Friday 13 March 2009

Spring is here



What a wonderful time of the year. The deadness and drabness of winter is being pushed aside by the young fresh youthfulness of spring. Buds on shrubs and trees, bulbs throwing up their green shoots, many of them now adorned with flowers. I'm a great lover of Snowdrops and am blessed with many of them. They have been in flower since the beginning of January and still look good even now. Crocuses are flowering to bring the first colour into the garden. What joy!

Saturday 21 February 2009

In the SERPs

No, not State Earnings Related Pension Scheme for those of us in the UK but Search Engine Results PageS. As my previous post explained, I have made a new website. It is barely 3 weeks old but today I received my first visit from someone who found the site by doing a Google search. For those who don't know, getting a new site indexed and listed by the big search engines can be a very long process. To have had a result in just 3 weeks from conception is something I'm very, very happy with.

I've followed through on my idea to promote the painting of homes. I'm unsure whether to call it "Home Portraits" or "Architectural Portraits". The latter is a mouth full but does open up the service for offices and other non-residential buildings. I'm running with "Architectural" for now, but may well change it as the site develops. This photo is of my latest "Architectural Portrait".

Many of my paintings still have to be displayed on the new site. I'm currently trying to get the format, design, layouts right. Once it's all laid out and working I will start uploading my work by the bucketful.

Sunday 1 February 2009

A Moth to a Butterfly

Artists must all start as beginners and they must all end up as experienced (unless they quit along the way). Whether we like the art of an experienced artist has nothing to do with how long he or she has been painting. It is entirely to do with whether or not we like the image that has been produced. It occurs to me that there is no fixed line between the beginner and the experienced artist. One has been painting a short while and the other a long while ... but the point at which a beginner metamorphosises into someone with experience is vague and undefined.

Though I promote myself as a beginner, very recently I was approached through my web site by someone wishing to purchase one of my paintings. This has had a huge impact on me, so much so that I have realised I cannot call myself a beginner any longer. An artist with much still to learn maybe, but not a beginner.

To cement this notion I have decided to shed my 'beginner' coat and fly out into the big wide world as 'an artist'. This is a difficult transition for someone such as me who holds a low opinion of his own work, but it is a step I feel I must take at this time.

Accordingly, I have purchased a new domain to give me a platform from which to present my work to the viewing audience. Initially called "Art by JWJ", the domain name is www.JWJarts.com. Though I will display for sale a selection of my work, I am also keen to pursue one aspect of my painting that I especially enjoy ... painting buildings. So one of the first services I shall offer is that of painting peoples homes for them.

The new web site is nothing more than a holding page at the moment but I have a complete design, layout and features in my head just waiting to be coded. How long will it take for Google to find my new site? How long before a search for "watercolour of my home" finds my site at No.1? How long before I get my first enquiry, and my first sale? Who knows? Maybe those things will never happen but if I don't give it a go, I'll never know.

Monday 19 January 2009

Year round flowers.

Throughout the last 12 months, as and when time has permitted I have taken photo's of some of the flowers in my garden. I've posted a selection to my web site on a page called "A Year in My Garden". I'm very pleased with some of the photo's but several are not as good as I would have liked. Still, they demonstrate very well the diverse range of garden plants and the main point that I was trying to make which is that it is not too difficult to ensure that there is a flower in bloom every day throughout the entire year.

Though my December shots are none existant except for the conifers, I have to tell you that the Mahonia shown in October and November remained in flower right through December and is only now loosing it's last remaining flowers.

A whole new year has begun with the faithful Snowdrops, but this year they were pushing through the soil in mid-December and the first of the flowers were beginning to show for Xmas. I intend to take lots more photo's this year and put the best of them on my web page. Here we go again .... can't wait. :-)

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Support for Beginners



Regulars to my blog will be aware that my art forum runs a periodic Picture Puzzle. This is where a picture is sliced up into a dozen squares and a variety of artists are each given one to copy. The dozen newly painted segments are then reassembled to create a unique composite painting.

A while ago, one of my forum members attended a masterclass being run by Fiona Pearts and Terry Harrison. During that course, the member talked about our forum and what it is trying to do by way of encouraging beginners. As a consequence of that discussion, both Fiona and Terry kindly gave their permission for us to use any of their pictures as material for our various projects. Having a 'proper' painting to copy rather than the usual home-produced photograph lifts the puzzle to a new level.
We are all very grateful to Fiona and Terry for their generous permissions.

The current project uses a painting by Terry Harrison called "Winters Day" and is shown here. Come back often and watch it taking shape.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

Castle Door


Time is getting the better of me and I'm not posting anywhere near as often as I'd like to. Regrettably, this also means that I'm not getting any time for painting or drawing. Some time ago I returned from a holiday in Wales, with a camera bursting with photo's to be painted. Recently I returned from a week in Yorkshire, similarly laden with images to be transposed to canvas. Mind you, I did make time for this 'quickie'. It is an old wooden door in the wall of the ruined Knaresborough Castle. That is a fine old building. Completely in ruins, but beautifully kept with manicured lawns and some beautiful surroundings. The views out across the valley to the viaduct crossing the River Nidd, are nothing less than spectacular. It was the sort of place where you just can't put your camera down for a second.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Are you an Artist?

If so, my forum for Art beginners needs YOU!!! In my mid-fifties I unexpectedly discovered a modest ability with regards to drawing and painting. That's another story that I won't bore you with here. But my new found 'skill' (using the word very loosely) caused me to wonder how many others had latent skills that weren't being used. I created my web site and a forum for beginners, like me, who wanted somewhere to show their efforts and get helpful and supportive feedback. That initial goal proved fairly succesful but I think we are suffering with a bit of a catch 22 problem. It's a forum for beginners, and so has nothing to interest experts. On the other hand, the beginners get little feedback because there are no experts. That is where YOU can help. If you fancy offering help, advice and guidance to beginners then you could make a big difference in my forum. We run drawing and painting projects to test our skills and drag us into trying new things, and we display our efforts altogether on a single web page. This allows us to learn by comparing our efforts with those of our friends. (See this recent Painting Project). As a small group of novices we do quite well, but I can see how much better we could do if we had some experts amongst us. I feel that more beginners would join if there were experts on hand to teach us, and more experts would join if there was more going on. The forum is like a snowball poised at the top of a hill .... if we could get it rolling it would gather momentum and size quite quickly. Come and join us, and give the snowball the push it needs. Art Forum for Beginners