Looks like I read it right the first time around and wishful thinking influenced that second read. Both portrait images are to be live with the second one having some flexibility to be from a photo so long as I took it. That one would be easy since I try to do all my own photography.

Way back twenty years ago when I was a teen in classes and art groups I did lots of modeling to help pay my way through art classes. It is not at all easy to sit still for live painting sessions. I guess that background is what makes me cringe to ask it of others.

Maybe I can do a live self portrait using a mirror. Perhaps I can draft my husband or one of the kids for a modeling session stretched out over a few weeks. I feel like I will torture my family, client, or community volunteer by having them sit still for the length of time it will take for a live painting. It will also mean wedging a submission portrait into my schedule when if I could submit a commission from photography, I can apply without interfering with my orders.

Since most of the artists in Stroke of Genius work from photos they take, I am not sure why the live model portrait(s) are necessary to apply for the forum. Perhaps it is fear that artists will not understand how photography can have distortions of perspective and color. But this is not a lacking in basic drawing abilities which seems to be the reasoning behind the juried review process. Instead, this is a more advanced topic that even professional portrait artists deal with.

Thanks Julie. You must have been typing this in at the same time I typed in my last post.

I think I will just plan on a self portrait. Just me sitting still. That is easy. I am good at being still. LOL. Then, so no one has to look at my mug twice (heaven forbid, hehehehe), I will select a photo-based portrait of one of my clients.

Tammy Moore

I paint to escape the pain of depression from grief. I enjoy your forums, they are a wonderful learning tool.

Elizabeth

Guest
 

I have been looking over the site and admiring all the beautiful work. I am wondering where and if I would fit into a site like this one or if I would be totally kicked off. I grew up in the photography buisness but my passion has always been art. When I became serious about my work I always wanted to find a way to bring them both togeather. I consider my painting medium digital. All of my paintings are finished either on watercolor paper or canvas. All of my canvas paintings are finished with brushstrokes, sprayed and stretched on stretcher bars. My paintings are created from many photographs selected by my clients and then put togeather into a painting. I guess I am just wondering if I would be excepted by this website as an artist. I have a website that has my paintings on it and also photographs that I have taken. The reason I am asking is because I really want to do my paintings exclusive and use my photography background as a tool. What do you think?
www.artistictouchstudio.com
Noel Steele

hugs to you ((Elizabeth)). I am sorry you are grieving.

This is not quite accurate. You are not ever expected to post any portrait work. But, you would not believe the number of people who have registered, been approved and have never posted one single time. The number is quite high. It gets discouraging for those who put the time into the jury process. We only ask that if someone registers that they participate to some extent, here and there, now and then - it could be a couple of times a year. We certainly don't have any exact requirement that someone post - it's just puzzling that people go through the jury process and then never post. See what I mean?

The "from life" requirement has been removed. I thought that I changed all the references to it. Hmmm. You are are welcome to apply without life portraits.

You have my sympathies, Elizabeth.

Horray!

If it will help, the reference about painting from life is at http://forum.portraitartist.com/register.php?

Tammy Moore

Hi Noel,

Only the moderators can answer your question. I just wanted to say that I liked your work very much and I think you'd be a great help to those interested in photograph. I think Mike would be happy to have someone to help him answer our questions.
I hope to see you here soon.

My goal is to send some samples of my work for consideration by the end of May. I would love to participate in the forum -- it is rather strange to get so much information from such generous people and not communicate my gratitude. Warmest regards.

Hello All:

I've been visiting the website for over a year now, and would love to participate eventually. But I wonder if this site allows people to register under a pseudonym or "nom de plume" (would that be "nom de pinceau" for painters?).

I'm not a full-time painter but a hobbyist, yet for professional and just general privacy reasons I'm not keen on participating under my real name. I admire everyone here who does, yet I'm sure there are other visitors who like me have qualms about putting their identity on the WWW. Perhaps for professional artists, especially those seeking additional commissions, this might not be an issue. Just wondering...

That was a big help! Thanks.

If you are painting over photographs or digital images that came from photos, that is outside the realm of this Forum. I wasn't really clear. Also, if you do a digital creation or alteration (other than for reference), that is also outside the realm of this Forum.

Your photography is beautiful!

san
 

I am registered and would love to post and be more involved but I have the darndest time logging in. When I request that the system send along my log in information it says I have entered an invalid email addy -- but that is the one I used to sign up with originally (i think). someday, I'll take the time to sort it out -- for now, I'll just view.

(Although I think it might be a good idea if the forum requested people to log in to read anything).

