Joseph Mallord William Turner – Great Painter of Light

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 – 1851) was a controversial English landscape painter. Joseph Mallord William Turner, better known as J.M.W. Turner, was born on April 23, 1775, in Covent Garden, London, England. His eccentric style matched his subjects – shipwrecks, fires, natural catastrophes, as well as natural phenomena such as sunlight, storms, rain, and fog.

Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as “the painter of light” and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.

The significance of light to Turner resembled God’s spirit. In his later paintings he concentrated on the play of light on water and the radiances of skies and fires, almost to an Impressionistic style. Segmation’s collection of Joseph Mallord William Turner patterns includes many examples of his style including The Fighting Temeraire, The Shipwreck of the Minotaur, Snow Storm, The Grand Canal, Peace – Burial at Sea, and Rain, Steam and Speed.

This Segmation set contains 25 paintable patterns.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner

If you liked this Segmation blog post, we know you’ll enjoy:

— Color Can Help You Understand Personality Types

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/color-can-help-you-understand-personality-types/

— Make Artist Famous with Hole-Punch Portraits

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/make-artist-famous-with-hole-punch-portraits/

Have fun and relax with beautiful online painting art. So fun and easy to use with no mess but just a mouse!

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with Joseph Mallord William Turner from Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iPad

Segmation Pattern Set for SegPlay® PC released (see more details here)

Advertisement

Will Artspace Become the World’s Next Major Online Marketplace?

Online marketplaces are extremely profitable.

To say that online marketplaces such as Ebay and Amazon are highly profitable is an understatement. Without a doubt, people everywhere love the convenience of shopping from the comfort of their laptop. These days, individuals can even buy groceries on the Internet. But did you know that art is the latest rage in online sales? It’s true. In fact, many high-profile artists are selling their artwork online.

The beauty of purchasing online

Purchasing products online can be a beautiful thing. Why? First, online prices are often lower than in-store prices. This is due to a lack of overhead experienced by sellers. Additionally, it is easy for purchasers to find exactly what they are searching for because of the vast amount of product available on the Internet. Also, shopping online is simply convenient! All of these factors combined make online shopping overwhelmingly popular.

Will Artspace become the next major online marketplace?

One online art marketplace, Artspace, is making strides in the world of art as well as the world of online sales. As stated on artspace.com, “At Artspace, we’re changing the way the world experiences art. Our mission is to help collectors and aspiring collectors discover, learn about and collect fine art.” Artspace’s excellent website features sections where viewers can learn about art, artists, partners, collections, and private sales.

Artspace offers quality pieces of artwork for sale on its website. These works of art range anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to thousands of dollars a piece. Prestigious individuals are among Artpace’s featured artists, and buyers from all over the world are responding positively to the quality product being offered on this online marketplace. Artspace has people wondering if it will soon take a place beside some of the biggest online marketplaces.

Could Artspace become the world’s next major online marketplace? Share your opinion with Segmation by leaving a comment below.

Sources:

http://www.artspace.com/

http://www.artspace.com/about

http://ezinearticles.com/?Benefits-of-Online-Shopping&id=300201

Coming soon: Most people know that white has an associated noise, but does it have a scent? Find out by reading Segmation’s next blog post.

If you enjoyed this Segmation blog post, you’re sure to like:

• What Color Should You Paint Your Home?

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/what-color-should-you-paint-your-home/

• Norman Rockwell’s Artwork Inspired by the Christmas Holiday

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/norman-rockwells-artwork-inspired-by-christmas-holiday/

• The Stories Behind Holiday Colors

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/stories-behind-holiday-colors/

Be an Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on FacebookSegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iPad

www.segmation.com

 

How to Make Your Mistakes Work for You

Every artist knows the feeling of working for hours on a piece, only to make some kind of mistake. Whether it’s spilling paint, making a mark that can’t be erased, or stepping back and realizing that your drawing is out of proportion – we’ve all been there at some point. But when you goof up, does it mean that your artwork is ruined? Not necessarily!

Here are some tips that can help save your artwork after you’ve made a mistake that you can’t undo:

• Cover over it. This is probably your first impulse, so ask yourself, “Is there a way to cover this mistake?” If you’re painting in acrylics, you can cover over it. But if you’re working in watercolors or colored pencil, covering over mistakes is not an option. In that case…

• Work the mistake into the composition. Do all you can to make the mistake blend into the artwork, so that it seems like an intentional part of the piece. This may require you to…

• Embrace the unexpected. Ask yourself, “How can I adjust my original vision for the piece to incorporate this unexpected addition?” You might surprise yourself, as this can produce a very creative approach that you may not have otherwise taken.

Above all, don’t panic. Art is a process of creation, one that requires a balance between control and letting go. By letting go and welcoming whatever happens, you free your creative flow and allow your muses to guide you.

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

Introduction to Color Expert Johannes Itten

“Color is life; for a world without color appears to us as dead.” – Johannes Itten

When you take an art course on color theory, you can thank Johannes Itten for laying much of the foundation for what you’re being taught. Johannes Itten was a Swiss artist and teacher who taught at the Bauhaus in Germany. He published several books on art theory, the most popular being The Art of Color.

