Sunday Salon: Sitting Down with Shanti Marie
Today I am sitting down with Shanti Marie, a versatile artist I think you will enjoy.
Shanti, can you tell us about your artistic background?
As a child I liked painting but seldom had the opportunity. I love music and wanted to sing or play an instrument when I grew up. We were very poor and I never to the chance to learn to play an instrument till I was in college. I always admired artists in general and loved to watch people draw or play music. I didn't have a lot of self-confidence and thought you had to be really good at drawing to be an artist, and I didn't really have drawing skills. So when I went to college I became a fine arts major thinking perhaps I would be an art history teacher, or perhaps a music teacher
I've always liked teaching. My last semester in college I was a fiber artist and was having a difficult time finding a job. I decided to enroll in an additional 13-month business school education. A newspaper hired me as a manager in the circulation department. I liked the job but still felt a strong desire to do creative projects. I continued to play music with various groups, and I also sang in a couple of bands.
Like many people who have a creative passion and a full time job, every weekend, I found myself making things or doing creative things to fill this artistic void. In 1986 I decided to teach myself watercolor, which I found interesting and I thought it would be easy. I painted on weekends for years painting things for my own home and for family. Raising a family and working was my life. Art was my hobby. I was the typical hardworking stressed out individual trying to find a few moments of painting time between all my other obligations.
In 1996 I decided to work part time and to try to develop my artistic side. A few years later I decided it was time to promote my work and myself and to join various art groups in my area. This helped me immensely and I cannot believe all those years I painted alone without any artist friends or support. I found my art was getting better with their input. I started to teach several students and later I gave classes for beginners. This gave me confidence and also helped me in my own art.
I noticed that you use a variety of marketing services to promote the sale of your work: Flicker, Fine Art America, DailyPainters.com, Daily Painters Web Ring, Daily Painters Guild, and your own blogs...from a business stand point, how would you rank these services for effectiveness?
Pink In Progress @ Shanti Marie
The best thing I have done for myself is my daily blog. The key to making money on a blog is to post often and to give the customers (readers) some reason to come back and check on you, a lesson, an anecdote or just your own silly ramblings to let the readers know you're human and as an artist you struggle too. On a blog you should give the information about each painting, the price, how to pay, and explain something about the painting, either the process, the problems or the motivation. Everyone likes to know how an artist works so I take pictures of my work in progress, or I show my work area, my tools, or I write articles about various techniques. It's more than a point of sales.
My connection with the daily painters group had been the most helpful, since they have a larger audience (5000 per day), and this helps drive traffic to my blog. I have tried eBay, and many other avenues. Some work, some don't. I try things, I see if they work by trying them for a few months, then I either ditch them or keep them. It's pretty simple, really. I try to find web sites, which will drive traffic to my work. There are folks who like my paintings and will buy if they can find me. Flickr, photobucket, Google, and some of the other search engines bring folks to my blogs with key words and tags, so it's good to understand how these work. I analyze my blog stats regularly to see what people are looking for and take this into consideration.
I rate daily painters as #1, the photo posting sites as #2 and eBay a distant third. Then there are the link exchanges, and the others are just a drop in the bucket in terms of numbers. I get tons of hits from Wordpress because they promote blogs within their own blogosphere. I recently (within the last two weeks) closed down my eBay store: I have found the warmer months to be slow, the work is not worth the profits, and will reopen in the fall.
I think your koi paintings are fresh and full of movement. I noticed that you experiment with clay board and watercolor canvas. How do these surfaces help you express your creative voice?
Koi 23 @ Shanti Marie
I started painting on other surfaces for several reasons. Probably the biggest reason was the simple fact that I've painted on paper for more than 20 years and wanted to branch out. I've always liked experimentation and now that I'm confident of my painting skills, I wanted to see what else is out there for the watercolorist. There is a lot of work in the area of watermedia, which is exciting and fresh and not limited by the traditional restriction of watercolor on paper. Even our state (South Carolina) watercolor society changed their name to watermedia society and this made me realize that things are changing.
The South Carolina Watercolor Society has always been at the forefront of new artistic avenues and being a part of it was important to me. I also found that sales of my paintings on clay board, canvas or gessoed masonite were selling for a higher price than the works on paper. These surfaces are actually easier to paint on once you learn their limitations, and yet give the artist many ways to express an idea. Without having to plan ahead, and the ability to correct mistakes easily, these surfaces help the artist be more in the moment. It also allows the artist (especially the new artist) a certain amount of freedom that watercolor on paper can only do after many years of experience.
You wrote an insightful comment regarding the painting "Calmness," where you said, "I'm distilling scenes and not literally painting them." Can you tell us more about this? How important do you think the Daily Painting process has been to your growth as an artist, and your ability to see the changes in your work?
Calmness @ Shanti Marie
The daily painting process has speeded up the natural learning process. Most great painters will tell you the only difference between them and other painters may be the time spent with a brush in hand. To some degree I have learned this is true. It has also allowed me to determine what is important to me and thus has solidified my preferences for various techniques, materials, methods, palette and so on...this is basically one's style When I say I'm distilling a scene, I mean that I do not even try to slavishly render a scene but I try to determine first the mood, then the emotional impact I'm trying to achieve, and the last, what is the one thing about the scene that attracted me. I then try to paint a scene, which will convey those factors. It may look like the scene but usually it doesn't. Often the colors will be exaggerated or completely changed. Sometimes I will throw out everything that is not important to the message and will dramatize the area that I see as the focal point.
What I enjoy most when reading your blog posts is your openness about the artistic process. In particular, can you tell us more about the story behind "Evening Newsstand"? Why do you feel it's as important for an artist to "figure out what's wrong with a painting and make it right as it is to do it right from the start"?
Evening Newsstand @ Shanti Marie
I think every painting is an opportunity to learn and to perfect your skills. Only you can be honest with yourself. The painting may be successful on one level and not on another. If you can make these determinations as to what you would do differently next time, you almost don't have to paint the next one - the simple fact that you recognize the problem areas will help you on the next painting. If you can plan your painting from the first step to the last, you may have a nice painting, but you are not allowing anything new or fresh to enter into the painting. This interaction is usually what I encourage. This process of exploration is exciting and what I love about painting. I allow the piece to evolve and often it will be a better painting in many ways. This is a personal preference, you have to decide how you want to work and this works for me. The best part is...both types sell; there is an audience for both types of paintings.
"Evening Newsstand" is a perfect example of a painting that just evolved. When I decided to paint this piece, I only decided I wanted a predominantly warm painting with some direct and exciting brushwork. The rest just evolved, at the end, I looked at it, and decided it looked like a street newsstand scene.
What is the most surprising thing that you've discovered on your artistic journey?
Roses Soft @ Shanti Marie
I had to learn to accept work as valuable even if it was an easy painting for me to paint. I have always measured the value of a painting by the difficulty in the execution. This no longer applies as I can paint things rather quickly and easily. I have to remind myself it actually took 20 years plus 30 minutes to paint a painting, not just the 30 minutes.
You can see more of Shanti Marie's work by clicking on the following links:
Lovely work and terrific discussion of how to improve the process of creativity outside of our singular environments.
I, too, work alone and isolated and eagerly await a painting workshop next week to share and observe with other artists.
Shanti- when you can teach, you know your craft, that's for sure.
Thanks Sue for another delightful session.
We're all fortunate that you attract so many accomplished artists and readers. It' makes coming to your site so rewarding.
Posted by:Bonnie Luria | April 13, 2008 at 07:13 AM