Want to know a little about Robert? He says...
Welcome to my studio...
Come on in and look around. Help yourself to the coffee. Don't mind the
cats...and don't sit on anything...everything is usually covered with
paint in here. Yes, my studio was an old hay barn. Cows are gone and
I've moved in. My painting "easels" are actually 20-inch high flat
tables.
I paint everyday, standing (and dancing) and use my custom-designed,
extra long brushes. This keeps my painting loose and juicy. Hey, it
works for me. Enjoy the art.
Why is Making Art Important to Me?
I've always felt making art was something I just had to do. It came out
of me easier than any other skill I had or wanted to learn. It always
felt natural for me to draw and make things, doing things with my hands.
Crafts and models as a child, doing magic tricks as a teenager and
inventing new products as a corporate designer. The underlying and
connecting thread to all this was my "life long" preoccupation with
making things better. It's important to me because it has always been
there with me-- making art. I don't know when I was never curious about
looking for something new. I always felt safe to play with new ideas and
was always encouraged by my parents. (96 years old today) I was the
middle child of 5 boys so I suspect I was an overachiever at getting
some attention. "Hey look at me!" I think, deep down, all artists are
saying the same thing... "Hey, look at me!"
Balancing a Real Job and Time to Make Art
As a full time painter I'm asked often about my other "real" job. They
are often surprised when I tell them this IS my real job. I make art
daily, the work sells, I get paid and then I pay my bills and taxes.
This is my job and a business. (I dare say it's more of a real job than
the elusive "real job" where you get your pay check regularly whether
you've done a great job or not.)
In the beginning when I decided to put my focus on being a full time
painter, my "real" job for 25 years was as an industrial and graphic
designer. I designed during the day, painted for myself on weekends and
took painting classes at night. (Even though I had been formally trained
as a painter in college, I believe that on-going education is valuable)
It didn't take long for me to realize my painting time was engulfing my
designing-for-clients time. I was feeling fragmented at first until I
decided on the discipline of dividing my calendar into "designing days"
and "painting days." A few months of this revealed that I was getting
bored with designing and more excited about making paintings. Within a
year with this balancing act. I still felt fragmented, unfocused, and
out of integrity with what I professionally wanted to do... to just
paint. For income I did just enough design work to pay the bills and
started to sell my paintings at weekend art festivals. Before long,
painting sales were covering living expenses (barely). I started to see
the possibilities of "actually making a living" as a painter. After much
meditation, counseling and talking to other festival artists, I
announced that I was retired, sold off my designer equipment, and jumped
into the fray of painting everyday. I taught myself the technique of
painting quickly. The thinking being, the faster I paint, the more
paintings to sell, the quicker I get paid... that was 13 years ago. In
spite of my current gallery success, I still paint feverously. My
technique is to paint fast, furiously, spontaneously and not
cerebrally.The fast-drying and quick results I get with acrylics allows
me to do this. This technique actually made me realize first hand, the
more you paint, the better painter you become. However, I have been
accused of using too many colors and too much paint!
As mentioned earlier, I use the same disciplines of organizations and
management skills left over from my corporate days. Only this time, I'm
both the CEO and the worker bee.
Welcome to my studio!
July, 2006
BobLand
Arroyo Grande, CA USA
You can search up Robert with the links below:
https://robertburridge.com/private-online-painting-lesson/
https://robertburridge.com/weekly-bobblast-archive/
https://robertburridge.com/all_about_bob.html
No comments:
Post a Comment