Our regular readers know how much we love and appreciate true art and those talented artists behind it. We try to get in touch with these artists on every chance we get, for there is nothing more inspiring than learning from their experience, and expertise on how an artist can survive in this competitive world where eCommerce also plays a pivotal role.
True creativity is always unique, and no artist needs to learn from others on how he/she should go about their art. But then, every aspiring artist must gather as much information and advice as possible on what to do when the creative process is over.
So check out these first-hand tips and priceless advice from artists who know what they're talking about:
Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon is the artists behind Newspaper Blackout Poems. He makes poetry by redacting words from newspaper articles with a permanent marker.
"Do good work and put it where people can see it."
Florentijn Hofman
Florentijn is known for his larger than life installations in public spaces, he believes 'the world has become smaller via globalization/internet etc. therefore size does matter! The bigger the object, the smaller the world."
"Keep on doing stuff, never stop and always maintain a straight look upon the world."
Chet Zar
Chet has been inclined towards the darker side of art since childhood, a horror movies fan turned out to be the guy who created monsters in these scary movies. He is also a special effects make up artist, designer, sculptor for motion picture industry where he has created creatures for movies like Hellboy I & II, The Ring, Planet of The Apes and Men In Black II to name a few.
"It's difficult to make a living solely as a fine artist, so having a secondary art related career (illustration, graphic design, tattooing, etc) is good to help pay the bills. Also, prepare to work your ass off."
Ben Heine
Ben is a painter, illustrator, portraitist, caricaturist, photographer and former activist who studied journalism, graphic arts and sculpture. His Pencil Vs. Camera series has gained much deserved appreciation and is known for its poetic mix of reality and imagination.
"Competition is sadly very present in our society. We learn it at school from a very young age: If you don’t get better marks than your fellows, you’re seen as a very silly, incompetent and uninteresting person. It’s the same for adults… You’ve got to be the best or you’ll be treated like trash. Of course, I despise this. I find it awful and terrible. But it’s difficult to change the core values and the culture of a whole system in our society. There isn’t a single intelligence. There are many sorts of aptitudes for sure. Everybody is good at something! I think an artist should stand out from the crowd simply by being himself/herself. Creativity, quality, hard work and innovation should be the leitmotivs."
Andrew Bell
Andrew Bell is an artist who creates strange but cute creatures that pop into his head. He started creating daily illustrations from images or doodles that his imagination showed him and published them on his site every single day without fail. And now, not only does he sell prints of his illustrations, but also toys, clothing and books.
"I love eCommerce, and it is an integral part of my life. While it will never completely replace traditional shopping, it is an important alternative and occasional enhancement. Being able to see and touch an item is an experience that simply can’t be matched, but the convenience of shopping from your chair comes close!"
Vanessa Dualib
Vanessa is a Brazilian artist who loves to play with food. She creates beautiful cartoon characters and makes people smile through her wonderful artwork. She is also a photographer and a food fetish. She combines her three greatest love which keeps her going and creating such endearing characters. You've gotto love her mischievous fellow named Eggbert.
"When creating something, don't do it just because you can, but do it because you must. Rilke once wrote that "A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity." Simply because "Being an artist means not numbering or counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, standing confidently in storms, not afraid that summer may not come." Rilke said it all, folks! And I have been inspired by him ever since. ;)"
Giesla Hoelscher
Giesla is a digital visual artist, she creates wonderful collages in which she creates depth and interest by blending and layering original photographs in Photoshop. She has a passion for historic and popular landmarks, establishments and events Minnesota and surrounding areas. She explores bolder, more personal feeling through painterly fine art collages that using images, items, illustrations and photographs.
"I know it's said over and over again by so many people, but you really have to do what you love and be persistent. Art is probably the most difficult thing to make a career out of and if you don't love it, it just won't work long-term."
Robert J. Lang
Dr. Robert J. Lang is an Origami magician, he creates awe-inspiring designs by marrying mathematics with origami. A former researcher with NASA, he is popularly known as "The Renaissance man of origami". Before becoming a full-time origami artist and consultant, he has been a physicist, engineer, R&D manager and has authored & co-authored more than 80 technical publications; he has written about 10 books on origami itself.
"Learn the business of the art. You might be the worlds greatest artist from a strictly artistic point of view, but if you want to make your living at it, you’ll need to know how the business side works.