I'm unregistered but I don't agree it would be better if the forum requested that people log in to read posts. I've looked less at the critiques ever since the password was added, though I do understand the reason why that section has a special log in. But for anything else, I don't recommend a change. This would diminish traffic on the site considerably and I believe the purpose of this and other threads is precisely to get more people involved.

If you'll click the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page and send me your name and email address, I'll lookup and see what it is.

Since it seems more of our readers are not registered than those who are, I think requiring log-in, which also requires being approved in the jury process, would cause an uproar of disappointment.

Will do. Thank you!

Coming back to portraiture
 

I am coming back to portraiture after taking several years off due to health problems of my son and then developing work in plein air and still life. I hope to register/apply soon.

You refused me for being non-traditional in aesthetic approach, despite the fact I use traditional materials.

I have been one of those members who went through the process, received approval and then never posted, stopping by every week or so to read. (even though my profile says I joined yesterday :D - it was actually a few years ago)

These forums are amazing- and Art will only get better because of them. I spend most of my time on Cennini Forum, but like to read and support a few sites.

This forum is a valuable resource for portrait painters, and I wish it a long life.

Hi: I posted this query several weeks ago but never got a reply. Am still curious to know the answer. Thanks again!

google
 

I'm registered here but I can't really post as this entire site is on google and people I work with/for google everything and everyone.

The focus of the main site and the Forum is traditional, so that would be correct.

I've been visiting the website for over a year now, and would love to participate eventually. But I wonder if this site allows people to register under a pseudonym or "nom de plume" (would that be "nom de pinceau" for painters?).

I'm not a full-time painter but a hobbyist, yet for professional and just general privacy reasons I'm not keen on participating under my real name. I admire everyone here who does, yet I'm sure there are other visitors who like me have qualms about putting their identity on the WWW. Perhaps for professional artists, especially those seeking additional commissions, this might not be an issue. Just wondering...

Sorry, I missed it. The policy is for each artist to use their real name. Often on Forums, people hide behind a "handle" and we simply prefer things out in the open. Also, many artists here are quite known in the field and it can be to their benefit to use their real name.

I understand. But, we don't want to make the Forum password protected because we'd seldom get new members.

India Burns
 

I can not post anything because I tried to register but was turned down. I was told that I could browse the forum but would not be able to post anything.


www.indiaburns.com

I am a lapsed artist who has not had much time, due to work and family constraints (chronically ill child), to paint. In my younger days, was a serious art student who put a lot of time into drawing but never was able to finish a painting to my satisfaction. Drawn from live model for quite a few years, but suffered "painters block" when it came to painting. A lot of good starts, though! Thank you for your wonderful site! I do lurk and consider many of the artists on this site talented and generous teachers. I have learned much from this site... some of the member's websites are mini painting courses on line, i.e. Tony Ryder, Marvin Mattelson, Beth Schott and many others. Thank you. Until I have I have time and energy to continue painting, your site has kept my spirits up.

retired
 

This web site is confusing and not visually centered. It seems like it was designed by a mechanical engineer and not anyone involved in the visual arts. May I suggest that you research other more friendly web sites.

Also, the concept that this is a web site for "professional" portrait painters is misleading. What does professional mean? If it truly means someone to earns a true living through professional portrait painting, you definitely don't need a website. All three hundred professional portrait painters, if that many, could correspond by email.

May I suggest that you open up your website to portrait painters - in general and not just "professionals" and do away with the idea of having a jury select members. Come on, that is a bit haughty. Further, submitting art work to a juror is demeaning. I have entered art shows and received awards for paintings that did not make it in other art shows. Judging art is not objective even though art teachers and art jurors like to think it is. It is an individual's subjective cogent based upon so many factors that no two people can agree. And thank goodness. That is what art is all about an individual experience. Of course there is trashy art, but even that requires a second or third look, as hard as it may be to do.

Thanks for allowing a forum for gathering information about yourselves.

I guess they may be thousands of artists out there who would not be allowed membership or if they are, what difference does it mean to have a juried entrance requirement.

Since your goal is to be a commercial success (or why the ads?), I think you need to redefine your membership requirements.

Thanks for asking for opinions as to why your membership does not increase.

Like the process
 

I'm also unregistered but like the fact that this portrait forum has a juried selection process. As a result, the contributions of members are very focused and most of the time informative. There is a website out there, Wet Canvas, that might be of interest to you. As far as I know, that website does not have a special selection process, but as a result contributions are less interesting to me (=a portrait painter seeking to learn from professionals and semi-professionals).

