sidebar to a more manageable affair. My plan is to use sidebar badges or icons to link to certain content, and tabs for other types. Now I just need one more important thing: some time.

Katherine Tyrrell has generously posted a How To for adding tabs to your blog.
Google Sites.
Mind Mapping.

Three Big Years

Turquoise Forest
13" x 9"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

“Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.”

Vincent Van Gogh


The 16th of December will mark the three year anniversary of this newsletter-style blog which I named The Colorist. That turned out to be a good move, because for some reason that name has struck a chord, and The Colorist is widely read and many have chosen to link here over the years. Why do people read The Colorist? Partly to see my art, and partly to read the process essays that I write. Occasionally, some nugget of interest brings a reader in via the magic of Key Words.

Did you know that I, personally, am not "The Colorist?" I may paint colorist works, but the name of this blog was meant to describe a place to explore, report and essay on the central theme of colorist art. Of course, anything else that interests me makes it in here, too. I styled it as a newsletter, with a mish-mash of interesting content, all held together under the central theme of "why make this art?"

Am I any closer to that manifesto? I would say, in retrospect, that I have written, and you have very kindly read, a number of things that are descriptive of the artist's process. If that draws someone in to take a closer look at my artworks, then I guess the words have helped. I am told (and the artists in my audience will attest to this experience) that the longer someone looks at my paintings, the more they see. It is like entering a room, and then somehow one finds another hidden room, and then another one, and so on.

So what is a contemporary "colorist?" Did the high mark of overly colorful art end in the nineteen hundred and oughts with the Fauvists in France? My very good blogging friend, Adam Cope, (who does brilliantly colored paintings of the Dordogne region of France) observed this week to me that we all use brilliant color now, and the inference was kind of, "so what?" I couldn't agree more - so what? The market for art supplies is sick with brilliant pigments, and we are rich - filthy rich - with paint intensities. Is it like eating that candy corn in the fall, or that sugar cookie in the winter, and rediscovering why you don't eat them all year? They are soooo sweet! Too much!

Not a few of the artists I admire in the present day use subdued color religiously, and to wonderful effect. Art cannot be "all about color," as these artists prove. But, why do I persist? To be honest - and maybe you've noticed - for the first time this past year, browns made it into my palette.

I think my favorite artist, Wolf Kahn, has said it best. He indicates that there is a knack, or talent if you will, for bringing colors together, that either you have or you don't. Put another way, I would say that the way to failure with intense colors is broad, but the path to success is narrow. High key colors are like dynamite - useful if you know what you're doing.

For those of you who've been around the whole 3 years, reading TC, I thank you. There are others who've been fellow travelers for one or two years, and I am equally thankful for you. As luck would have it, there are also more new readers lately. Welcome, and I hope the next three years will profit you as much as these past three have done me.

Get There Quick!

"Time...is running...OUT, old chum!!!"

Every artist wishes to excel in their work. The Colorist has been looking at How to Paint for the Prize.

Because I was seeking the prize for my art last summer, I was in a hurry. One thing I knew about myself when it came to painting for my show in California was that if I didn't complete all of the artworks in a narrow time frame, their look would be discernibly different from one another. As an example, the first few pastel paintings would not seem very much "like" the last few - they would still look to be done by the same artist, but they would convey different ideas.

If focus was a pathway to winning First Prize, then I would need to get my body of work done in the shortest time possible. Long days in the studio, with early starts and after dinner sessions would be in order. Since I knew the venue, I had a firm idea of how many works I'd need, which was about 25. Since I was at an art festival, and since running out of art is the big taboo, I knew that I could fill-in with paintings that didn't match my series on the last day.

One thing that worked against my goal was the danger of reworking the same idea so often that I might produce a boring inventory. Same scene - different day, so to speak. My belief is that returning to a scene will generate more good than harm, as the artist can actually better define his ideas by repetition. A stop gap for me, though, was the limit of about 25 works.

Narrow the time frame of your painting project to keep your works coherent and focused, and your audience will appreciate the results.

Congratulations to Tom Christopher, Images from the Iowa Greenbelt, whose pastel "Barely Alive," won first prize in the Arkansas Pastel Society competition. That's how it's done.

Stephen Bauman Blog

Allow me to introduce a new blogging artist and teacher: Stephen Bauman. If you share my love of Italy and of Classic Realism, you will see his new blog as a treasure trove.

Bauman found my post with cast drawings, and was kind enough to comment there. Compare this with these and you will be in for a treat.



Stephen Bauman. "I was raised in Miami, FL and now live and work in Florence Italy. I teach painting and drawing at the Florence Academy of Art, under the direction of Daniel Graves."

Start Again

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

"You have to start, over and over again."

Willem de Kooning. de Kooning, An American Master, Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan.

Here is artist blogger Chris Ashley's view and review of de Kooning at the MoMA.


A new start for me is taking place at art *setter, where I have posted some images and an essay.

art *setter. person or institution whose tastes, talent, knowledge or ideas, has an influence on art.

Daily Posting Month and Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth, Memory & Magic, Knutson, 2008

If you haven't noticed, I am posting daily for a month. Tracy Helgeson did this recently, and I am now up to the challenge. Since May 11th., I have posted about all things that interest me, as well as some of my new River Series works. More of those to follow soon, as I actually have eleven photographed.

I picked up Andrew Wyeth, Memory & Magic, Knutson, 2008, at a bookstore today. I was challenged by Wyeth's recent art (which I saw in a few of his obituary articles), and am interested in his view of things.

Some thoughts from this collection of art and essays are:

• I like Wyeth's very spare take on waterways.
  
• His usage of black and white paint is interesting.
  
• I have much to learn from his subject choices.
  
• Wyeth's vision hangs together well.
  
• Wyeth is an important American painter, in my opinion.
  
• His rendering of the grass and ground is very intriguing - he often has a pathway like a deer trail running through.

My post about Wyeth's recent passing is here.

Bookmark The Colorist to follow my month of daily posts.

Twitter-Pation. Social Networking and an Online Poll

Pastels in a Box
Photo: Casey Klahn

In a surprise to myself, I have to say that I am really liking Twitter. Social networking sights are low on my radar, but I got talked into following Twitter and the pool of acquaintances one makes there is bigger than at Blogger. It must be because the commitment required for art blogging is significant, but Twit-ting is easy as pie.

Here are some great artists and others whom I have "met" on Twitter.

Diego Sierro at Diego Sierro.
Liz Massey at Write Livelihood.
Alissa Fereday at Fearlessartz.
Jennifer Robin at Robin's Woods.

Not to be left behind, Twitter has a blog.

To follow me on Twitter, go here. CUL8R.

Online Poll. Did you notice that I am trying a stretch template for The Colorist? I am evaluating whether stretch makes text more readable, but don't want to diminish the graphic content of my artist blog. Turns out that the images are the same physical size, but relationships of text, negative space and images are different. Please take the poll at the top right, and choose "New Stretch is Better," "Old Style with Neg. Space Much Better," "Unsure" or "Whatever! Blog On!" A quick look at my peerage shows that most artist bloggers are using the basic layout template, which provides healthy negative space at the left and right margins of the page.

Administrative Artist. My administrative tail is getting too long, and so I will need some time at the desk soon. To complicate matters, two articles will need to be written for purposes other than The Colorist. For you writers out there, look at it this way: go draw two illustrations for your next articles. Now you know how I feel. I should have listened to the Art Business Coach, Alyson Stanfield, and had these ready and on file for when the opportunity arose. Live and learn. Maybe I'd better write four, so I have two to spare! On the bright side, I can write one article as a presentation for a gallery talk - two birds with one stone.

AFN (That is all for now).