I Think This Ones A Winner!

Winner of what? I doubt you really want to know what I think.

What happened to all the colors you usually use?

have you tried entering any contest ?, put them to the test so to speak,thats one way .

thats one way but what about just the message

I think this image is complicated. I can't decide what I think yet.

I don't see a message, just a bunch of scribbles. Sorry.

There are words in there. They're sideways. One of the messages is "I love you for who U R." Also the title is a message.

agree with David, what we all think are winners are not necessary the way at all .I think some of mine are winners ,but to others may be not , i dont say i think this is a winner on my own art to others .I dont believe in bragging about my own work. To me thats not a professional approach.How long did it take to create this ?

sorry. I think it is a loser.....oh, you didn't ask..?........sorry.......well, then I won't tell you why, in my considered opinion based on 50 years experience in Art.....making many a loser and knowing one when I see it.....keep trying, though.......what would happen if every one of us loaded each image we make, and sang the praise and waited in forum for a response..........forum would be very soon ignored, am sorry to say. That is not the purpose of forum, imho.
why does one artist think it's wise to post their works, plural, expecting members to down tools, and take notice, due to the self appraisal? Very strange behaviour. Well, best of luck.

I don't get this and am beginning to wonder how long this kind of thing will be going on.

Vivian, I feel that most of the forum has already begun to be ignored by many that have experience (along with talent) to offer... strictly because it has turned into a bit of a joke. Folks can post anything and proclaim it to be art and there are bleeding hearts that will come in and support it... or just to make this into a greater fiasco.

Personally I think that there ought to be a stop put to this self aggrandizement and mocking of the system. The forum was much better and full of quasi serious artists when I first came on the scene in 2010. Some serious conversations that had at least a bit of meat to them were engaged in with a real passion. This is childish fodder.

Gotta disengage from this stuff.

Have a nice day down under.

@ viva and glen you guys couldnt have said it any better ,big thumbs up to you .

Sorry - this is not my sort of thing, so it doesn't tick any winning boxes for me.

Every piece of artwork will appeal to somebody.

to be hones if my 6year old sun would have done that, i would have been proud of him

I might be wrong, but,

I pick up on something very sinister here in this Black/White ! ..drawing

It appears to me to be...a headless corpse, and the severed head (eyes) appear way above the body.......subliminal message here? Paranoia?

"I Think This Ones A Winner!"

Is that what the curator at the Louvre told you?

Jut a friendly suggestion: Don't give up your day job!

Honestly Blaine this work of yours really needs improvement.
I know its your style, but to be brutally frank, most but not all, your works looks like a works of a child.
Please,please No disrespect meant Blaine. I think you should listen on the advices of fellow artist here.
If you want to make improvements of your works. Now a days its so easy to get online tutorial on art.
Just one click away.Make your present works as peg of a much better and improved versions of works in the future.
Sort of a work in progress Blaine.
One cannot see the mistake one makes, unless somebody tells you.
I hope Blaine in the near future I want to see your works exhibited in galleries, or be featured in newspaper or television ok.
Good Luck.

Love the irony of this discussion.
If this had been done by John Lennon it would probably be worth $1000s. :D

- Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

i don't know what it is with you and eyes, but this has too many of them and just looks very scribbly. its like you started something and your kid finished it. i would leave the random parts out, or it just looks like a kid made it. i also don't know why you keep asking us about each work you make. just make it and post it.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I like it. It has a style that is yours alone. I'd put put it in the folk art category of which I have a crazy piece of hanging on my living room wall. A nutty piece from an artist who signs "Tom D." that I picked up in Austin, Texas.

I also recently saw a show at the Institute of Contemporary Art which featured folk artists from the south and the many of the pieces were in the same vein as your work.

The key to selling folk art is playing up on the "forces" that drive you to create. Typically its divine inspiration. Or it could be hardship like prison time. Or some kind of trauma like being struck by lightening. If you've been in a car crash or something, play that up. Create your artist myth and you'll become more sellable to the art world. On POD - not so much as the buyers doesn't care as much about the back story.