And then, if you’re doing commercial art to make a living, make sure you’ve carved out time to pursue some projects purely because you’re interested in them. Personally, I find that having a mix of both is good: doing personal projects lets me pursue artistic ideas that no one but me is interested in, but doing commercial projects also sometimes nudges me into interesting directions that I never would have tried on my own."
David DuChemin
David is is well known world and humanitarian photographer, best selling author and educator. His humanitarian projects and world photography assignments have taken him places like Peru, India, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Uganda, Nepal, Rwanda, Iceland and many many more where he creates stories from his camera.
"I’d say make damn sure you really understand that being a photographer and running a photography business are two very different things that we do for different reasons and which require vastly different skill sets. There is a freedom to being a so-called amateur that the professionals don’t have unless they are very, very intentional about keeping it. If you hate your job as a dentist, at least you come home to a hobby you love when you pick up your camera. If you become a professional and then hate your job as a photographer then you not only hate your job but you’ve lost your hobby as well. So many people assume you can’t be a “real” photographer until they are making money at it, and that’s just nonsense."
Nicholas Galanin
Nicholas Galanin is a traditional as well as contemporary artist. His stunning bodies of work simultaneously preserve his culture and explore new perceptual territory. A Master in Visual Arts with honors in Jewelry Design and Silversmithing, he has studied at Massey University in New Zealand.
"Take risks, create prolifically and fuck the police."
Sayaka Ganz
Sayaka is an artist who makes beautiful sculptures from discarded objects. A Master of Fine Arts in 3D studies, she uses objects like plastic toys, utensils and metal objects in her sculptures and inject a second life in them. She mostly sculpts animals and when you give them a first look, it seems to be moving. That's the beauty of her art. She also views her sculptures as human relationships.
"My advice is to be sincere. This is the best advice I received from my professor. Don't make up a fancy academic concept if your heart is not in it. Instead look deeper inside yourself and find out where your artistic drive comes from, what inspires you and what your personal artistic goals are."
Jo Hamilton
Jo is a Portland-based artist who creates awesome figurative images of the people and the environment around her using crochet as her medium. She took formal training in Painting and Drawing from Glasgow School of Art but her deep interest in crochet led her to create such wonderful crochet images.
"Do what you love, even if it seems a bit mad."
Steven Siegel
Steven is a NY-based artist who uses recycled and reclaimed materials to create ming boggling and very creative sculptures. He has been honored with many prestigious awards and grants during his career of almost 30 years. Better known for creating large sculptures, the artist uses newspapers, cardboards, plastic bottles, rubber hoses and bailed up floppy disks to create imaginative and impressive sites works.
"If Siegel has one word of advice for aspiring artists, it is that one should not pursue this work unless the work itself is the motivation. Knowing that you can get up in the morning and go into your studio because you need to see something is critical in a field where the external validation that most people receive for their jobs is mostly absent."
Thomas C. Chung
Thomas is an incredibly talented artist from Australia, who's very popular for his knitted food art. He also a painter and creates art installations as well. Many of his fans like to call him 'A Little Artist'.
"I've learnt that, while artists are not always the most rich in life financially, what we're doing from a day-to-day basis is simply quite enough."
Sandhi Schimmel
An artist who hates to waste and upcycles junk mail, photos, postcards, greeting cards, calenders and tags etc to create an art-form that she calls 'Acrylic Mosaic Fusion'. She has been an artist since the time she can remember and her fascination for mosaics and portraiture has made her a unique artist who sells vibrant and eco-friendly scrap paper portraits.
"You have to develop a THICK SKIN.Not everyone is going to like your work. Period. Don't let that stop you. Of course, if you really suck, you'll know eventually...You have to learn how to TOOT YOUR HORN - if you can't sell your own work, how do you expect someone else to? Or why would anyone buy it?
Art is a business. Treat your business like any other. Take business classes at school and follow a strategic plan... have goals...or if you have the time and money, try lots of things and see what works for you knowing it will take a long time to see what works. Having a support system is VERY important - spouse, parents, friends - make sure you're surrounded by positive people who want you to succeed. That starving, tortured artist thing is very romantic, but not good for reaching goals."
Alex Gross
Alex is a California based artist who makes drop-dead exquisite paintings and mixed media painting influenced by the world as he sees around him. He specializes in oil paintings that depict globalization, commercialism, darker side of life and brutal truth in a beautiful and poetic way. Apart from his solo exhibitions, he also exhibits his art at various galleries and participates in dozens of Group Exhibitions around the world.