I Agree with "Like the Process"
 

My skills are not good enough yet to warrant membership -- but I am very appreciative to all of you for the information you so generously share on this site and I wouldn't change a thing about the standards you've set. The material is informative and incredibly helpful to a beginner who really wants to improve yet doesn't have access to portrait classes on a regular basis.

I've spent hours on your site studying the material for clues as why my work isn't turning out the way I want, learning about painters and their different styles and trying some of your experiments to push my skills. As a result, I'm doing more work and getting better. One day I'll be at a level where I feel confident enough to apply and then I'll feel like I've earned the right to be a part of this marvelous site.

Thank You

It seems you've made the mistake of thinking that the Forum is the web site. It is not. It is simply a contribution to those who want to be involved and is not a money making venture. Ads are there to help offset the costs of hosting, the annual license for the Forum software, the spellchecker and costs to pay someone when the software is upgaded. For some reason, people seem to think there are no costs involved in running this type of thing.

The Forum was always meant to reflect the main site, which is about professional portrait painters. Some seem to think my Forum should be all things to all people. I have no such obligation. Nor do I beg for or crave more membership. I just was curious as to why many lurked and did not join, that's all.

The jury process is there to keep the learning content at a level that would be useful for professionals or those who are well along on that path.

I beg to differ that a professional does not need a web site - or perhaps I should say would benefit from a web site. If nothing else, it saves their valuable time because they can refer people to their site instead of having to do a mailing.

But, perhaps you should ask Michele Rushworth about her web site - which brought her a portrait commission of the governor of her state and from that she moved on to paint the governor of Nevada. And, those artists that I've contacted regarding other possible commissions, I think would differ with your view.

As far as the Forum being confusing and not visually centered, I have no clue what you mean. I have gotten no one else complaining about such issues.

You are missing the sense of community that is created by a Forum such as this and it's obvious this is not for you.

I would love to become a member, however my work is all done in colored pencil and thus does not compete with oils or even pastels. I do a lot of portrait work and really wish you allowed colored pencil portraits.
Maurica Midge Reynolds-King

Yes, it quickly became obvious that your only reason for asking the question was to get feedback that supports your choices, because you've chosen to ignore, excuse, or argue every comment that doesn't.

So let me start by saying that I've assisted in starting and running several online forums (non-art), all with memberships and activity levels well above this. Despite your claims, it's not that time or money intensive - unless you haven't taken the time to learn what your doing or you're getting shafted by your hosting company.

Let me follow by quoting your reply to another: "You are missing the sense of community that is created by a Forum such as this and it's obvious this is not for you."

I'd suggest that you take the time to look through your membership list then go and visit the various other online art forums. Cennini, ArtQuorum, OAG, WetCanvas, ConceptArt, EggTempera, SoFA, Art&Artistry, and others are available. Take note how many of your members, who rarely if ever post or show any activity here at all, are very active in participating elsewhere.

This is a forum that's sorely lacking in a sense of community and incentive to participate. You don't have the critical mass of posters necessary to keep the forum active and members near, else fewer would spend so much time elsewhere and so little here. You've created your nice little gated community but put in place so many covenants and restrictions that what few qualified residents you can attract will quickly tire and move on out of boredom, leaving the community to languish.

There's nothing wrong with your goal for this forum or most of your restrictions as this is tied to the business. However, for you to outright dismiss each and every suggestion that would encourage participation and growth because they differ from your near-sighted choices is just assinine.

Why ask a question in this forum if there's rarely anyone here to answer it? Why ask for opinions if there's always the same two or three? Why offer advice, insight, suggestions, articles, works, etc. if there are few there to acknowledge ot take advantage of it?

If you would open up this forum just a little, in select non-professional categories to a verified but unjuried class of member, you'd increase participation which would draw your juried members out of hibernation and benefit all.

I think the difference between this and the other forums you mentioned is that the Portrait Artist Forum is an aid to work and the other forums are are like well-needed chats. You have to work a little harder on the PAF to post and there is an incentive here to remain honest and rigorous. It goes without saying, then, that fewer people would participate, but the quality of the posts greatly outweighs their small number. The PAF is necessarily different from other artist forums and invaluable because of it.

Oh, thanks for pointing out my mistake for me. The reason current, already vetted, members are posting their works for discussion and critique elsewhere is because those forums are less serious. The reason current, already vetted, members are having serious discussions about art techniques, materials, and the like on other forums is because those forums are less serious.

When members who have already been through the vetting process are taking their discussions on art, materials, techniques, composition, portraiture, and so on to other forums and/or seeking critiques there instead of here then that says something about this forum. That something is NOT that there is more incentive to remain honest and rigorous - it's that there's not enough incentive or reward for them to bother participating here. That directly relates to not enough participation by the existing membership because I think we all know there's not a lack of skill or talent around here.