Sir Isaac Newton is credited with creating the first color wheel, which included 6 colors: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan and blue. Around 250 years later, Johannes Itten expanded Newton’s color wheel to include 12 colors instead of 6. These 12 colors included red, yellow and blue as the primary colors; orange, green and purple as the secondary colors, and 6 intermediary colors created by mixing a primary color with a secondary color. This is the same color wheel often used in school’s today to teach students about color theory.

Itten also examined color saturation, contrast and hue, devising theories for creating different color combinations that are still useful to artists and designers today. He looked at the expressiveness of color, and also the way colors affect one another. He also explored the emotional properties of colors which he considered to be fairly subjective, proposing that we each have different individual reactions to colors.

For more information about Johannes Itten and his color theories, look for his books online or in your local library.

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

Painting from Real Life vs. Painting from a Photograph

Which is better: painting from real life, or painting from a photograph?

Free Trial Downloads for Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Before the invention of photography, artists had to work from real life. How did that affect artists’ working habits?

The necessity of working from life meant that in order to paint a portrait, the sitter had to pose for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months before the artist was finished. To paint a still life, the artist would have to make sure the set-up stayed the same day after day, and could only paint when the lighting conditions were the same as the previous day. For landscape painting, artists would have to finish as much as possible on-site and often complete the final painting in their studio, often surrounded by smaller studies that contained notes on which hues and values to place where.

The invention of photography – especially digital photography – has changed the way artists work. Thanks to the convenience of affordable digital cameras, artists can easily take a variety of high-quality pictures of whatever they want to paint, and then instead of working from real life, they can work from their photographs.

In many ways, this has made representational painting easier for artists. They no longer have to wait until weather and lighting conditions are just right for outdoor painting, and sitters no longer need to spend precious hours posing for a portrait. While many artists now embrace the use of reference photos as aids to creating paintings, others still prefer to work in the style of the old masters. Which way is better?

One drawback to painting from photographs is that the resulting artwork may appear “flat”, because the objects, scene, or person depicted in the painting was first translated into 2-D form via the camera. When an artist works from real life, she has to use her artistic skills to transform the 3-D view before her into 2-D form on her canvas. When working from a photograph, an artist may become too reliant on depicting the actual 2-D photo, as opposed to depicting the 3-D scene that the photograph itself depicts.

Even so, the use of reference photos has largely aided artists in their working process, although each artist has his or her own preference between working from photos or working from real life.

So artists, when it comes to working from real life vs. working from a photograph, which do you prefer, and why?

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

Why You Should Make Art When You Travel (www.segmation.com)

Segmation

When you’re traveling, one of the best ways to capture the energy of a place is to draw or paint it. While most tourists are glued to the viewfinders of their cameras, rushing from one attraction to the next, you’ll be calmly painting or sketching the scene before you, noticing all the wonderful details that normal tourists miss… from the delicate curvature of an architectural detail to the way the evening sunlight casts long shadows on the children playing in the town square.

Making art while traveling allows you to experience your new surroundings on a deeper level than most tourists ever will. By carefully viewing a scene, structure, object, person or people with the intense gaze of an artist and interpreting your vision on paper or canvas, you can freely observe the subtle nuances and hidden undercurrents that comprise the fabric of daily life in any given location.

Why do we travel? We embark on vacations to places we’ve never been before because we want get away from it all, to escape the routine of our daily lives and the familiarity of the place where we live. We yearn to explore something new, to embrace the unknown, and to learn something along the way. Art-making while traveling fosters an open mindset, encourages curiosity, and creates an easygoing attitude – 3 essential ingredients for making the most out of any travel holiday.

Plus, making art while seated in a café, sitting in a park, or standing in a town square is a great way to meet locals, thus deepening your travel experience. Curious bystanders will often look over your shoulder and make comments, but even if you don’t understand the language, you can still make a meaningful connection through the common language of visual art.

And the end result? Aside from a memorable experience, you’ll also wind up with a beautiful travel journal filled with your original images and insights – a truly unique reminder of your special trip.

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

Color in Monochrome Paintings www.segmation.com

1918 Monochrome Painting by Kazimir Malevich, titled "Suprematist Composition: White on White"

When you think of “abstract art”, what pops into your mind? A jumble of shapes on a canvas? Art that resembles spilled paint? How about paintings with lots of color?

The strong use of color is one of the most prominent features of abstract art, but it’s not necessary to use a variety of colors to make the painting interesting. In fact, there are some artists who do just the opposite: they focus each painting on just one color, and sometimes include tints or shades of that color.

This is called monochrome painting. The main element of the painting is a single color. In the painting above by Kazimir Malevich, the main color is white. The bottom layer is painted a warm white that appears slightly off-white when contrasted with the smaller square painted on top of it, which is a cooler white.

Monochrome paintings start with a single color (or hue), which is then mixed with various degrees of white paint to create tints and black paint to make shades. See the image to the right for an example of a monochromatic color scheme.

