Portfolios are great to show off work. However, you must realize that many colors cannot be seen and some not at all through the camera’s eye or scanner. Two of the worst offenders are ultramarine blue and most any quinacridone. If you look at the picture of my wine bottle, it is made up of ultramarine blue and quinacridone violet. In reality it is a reddish-purple color, which is far different than the one you see. Most artists know what ultramarine looks like. Now look at yours and if you have a digital camera handy, take a picture and compare. They are not even close! For instance, the camera makes ultramarine look like a transparent cerulean! In reality, it is a translucent and bluish red pigment! The camera deletes the red altogether!
So, what can you do for a normal portfolio? You can create small paintings up to 18×24”. Create eight 9×12”, eight 6×4” and 18×24” on watercolor paper. Do your very best to show off what you are capable of. This sounds like a tall order, however, when an artist peddles art, wouldn’t you want to show some respect by showing off REAL art and not prints that can’t even get the colors correct? I guarantee you will get a great response by doing this.
These three sizes will each make up one portfolio, one you’ll carry at all times, especially if you are going to public places and might meet people. The 9×12” is your better portfolio, use that to show potential clients. Now for your big portfolio, use that to peddle local galleries and juried shows (when granted permission) and customers who are looking for bigger paintings. When the galleries ask, yes, this one is inevitable for the dinosaurs, you have to get slides for certain galleries and shows. I can’t help you with that, so get about three copies of 10 of your greatest paintings and create slides. No, they never return slides, it’s money down the damn drain.
When creating a portfolio (any of them) have three to five papers inside, centered perfectly in the sleeves. The first one is the cover sheet, second one is the contents (list all paintings and the pages they are on) third one is your statement, fourth one is your resume, and the last one is the bibliography. Have all neatly typed and readable. The resume can be forfeited in the tiny portfolio. The statement can be combined in the resume or bibliography if done tastefully.
Be prepared to answer the most bizarre questions about your paintings. Basically, know your paintings inside out!
Portfolios
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Painting