I do agree - keep it colorful. The monochromatic look gets too bleak.

And you are asking the wrong crowd for advice. Outsider art stays outside of the mainstream. It doesn't strive to be sucked in to the mainstream.
.....

FYI - here is Tom D.'s bio. Notice the publications you should be striving to submit to and notice how in the bio the hardship angle is played up. And how he is "compelled" to create:

Tom D is a self-taught artist. Born in 1951, he was raised in a conservative, religious environment. He rebelled as a teenager in the late 60’s by embracing the counterculture, becoming involved in the drug scene, and dodging the draft. He worked various jobs, and by the time he was 26 years old, he had a failed marriage and two children behind him, and was searching for a new direction in his life.

His first show was in the 70’s, and since the mid 80’s, Tom has been a full time artist. Ever since, he’s shown in innumerable galleries and shows (including group shows with Howard Finster and Andy Warhol) here and abroad, appeared in Raw Vision magazine, Folk Art Finder, and Betty-Carol Sellen’s book “Self Taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists”. Much of his work is autobiographical and confessional, serving to place him in the “outsider artist” category.

Remarried in 2005 to the artist Melissa Arpin Duimstra, Tom says “I will continue to paint and create until I am physically no longer able. It is the thing I feel I’m meant to do with my life, my reason for being here”.

Edward....all else aside, I do agree about this artist's style ...yes, "outsider art", too right.
We have a huge community of Outsider Artists here in Sydney. They have regular /often, I mean, Exhibitions and lots of support.
Just look at this! Outsider Art !.....Absolutely.

@Richard,
But it hasn't.
People who are very accomplished, are lauded for their abilities to produce art. If they produced beef jerky, it would sell like hotcakes as well. They have a fan base.....as a culture, we follow their every move.

Blaine Lidtka --

"I Think This Ones A Winner!"

And Maxwell Hanson is the great artist alive!

Even abstract expressionism requires good design in order to communicate effectively.

Blaine, this one reads very differently from your others. Well, different in tone. To me, this one has a chaos to it, almost a violence, like what you'd see carved into the wall of a serial killer's lair. It doesn't read as being about love to me at all. I don't know if you'll take that as a compliment or not, but it's the vibe I got when I first looked at it.


_________________________

I thought there was an unwritten rule here about starting a bunch of new image threads. I think it's ok if you have a specific question about print quality or if you want an in-depth critique, but what's with the "hey look at what I made today!" threads. There are threads for new images, and other existing theme threads that exist for just that reason.

Hear,hear, Cynthia......the defining of thread topics surely is the providence of Admin. I agree with you that these "selfie/see me" one-man threads are totally off.

I hope admin give this pattern emerging some guidance and action,too. Thank you.

Yes...the Dark Side of this work goes very, dangerously deep, as I said earlier, and is symptomatic of what is found in the writings discovered after catastrophic events.

"...and i have a lot of friends..."



I have to ask, what is it about the "friends" you keep mentioning? What purpose do these "friends" serve in your "dream to stay at home and draw and work..."?

I've enjoyed going through your gallery, Blaine. I hope you stick with it. The color pieces are my favorites.

Roger, the point I was making is that art in itself isn't pragmatic but one should be pragmatic about earning a living from their art.

To Floyd's point about seeking help from professionals - it can make all the difference. I was of the opinion that no one needed to tell me what to do to improve my work. I already knew everything I needed to know. One day, several years ago, I was on a paid shoot with a professional photographer. A good guy with strong views about the process and the patience to be extremely anal about every shot he took. Patience wasn't and still isn't my strong suit. I could rack up 100 shots in the time it took him to do 5. Quick and dirty and darn proud of it. He saw my passion (how's that for an underused word?) and wanted to help me improve the output by offering suggestions and examples. Being as stubborn as I am and already knowing everything there is to know, I resisted for a long time. Then I started to study his work and realized that he was getting superior photographs. It really hurt me to bend even slightly but I began trying to emulate his process. He taught photography and PS so I signed up for classes expecting to be bored witless. I was dumbfounded to find out just how much I didn't know! Coincidentally, I sent him an email just the other day to thank him for helping me get to the next level. There's always room to improve and people willing to share their expertise.