In a purely monochromatic painting, no other colors are used. Working in a monochromatic palette allows artists to explore the qualities of a specific color, while experimenting with how that color looks in relation to itself, only altered by white or black.

Some people may find monochrome paintings boring, due to the lack of diversity in color. However, limiting the palette forces the artist to come up with a more creative composition to create interest in the piece. If the artist is working in a realistic or representational style of painting, such as creating a recognizable portrait, landscape or still life, then working on a monochromatic color scheme can help the artist focus on tone and value – two concepts that we’ll discuss in future articles.

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

The Art of Tibetan Sand Painting

Can you imagine spending several hours, days, or even weeks on a work of art, and then destroying it? The idea of creating something only to wipe it out when you’re finished is illogical and counterproductive to many people in the Western world. But in some cultures, this is a common procedure, and one that serves a deeper purpose than meets the eye.

Sand painting is the perfect example of ephemeral art – that is, art that is meant to be temporary. To create a sand painting, colored sand is poured carefully into predetermined patterns. Sand painting is a common practice amongst many diverse indigenous cultures from around the world, including the Australian Aborigines, the Native Americans, and the Tibetans, as shown above.

Tibetan sand painting is a perfect example of making art that values “process” over “product”. In the Western world, it’s often the opposite – artists labor over paintings for the purpose of selling them for profit. The art, even though it may be a labor of love, is also a “product”. The “process” of making art is treated as a means to an end.

In Tibetan sand painting, the process of creating the intricate sand mandalas is far more important than the final product. Tibetan sand paintings are created by Buddhist monks for ritual purposes related to healing and blessing. As the sand mandalas are painstakingly created, viewers are often allowed to watch and admire the precision of the artists and the beauty of the design.

Destroying the finished sand mandalas contains a ritual purpose as well; it is a lesson on impermanence. Perhaps artists from Western cultures can benefit from some of these ideas by paying closer attention to the process of making art, rather than worrying about how the final product will turn out.

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

On Cloud Nine www.segmation.com

Pattern Set for SegPlay® PC released (see more details here)

Clouds are visible masses of water droplets which are suspended over in the Earth’s atmosphere. Clouds are classified in various groups depending on their altitude, structural appearance, and coloration. Cirrocumulus, Cirrostratus, Altocumulus, Altostratus, Stratocumulus, Stratus, Cumulus, Nimbostratus, Cumulonimbus, and Cumulus are the most common names given. Their coloration gives clues onto what they contain due to light scattering effects of water drops and ice crystals and the direction of the light hitting the clouds. Our set of cloud patterns will put you on Cloud Nine. We have many representations of clouds of various types photographed against cactuses, birds, bridges, shades, water, and grass fields. Several of the patterns are based on clouds images which have been artistically enhanced to give them a different yet, fun, and colorful appearance.

This set contains 23 paintable patterns.

On Cloud Nine

Have fun and relax with beautiful online painting art. So fun and easy to use with no mess but just a mouse!

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with On Cloud Nine from Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com

Tips for Making the Most of Your Next Art Museum Visit www.segmation.com

Visiting art museums can be both fun and daunting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, contains over 2 million square feet of exhibition space – now that’s a lot of art! With room upon room filled with treasures from various civilizations, a visit to a major museum such as the Met is certainly an eye-opening, educational experience… but it can also be exhausting. Almost against your will, you’ll find that after awhile, your mind shuts down as you stare blankly at artwork after artwork.

Follow these tips to avoid that zombie-like state and glean the most from your visit to an art museum:

• Study the museum map before you enter to familiarize yourself with everything the museum has to offer, then plan out a logical route that takes you through everything you want to see.
• Don’t try to see everything at once. Prioritize your visit by planning to see the artwork you’re most interested in at the beginning of your museum visit, while your mind is still fresh.
• Read the placards that explain what each exhibit and artwork is about. If you start to get burned out after awhile, don’t try to retain all the information. Just let your eyes skim over the information and absorb the key information. Look for artist, time period, medium, and location, if applicable.
• Linger awhile in front of the pieces that most interest you, and contemplate why you like that particular piece. It is better to spend time examining the artwork you really enjoy, rather than to rush through rooms full of art that you really don’t care about.
• If photographs are allowed, take photos of the pieces that most interest you. You should also photograph the title card of the piece, so that you can research the artist and artwork later.
• Carry a sketchbook with you to jot down notes, ideas, impressions, and sketches of artwork that catches your eye. If photographs are not allowed, a sketchbook can be a useful substitute.
• If you need a break, sit down in the museum cafe and rest your eyes for awhile. Fresh air can help if you’re feeling burned out, but if you leave the museum to step outside, make sure it is okay for you to re-enter without having to pay the entry fee again.

Follow these tips and your next trip to an art museum will leave you happily saturated with creative inspiration!

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

Segmation

FREE Newsletter

Join us on Facebook

SegPlay® Mobile iTunes now available for iPhone and iTouch

www.segmation.com