This isn't a comment about needing an open door policy on posting, or a suggestion that the focus is too narrow, or that there's no basis for the policies. You don't have to become a massive open begginers forum like WetCanvas or a harsh Whips and Chains forum like Cennini, but what you have here isn't working very well and that's obvious if you look at the limited participation by current members.

Go ahead, tell me that this forum wouldn't be vastly improved and substantially more useful of you were to coax current members into becoming more active. You know it would, but they have little or no reason to - there's just not enough participation or community to encourage it.

Time to drop those snobby noses a bit and recognize that a little, just a little, diversity can reap great benefits.

Well I like it, anyway.

I've seen some wonderful colored pencil portraits. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm away until probably the 3rd week in May, but I see no reason to not have a colored pencil section. I'll address this then.

sense of community
 

Thanks to Garth Herrick for posting those fabulous pics from the conference in Washington, DC! I wish I were a member of the forum and could have been there. Looks like a real community to me. And what a wonderful art collection at the National Gallery, not too far from the convention!

Thank You.
 

I've enjoyed this site as well. I appreciate Cynthia Daniel's efforts in creating this forum for those interested in quality input toward their work and to the moderators and others who contribute their time to help us all become better. Although this is the first time I've posted, which I'll explain below, I've been a member for some years now. I joined Wet Canvas and other sites several years ago as well but have only continued to visit this site because I rarely have time for "chatty" or social elements that are often part of many discussion groups but I'm interested in well informed input and insight that I find here regularly.

I'm one of those who went through the admission process and was accepted to the site but subsequently haven't posted anything. The reasons I haven't are complex and I'm not sure if I can adequately share them. However, I'll give it a shot.

Although there are minor issues (such little things as I haven't taken the time to get a little picture to accompany my comments, etc.), there are two primary reasons why I haven't participated--both related in some ways. I'm basically selfish and too self-critical.

On the selfish end of things, I see this forum as a real community of artists; and like any community it takes time--time to be civil, prepare thoughtful responses to others queries, craft a question that will be helpful to everyone, and so on. It's too easy to come to the site, read for a few minutes, and move on to other things. As a full-time museum curator with lots of community involvement, I'm only able to fit my own production into a very small window of time. Although I often get by on four hours of sleep, like most people I need close to six hours a night to keep going. (I've helped promote the career of an artist who made the transfer from the commercial arena to full-time professional by painting almost all night for a few weeks but it doesn't work for most people.) Therefore, I've chosen the selfish route and haven't given back like I should. I recognize that giving serious thought to an issue as part of the dialog process actually promotes learning. Giving speeds up the learning process. But it becomes complicated with exhibit deadlines or other commitments to maintain participation in quality groups such as this.

Certainly the logic of such arguments fall short and time concerns are not insurmountable. Becoming too self-critical of what I have to offer is probably the bigger issue. Although I can remember a passion developing for actually producing art when I was younger than age four, I used scholarships and other opportunities as they opened to develop a cognitive approach to art and history. If you've had the chance to sit in on one of Timothy Asch's courses on Visual Anthropology at Harvard or learn about the concept of gazing (or looking) among the Hemba in eastern Congo from Tom Blakely (information I think is in his recent book _Seeing Anthropology_ although I haven't had a chance to read it yet), then I don't think you'll blame me. Because of this, creating my own art has been called a "hobby." (I put this word in quotation marks because I've been irritated more than once by someone calling my painting a hobby--something that sounds like an activity to fill up extra time when it's a passion that I can't indulge in enough because there just isn't enough time.) To keep this short, I'll just say as I read the brilliant insights into the process of painting offered by members of this forum, I'm quietly grateful but realize that this site isn't the appropriate place to share my own doctoral research on other esoteric art traditions or the process of doing museum curation. Part of the self-critical approach is wondering if I really have something to contribute when talking about the painting process. (The same thing probably applies to other aspects of art production as well. Since I sit on a committee that acquires major works of art on a regular basis and frequently work with professional artists on projects, I often get artists--some quite accomplished--who come to me with a look of desperation asking me how to make a living for their families. I usually say enough to satisfy them and send them on their way but quietly I think to myself that if I had a real good answer to that question I'd be painting full-time). I can see this is starting to turn into an essay so I'll stop. Perhaps a final reason I don't write is I can't tell when to quit talking and usually say either nothing or too much. So I'll quit here. Thanks Cynthia, once again, for such a wonderful site. I'll try to be less selfish in the future and look for ways I can share.

Mark