Author: dmckee

I’m not one for excessive realism in my art, even when doing photography. But this guy has some of the most realistic oil painting I’ve ever seen.

Skill-wise, he reminds me a little of Rabo Karabekian from Vonnegut’s Bluebeard novel.
Jeffrey T. Larson – Fine Artist – Larson

Very cool Photoshop tutorial on how to make street scenes look like miniature scale models.

Tilt-Shift Photography Photoshop Tutorial | Miniature Faking | TiltShiftPhotography.net

Looks like there’s some fun things happening in Kitchener, this weekend. There’s a sword fighting introduction, clay and drawing, photography workshops, and a lot of other events.
spOtlight: Kitchener

A weekend festival of free arts events including behind the scenes
tours, workshops, art talks and activities to celebrate the artists who
live in our communities.
Fight like a Musketeer. Throw some clay. Say cheese! Tap into your wild side.Find your inner artist in Kitchener.

Some notable events include “Be A Star!”, presented by CAFKA. It’s an introduction to videography, and gives people the chance to appear on CAFKA.tv. Also, a printmaking workshop by Fatima Garzan. And a chance to see inside the KWAG vault and learn
about art conservation and preservation.

On Sunday I installed my exhibition at One Red Chair Coffeehouse. The exhibition runs from June 1st through June 29th.

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Interesting discussion with Olav Velthuis, author of Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art and David Galenson, University of Chicago professor of economics on the recent sale record set by Lucian Freud’s painting “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping”.
What Does 33.6 Million Mean in the Art World? – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog
Q: Is art perceived as having more value if someone is willing to pay more for it or the reverse?
Velthuis: Both ways: if it has artistic or aesthetic, or cultural value, people are willing to pay for it. But, as I show in my book Talking Prices: Symbolic prices on the Market for Contemporary Art, a high price definitely makes people think it must be an important piece of art. People’s valuations of art — contemporary art in particular — are influenced by a lot of things: what other people think, in which context they see it, what they know about the artists, but also what they know about the price. Empirical studies show, by the way, that if you take some indicator of cultural value (for instance, museum shows or pieces by art critics) it usually correlates very well with the selling price.

Kudos to those involved.
Five artists make shortlist for lucrative Sobey prize to be handed out in October – Yahoo! Canada News

Five up-and-coming Canadian artists, including one who has courted controversy for a work of art that supposedly incorporates his own excrement, have made it onto the short list for the $50,000 Sobey Art Award.
Terence Koh, who divides his time between New York and Toronto, is the Sobey finalist for the Ontario region. He’s become well-known in international art circles for installations that include glass boxes containing gilded chunks purported to be his excrement and casts of his naked body with the groin area destroyed.