Bowl of Fruit - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 16" h x 12" w
Medium: Oils



Continuing to paint in the Outsider Folk Art genre and having fun with it. By next week I hope to have another update for you on my eBay listing experiments. I am conducting a number of them through this week. See you then!

Three Lollipop Candies - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Bidding has ended.
Size 10"w x 8"h.
Medium: Oils on Gessoed Board.



Continuing my eBay experiment painting Outsider, Pop, Folk Art and opening the auction at about $1.00 this week with Lollipops. Next week I will be doing the same but I am considering changing the category from the smaller "Folk Art" category to the much larger "self-representing artists" category, just to see what happens. To read the results of the Windy Day listing experiment, scroll to previous post, #56.

What makes art "art"? Who makes these determinations? People have been discussing this for ages and Marla Olmstead has painted her way into the middle of a flurry of discussions on the topic.

Marla is a little girl whose abstract expressionist paintings have sold for as much as $20,000. Some controversy has arrisen over whether to call her work "art" and even whether she finishes it herself. If you would like to see a video clip of Marla in action, click HERE. To see her gallery, click HERE.

Useful Link - eBay Listing Experiment

Updating my eBay listing experiment (see post #54). I decided in addition to listing in the Folk Art category, to open the biding at $.99 just to see what would happen. The upside is that with 101 views, 13 bids, 5 watchers and inquiries as far away as the UK, the painting received a lot more attention than usual. The activity was so much fun to watch. Coming to my computer to check on the listing was like rushing to the Christmas tree early Christmas morning to see the packages under the tree. And listing a painting on eBay for $.99 is considerably less expensive that listing at $99.00.

I realized too that in the Folk Art category, buyers are not looking for the huge canvases that Abstract Art buyers like. This means less money needs to be spent on canvases and paints, a canvas that is easier to work with in a small space, lighter to handle and lower shipping costs for buyers. On the downside, even with all the bidding activity, the closing price was lower.

Normally my auction listings begin at $99.00. I receive 1 or 2 bids, at the end of the auction, about 50 views, and from 1 to 3 watchers. So the lower starting price doubled the number of views (i.e exposure) the painting received. In the longterm,will exposure be more valuable than a higher price today?

On another note, if you are an artist, this may interest you. Some posts back I wrote about an art competition by Juriedartcomp.com.

They are now accepting entries into their 3rd Juried Art Competition. The theme me is “Modern”. The winner will have work published in the March 2007 Artists Directory, an ad section in ARTnews magazine. 2nd place will receive $100, and 3rd will receive 5 passes into future competitions.

The deadline is 4 pm Eastern Standard time, November 30th, 2007.

The Scroll - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Bidding has ended.
Size: 24" x 24" x 1.5".
Medium: Oils on Canvas.



As I follow my experiment of listing a painting on eBay in the Folk Art category at $.99, this week's listing is in the larger category of Art: Paintings; American 1950-now, also at the very low starting price of $1.00. I will let you know how these 2 experiments turn out in subsequent posts.

Windy Day - Folk Art - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 24" x 24" x 1.5"d.
Medium: Oils on Canvas.



Returning to the topic of Folk Art with this week's painting and Useful Link (scroll down to previous posting). There may be an advantage to selling Folk Art on eBay, which is that the category is fairly small. For example, today a search in the category of Original Abstract Oil Painting returns 6099 results to look through if you are a buyer. But for Folk Art Oil Painting, there were only 422 results. My guess is that this would mean more shoppers will see the paintings in the latter category, which increases the possiblity of selling the art.

Ueful Links - Contemporary Folk Art Paintings

Not only is Folk Art, in the form of paintings, difficult to circumscribe, but it turns out that there are more than a few categories of the genre. And the lines continue to blur between it, Pop Art paintings and Outsider Art. This brings me to this week's Useful Link about Contemporary Folk Art, which includes paintings, and the examples shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Click the link above to view these wonderful pieces.

At www.americanfolkart.com the description of Contemporary American folk artists is: They "share with folk artists of earlier centuries a strong narrative impulse, the use of figurative and representational forms that are highly abstract, an intuitive compositional strength, and a tendency toward the decoration and embellishment of a surface that goes well beyond necessity."

Red - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 36" x 36" x 1.5"
Medium: Oils on Canvas



Scroll down to the previous post to read about Edvard Munch and see a sample of his painting. Note the difference in the style of the painting in the link as oposed to his famous painting The Scream. His style was more peaceful after his nervous breakdown.

Useful Link-Edvard Munch

It is interesting to follow the evolution of style and focus in artists with a long enough career to do so. Edvard Munch said "If I do not know what to paint, I paint landscape. " (Maybe I should try that) Probably when most of us think of of Edvard Munch, we think of his painting The Scream and similarly styled pieces full of conflict and drama. But he also later painted peaceful and lyrical landscapes, such as the one in this link of Moonlight, painted in 1895, after moving back to Norway following a nervous breakdown. His work shows a marked difference in emotion in these later works. The pieces are still lively, but we no longer see the anguish. Edvard Munch is classified by Artcyclopedia as a Symbolist/Expressionist painter. He was Norwegian and lived from 1863-1944.

Portrait of a Girl

Click title to enlarge, for more information, or to purchase.
Size 25" x 31" x 1.5" framed.
Oils and Paper on Canvas.



Whew! Wasn't sure this post would happen today. So many obstacles today. How should this piece be classified: pop art, folk art, outsider art, abstract, semi-abstract or all of the above? When you list a piece on eBay, it has to be classified and it is hard to know where my art fits in. Scroll down to post #49 to read about pop art.

Useful LInk - Exploring Pop Art

Whether or not you believe that Pop Art is true art or not, it has made its mark. Following is the definition of this movement according to Artcyclopedia: "Pop Art--1950's to 1960's; Pop Art is a style of art which explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. Common sources of imagery include advertisements, consumer product packaging, celebrity photographs, and comic strips. Leading Pop artists include Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein."

Webmuseum, Paris says: "It is a moot point as to whether the most extraordinary innovation of 20th-century art was Cubism or Pop Art. Both arose from a rebellion against an accepted style: the Cubists thought Post-Impressionist artists were too tame and limited, while Pop Artists thought the Abstract Expressionists pretentious and over-intense. Pop Art brought art back to the material realities of everyday life, to popular culture (hence ``pop''), in which ordinary people derived most of their visual pleasure from television, magazines, or comics."

Click on the Useful link title to see some examples.