I Love M. Graham Oil Paints

I have been oil painting on and off for nearly four decades and have never been happier than when I paint with M. Graham & Co. walnut oil based paints. I have no stock in the company or affiliate agreement with them. I just love the feel, the richness of the pigment, the glazing properties, etc. Even better, they use a toxin-free base. To enhance drying they offer a walnut alkyd medium. You clean up with walnut oil (safflower oil works too and it is more affordable) and mild detergent.

Sorry for the commercial, but creating oil paintings without poisoning myself and the world is the best thing ever. As my good friend Michael Pearce says, "if you love your liver, use M. Graham paints."

Your Style: Will it Play in Peoria?

Paintings are the visual record of how an artist thinks, and sees. One of my favorite artist/teachers is Richard Schmid. He encourages artists to alway paint exactly what they see. I believe I do just that. But Schmid's work is unique and certainly does not look anything like my work. If we painted the same subject we would produce distinctly different pieces of art. Both completely valid.

"What you see" is filtered through a lifetime of experience and our art training. We all have unique backgrounds and experiences, therefore, our perception of the world is uniquely our own. If we are true to our own vision we cannot help but paint in a unique style. The variety of unique artist visions is the core gift they bring to the world. They invite us to see the world in new ways and sometimes challenge our long held beliefs.

Back to business - Whether or not our vision will sell in Peoria is a marketing issue. Some communities have certain common standards of taste - that is called fashion. Who knows, painting of kittens with big glossy eyes might be very fashionable there. If your work matches that fashion sense, then your work might sell there. If not, you need to find a different market. Don't change your work to simply be fashionable in a specific market. Find your market.

Creating to Sell: Don't Compromise

Degas once explained that when he needed cash he would paint more of his "little dancers" because he knew that they would sell. It is an appealing and romantic notion that art is only about personal expression. Ask art dealers, curators and collectors whether or not art is also a business.

But creating art that you intend to sell does not need to be the source of mediocrity. Lowering your standards, laziness, and lack of discipline are sources of mediocrity. Degas didn't lower his standards or create schlock work to sell. He just understood that there was a market for a particular subject that he loved to paint. So he chose to paint dancers - exquisitely - over painting, say, horses.

The art market is one of the most competitive businesses in the world. I believe that there is great pressure to create high quality work for artists who truly want to be break into and succeed, especially at the high end market.

Not finding the right collectors for your art is a failure of marketing (one of the business disciplines of art). Marketing is a learned skill that all artists can learn, just like working with the material used in your art. It is not easy, but essential.

Create what you love. Do it well. Challenge yourself to do it even better. The artists who sell do.