"Well, being an artist is a great life if you have the right personality for it. But it's very difficult and you have to have a great deal of self discipline. If you don't, then you will not succeed. But if you do, and you are comfortable with a lot of alone time and isolation, then go for it. It's a lot better than working for someone else. You make your own hours. No one can fire you. You can express yourself creatively and that's very satisfying. It helps a lot if you marry a person with a stable and well paying career, since it can be financially very difficult for a long time until you become successful."
Tom Hardwidge
Tom is a UK-based digital designer and artist who has studied animation and has been awarded "Best of New Blood' in 2002 for his work. He has a great love for 'Flash' and 'Insects' and creates arresting steampunk insect sculptures called 'Arthrobots'.
"I don't know how good this is for advice but when I first set up the site for my sculptures I asked one site to publish a link on their blog. This was probably the single most important thing I did because they were then picked up by other people and more and more blogs and articles were written about them. I know this is more difficult with 2D artworks and photography as the artist will not wish to have their work replicated (and in some cases illegally copyrighted) but with my sculptures the more images there were the better. Don't underestimate the power of the social web, nearly half of the visitors to my site come through Facebook."
Ron English
Ron English is the kind of artist who people love to talk about, very often he is referred as 'celebrated prankster' who creates art not only on a canvas but also on the streets, books, billboards and television.
"If you ever catch yourself saying "someone should make a painting of…" well, that's what you should paint. Also don't worry what people think, having a clue isn't a prerequisite to having an opinion."
Kirsty Hall
Kirsty is a very talented artist whose creativity is out of the box. The projects that she takes up needs real commitment and extreme hard work. They might take a long time to complete but the outcome is exceptionally beautiful. She also draws different patterns and does a lot of writing on her blog.
"From my point of view it always feels as if something is falling off the bottom of the list. At the moment, I’m cutting back on a lot of things so that I can concentrate more fully on the jars. So my current message would be ‘you only have so much time and energy to go around, are you spending it on the most important things?"
Jean Labourdette
Jean is more popularly known as Turf One. A guy who has had an intense love affair with the streets of Paris and painted graffiti on it. When Turf realized that he needs to widen his horizon as an artist, Jean embarked a journey to becoming a multi-disciplinary artist, illustrator, comic artist and a film maker.
"Make sure you always speak your own personal voice, make sure that your work is the reflection of who you are and how you see the world, this is what makes it worthwhile...Never be fully satisfied with the way you paint, aim at making each piece better than the previous one in one way or another, this way you'll keep constantly evolving.
If ever you realize that the visual language you once came up with is becoming dry, void, dead, empty, lost its meaning, make sure you don't stick to what then became an obsolete formula for safety's sake. Stop, take time off and reconnect with what's inside of you so that it translates into your work... This is the best thing I ever did for myself, (and I probably will have to do it again at some point in my life !) (laughs)"
Steven J Backman
Steven Backman embarked his journey to creating unbelievable toothpick sculptures as a child when he was asked to create a science project on DNA molecules. Little did that child know that one day his sculptures will be exhibited in Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Hollywood.
"Never give up on your dream!"
With this I wrap up my post with the hope that that you could draw inspiration and gain motivation through it. Very soon, I will be compiling a post with some more priceless advices from eCommerce and Internet Marketing experts. So watch us closely, and so share your advice or tips in the comment section below.
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An invaluable collection of advice from an eclectic, amazingly creative group. This is one to share and bookmark for repeat reading!
An invaluable collection of advice from an eclectic, amazingly creative group. This is one to share and bookmark for repeat reading!
True creativity is always unique, and no artist needs to learn from others on how he/she should go about their art.
W75300T30X
VALVE COMPLETE 35 GA
If ever you realize that the visual language you once came up with is becoming dry, void, dead, empty, lost its meaning, make sure you don't stick to what then became an obsolete formula for safety's sake
W75300T30
VALVE COMPLETE 35 GA
With this I wrap up my post with the hope that that you could draw inspiration and gain motivation through it.
ASSEMBLY
VALVE PLATE 32293912
Our regular readers know how much we love and appreciate true art and those talented artists behind it.
ASSEMBLY
VALVE PLATE 32293904