Lol...Marlene's critique is the best! For me, I say that Blaine Lidtka's playful little work is not any more unworthy of attention than most of the innocuous, redundant, unadventurous, cheery photographs I see on this site of fluttering birds on tree branches, which somehow never receive any criticism for their silliness, but scarcely escape the character of an average ornithology catalogue.

Blaine, I am not saying leave FAA or stop your art work or that no one here is every going to be of any help.

I am saying do all of the above but most importantly I do think if you want to grow, get with a trusted, trained professional.

Oh, and grow some skin... Critics, real critics or self appointed critics can be brutal.

Very well said, Kathleen. Good reminder that there is always more to learn.

Stop picking up the bar tab and you'll see how many friends are left. ;-)

Now, that's pragmatic,Edward.

Marlene B.,

Apologies for my myopic insinuation of your superficiality [NOT produced by a generator (^_^)]. I was not aware of Blaine L.'s posting history.

Still, I cannot judge the person based on an impersonal string of typed symbols that capture a limited dimension of a complex being at a particular phase of growth [still NOT produced by a generator].


Blain L., check THIS out... [your long thread here inspired me to put it up for view - take THAT, Roger S. (^__^)] :

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/robert-kernodle.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=535962

i do the dream you seek. however being a job, i do this for 15 hours a day, i don't get weekends or holidays off. the chances of you reaching that dream is on the low side, because many artists never get there. if it wasn't for this site, i would have had to find an outside job.

based on the title, i don't think many will buy it. change the title to something darker, and you have a chance at selling it. that's how i see it. if your going to do this as a job you need a really thick skin. jobs are not really fun. i know people say they love what they do, however its a lot of hard work. creating, selling, marketing, selling yourself, etc. i think to pull this off, the things you make, you have to make a character of yourself, some people want to meet the artist. they want to see a hurting soul, not a guy coloring with his kids. if you can do that, you could be in a big museum some place. however, there are a million more just like you, the competition has much more experience, still, you could get lucky. there are always chances at selling a card, i see coming from these forums. there will always be someone to help support you. don't know if that happened yet, i'm sure you would tell us if it did.

its nice that you like making the stuff, but you should be more open minded when it comes to people trying to figure out what you made.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Blaine, keep doing what you're doing. No one in the history of FAA has garnered the attention you have -- and in only three short weeks! The people screaming the loudest that you are doing it wrong are the people who are threatened by your presence and popularity.

Please remember that members do not spend this much time on people or art they don't care about. You have won our attention.

As to advice and opinions, rely on your good instincts. Use what makes sense to you and ignore the rest.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

For me, I say that Blaine Lidtka's playful little work is not any more unworthy of attention than most of the innocuous, redundant, unadventurous, cheery photographs I see on this site of fluttering birds on tree branches, which somehow never receive any criticism for their silliness, but scarcely escape the character of an average ornithology catalogue.

... and let us not forget the OTHER seemingly endless topic threads that scream self-sought attention at the bequest of thread creators who capitalize on the very idea of focusing attention onto oneself, with titles like ... "Post Your ... (whatever)" ...


... some people want to meet the artist. they want to see a hurting soul, not a guy coloring with his kids. if you can do that, you could be in a big museum some place.

Sage advice.

I missed the hurting soul requirement when I signed up for my Pixels account.

Friends can be the worst for your art business. They will pay you, but not much. Family and friends can be demanding. Every time one of them says, where's that painting you promised me, I always say, show me the money...and they do, but it's not as much as I can get if I show the work with a price tag already posted.

