10 Artists who Share their Achievements and Experiences

So far, 80 plus artists have been featured at Artpromotivate! I have been writing a series of retrospectives on these. You can view past retrospectives in the ARTISTS section of the sidebar.

For the spotlight, I have asked artists to write about an interesting experience or achievement – and I am sharing some of these again below.

If you have an achievement or story to share with us, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

David Perl
Northeast, USA

Mediums: Photography, digital manipulation

Themes: the natural world

Style: Natural beauty that surrounds us.

Experiences:

I have been motorcycling back roads in the USA for 36 years. Two to four trips per year. And, have so far, lived to tell about it. Lot's of great times & memories. A lot of my art stems from these trips. One day I'll write the Great American novel on these trips into "Neverland." Don't think it will be too interesting or exciting to most other folks. You'd had to have been there to understand.
Virginia Erdie

Florida, USA

Mediums: Acrylic on canvas

Themes: theories of reality – fractal theory, string theory, hologram theory

Style: passionate, moving, whimsical, inspiring

First Time Creating:

The first time I remember creating something was on the blackboard in the two-room grade school I attended. I was called to the blackboard to draw a Cornucopia with coloured chalk. I was amazed to see that the teacher and students were amazed at what I had drawn.
Caroline Swaine-Donohoe

Ireland, Europe

Mediums: Oils and Acrylics

Themes: trees, ocean, seascapes, nature

Style: Landscape, abstract art

Interesting Experience:

I studied Italian in university and travelled all over Italy. I even got married there. Its a country that has such a rich art history and its a very inspiring country for me creatively. I came across a tiny art gallery in Sorrento which had the most extraordinary paintings.... each evening people would stop outside it and I watched as painting after painting was sold. It gave me hope that if you create good art, it will sell!
Katerina Gorokhova

Boston, Mass., USA

Mediums: Acrylic on canvas, surrealism, sculpture, digital art, installation and video-art.

Themes: people, mental and physical mutilation

Style: figurative

Current Series:

People usually are my main concern. At the moment I work on a series called "Heroes". Each person bears in himself a mutilation: whether it a physical mutilation or mental – we are not ideal. At times mental mutilation can be much stronger then the physical one, simply it is not so noticeable at first sight. People with the limited possibilities can have life full of pleasure and achievements. Series "Heroes" is a proof that invalids are not weak, they are people with very strong spirit and talent!
Cheryl O

Canada

Mediums: watercolor, oil, acrylic

Themes: texture, color, movement, shape

Style: abstract

Selling Art:

I don't know an exact number, but it would be in the hundreds now. It's really fun to know that my art can be found around the world: Spain, Japan, Australia, Britain, U.S. I've had gallery shows in Ontario and Quebec. I was on eBay for a year as an experiment, but decided that the bargain mentality didn't really suit me. At the moment, I am concentrating on online sales through my website and an email list. It leaves me more time to paint, not driving works to various galleries, although I must say that the galleries were good to me too.
Gretchen Deahl

Pennsylvania, USA

Mediums: watercolor, colored pencil, digital

Themes: guardian monsters

Style: moody, whimsical

Interesting Experience:

Back in the mid 1980's my parents and I went on a trip to visit my mother's distant relatives in Sofia, Bulgaria. In many ways it felt like going back in time, where old women gathered together, covered entirely in black clothing called babushkas, and herds of sheep roamed between the high rise apartments of the capital city, tended by their shepherd. Our gracious hosts were distant cousins who showered us with hospitality and plenty of delicious food. One evening they took us to a restaurant high up in the surrounding mountains, past endless fields of giant sunflowers. As we began our meal I noticed music playing gently in the background. Was it the hauntingly beautiful “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” (The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices)? sung by "The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir" - the "singers that won the Grammy Award and endorsement from such pop superstars as Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, George Harrison, Bobby Mcferrin, Midori and many others all over the world."
No... it was American country music singer-songwriter, Willie Nelson.
Small world.
Neleisha Weerasinghe

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Mediums: collage and acrylic

Themes: trees, nature

Style: recycled art, swirling lines

Memorable Event:

I am a volunteer with a non for profit organisation that helps develop life skills at a shelter for abused girls. Last year myself and another artist conducted two art workshops for these girls. At the beginning it was a daunting task, as we didn’t know how they would react and we too didn’t have any experience conducting such workshops. But it turned out to be a quite interesting and fulfilling experience.
On the first day we kept it simple, and let the girls enjoy working and having fun with colours. We split them in to groups and they had to create joint a work of art. The girls really enjoyed the time they had to work in groups and play and experiment with colours. The end results can still be seen hanging on the non for profit organisation's office in Colombo. The non for profit is Emerge Global (http://emergeglobal.org).
Ruth McCabe

United Kingdom

Mediums: watercolor, oils

Themes: landscapes, farm animals, birds, hares

Style: abstract

Experience with Art:

I've been painting since 1997 and for the last 5 years, full time. Progressing from acrylics to oils about 6 years ago, this year I've mainly worked in watercolour, painting the local East Suffolk landscape and working towards greater abstraction.
The grace of the ordinary (working agricultural landscape), natural and man-made tracks and marks on the landscape, colour, flow,all give me pleasure, as do the qualities of different media and surfaces.

Creating goes back to childhood: the colourful world of infant school, the joy of writing, of moving and playing; a mother who sewed and moved furniture around to create new spaces out of old.
Sam Randall

Brisbane, Australia

Mediums: acrylics, textural mediums

Themes: oriental, fish, flora, birds

Style: surrealism, impressionism, abstraction and pop art

A Funny Story:

22 years ago (at 18), I was hiking in the Northern Territory. In the middle of nowhere and I came across a ‘mature aged man’ sitting on the edge of an escarpment sketching the landscape in front of him. I felt compelled to engage with him to tell him he was ‘incredibly good at drawing and that it was so beautiful’ he chuckled looking up at me amused and said “You don’t know who I am then?” “Shit, you’re famous, I’m so sorry” I meekly apologised. He gave me the sweetest forgiving smile and said “You could say that”. Too embarrassed to ask him his name and after a brief chat, I bid him farewell and continued on with my hike never to see him again. A week later an envelope came to my work. When I opened it, it was the drawing he had been working on with a note “For you Sam, the sketch you admired so much. Thank you for the compliment” with no name only a scribbly signature, to this day still do not know who he was!!!!
Gail McCoy

USA

Mediums: watercolor and collage

Themes: Nature, cranes and places

Style: contemporary nature art

Achievement:

Currently, I have a collage in the Charles Allis Art Museum biennial "Forward: A Survey of Wisconsin Art Now." This exhibit is focusing on new art ideas and artists in WI. The museum is in Milwaukee.