Oh, ... I have more, ... this is just too good to stop.

Following up on Mike S.'s latest sage wisdom, ... contact a T.V. station and pitch the kids (as a marketing tactic) ... "hardworking steel worker - [or was it iron worker] ... I'm too lazy to check waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back at the beginning ... dad struggling to make a better life for his kids as a self-taught artist". In THIS society, money always seems to follow children preferentially (sadly so, in some cases), so why not capitalize on this fact?

Somewhere, a poverty-stricken elderly person cannot get government funding through Medicaid to fix their teeth to eat raw healthy foods that government nutrition experts profess everyone should eat to stay healthy, yet some random guy can make a fortune on a private fundraising campaign to raise enough money to send his children to a high-class school.

Blaine,
Your dream has a touching amount of naiveté.
What you need to do is figure out how to get from step 1 (DREAM) to step 2 (REALITY)

No one in the history of FAA has garnered the attention you have -- and in only three short weeks!

... sort of goes along with my observation about children. Here child-like art attracts more attention (for whatever reason) than mature work, just as needy children seem to attract more money than needy old people, where finances are concerned.

This now....this I like...I think because it doesn't scare me and the other kids.

"...The people screaming the loudest that you are doing it wrong are the people who are threatened by your presence and popularity.

Please remember that members do not spend this much time on people or art they don't care about..."



Do not include me in that blanket generalization.

Yes, Michael D.,

Brob has a cleanness about the lines and forms too that make it stronger compositionally, even though it is still infantile. This one is more of a "winner" for sure.




And I am not in Dan T.'s "blanket generalization" either (respectfully, Dan T.), ... since I am threatened by no one anymore, unless they have a laser sight on me and a finger on the trigger.

The subject is the art, and I think the first piece was a loser, and the latest piece is closer to being a winner in somebody's eyes.

"...The people screaming the loudest that you are doing it wrong are the people who are threatened by your presence and popularity."


Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.

Did we force the guy to legally change his name or what ?

Brob was created by Blains son I believe.

Blaine,

Now, advice from a befuddled 80 year old coot

But first, a little of my story.

As a product of the best art education possible ..Starting in High School (High School of Music & Art, NYC).

When we were required to sign a "Thou shall not copy" oath..

Going through my education at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture..and living in the bowels of the Art World of the 50's.

Learning how to SEE.....tearing away of all the preconceived and preordained precepts and norms of acceptable art.

Once those blinders are removed,, you find that you can confidently draw...It becomes easy to put down on paper what you actually. SEE .

Once you have that confident HAND...there's no stopping you.

EXCEPT if you have nothing to say..

That is what I was faced with in my 20's...I felt that I had nothing to say.

So, wanting still to have significance, I turned to Architecture, going back to school at night, I thrived...Taking on responsibilities far beyond training.

But there came to a point when I questioned telling others and subsequently forcing others how to live,.....or kowtowing to others telling me how to create.

The simple direct act of sticking crab claws into mussel shells started out as a diversion and ended up as the answer and a way of Life.


So, Blaine if all this means anything, let me say.

If you have a strong urge to say something, and Art is the way...JUST DO IT!!..

..And by doing it,..do everything possible to rid yourself of all preconceived and preordained precepts of art..to freely and clearly SEE...And by SEEING the HAND will naturally follow.

So Robert now you've moved on to critiquing a elementary school kid?

...

Roger - Cooper's U - very impressive! Is it true they pick up the entire tab if you get in?

EDIT = I just looked it up. Since 2014 it's not free anymore. ;-( I was hoping to retire early if my son somehow got in.

thats it roger! i started art for my own entertainment and i look on the wall and it still entertains me. my hand follows my heart and i just enjoy myself. i love my sons penguin !

A penguin..........I thought it was a dad hugging his kid so tight his heart popped out !