Bec Broomhall – Artist Blog

Fabulous graffiti style sketchy flower paintings by Jack Spiller (Tag Fine Arts) that were some of my favourite work at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea 10th March 2018.

Time: 20.27 pm

Mood: A little bit accomplished from a day at the studio

Listening To: Expanded Perspectives Podcast

A bit late in posting this but last weekend I visited the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea London, with my artist friend Pam from our studios. What a great day and experience, I loved it. I can honestly say if you are wanting to be more of a commercial artist and sell your work this was definitely the place to be. There was all kinds of art there too, from paintings to drawings, sculpture, paper-cut pieces, printmakers, as well as some installation pieces specifically for buildings, clubs or entertainment. There was also all types of people buying art – Young and old, and people bought their kids and their dogs! And a RANGE of things were being bought; some were buying large original canvases and some were walking away with one, two or sometimes a  handful of prints. Overall it was a very friendly and informal place with a friendly atmosphere.

However I think what was the best for me about this experience was that the work wasn’t all what you would imagine ‘commercial’ to be. There were the usual Marilyn Monroes and pieces that were chunky and bright coloured and 100% commercial looking to me. However there were also many still life pieces, oil portraits, abstracts and paper cut pieces that certain artists had clearly taken hours in making..and were exploring something meaningful to them. Which is really where I myself would like to sit with my own work – a balance of both. Work that I enjoy and is meaningful to me and resonates with others – but also I’d like to make a living too.

Overall a brilliant experience – I felt I’d accomplished something by going, and it was a little step in the right direction.

Current Thoughts & Progress:

So last week I finished a new portrait in this new sketchy, almost doodle-like style I’m exploring – and I’m really pleased with it. It is titled ‘Sinead’ and again was referenced from one of many makeup artists and bloggers I follow on Instagram. It has become a habit of mine to save photos of people from social media that will then inspire a portrait.

With this new work I feel I’m partly exploring how women are portrayed on social media, and how they portray themselves. I feel I’m after mental health messages too; for instance I’ll often save a photo of someone with a t-shirt that has a message on it or a message in the background. I’m interested in how we feel about ourselves and how social media/world in general makes us feel about ourselves. Very often the people references that I save (women at the moment, but I’ve also sketched some men too) have a beautiful appearance, like this is how they look everyday, flawless. But then I sketch them quite messily – then paint them in my new messy way.. and they end up looking beautiful but in a different way. Like with ‘Sinead’ I feel it’s her kind expression and smile..but her facial features are quite off and the portrait is simple black outlines and a very limited colour palette.

I’ve started another portrait this week from my sketches, ‘Rose’ – this piece is around half way through. I’m still not sure about the style of painting; I’m worried they’re a bit ‘too commercial’ and I think my mentor more approves of my very quick, simple 2 minute sketches I do which are just quick lines and are even simpler than these paintings. I think he feels they say more – ‘less is more’ etc.  However I prefer some level of detail in my paintings and I feel these have a great balance at the moment; areas that are so simple, and also messy, complex sketchy areas like their hair. ‘Sinead’ I think has a great balance of simple areas and detail.

A much shorter post than last time! However I plan to talk more about the progress of my new work along with a few images of pieces mentioned in the next post in a week or so! So stay tuned.

As always comments and feedback are welcome and thank you for taking the time to read my posts!

Date: 27.02.18

Time: 21.45 pm

Mood:In limbo and over-ripe..

So in my last post I spoke about getting out and seeing some art, and indeed I did! Towards the end of last week I met up with my friend from university and together we visited Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, The Ikon and some small galleries in town. Everything we saw was very different; from what I would call the ‘fine art’ of the New Art West Midlands exhibition, to what I’d call the ‘commercial art’ of a gallery we visited in the ICC building by the REP theatre.

I have also made a definite start on a new portrait for my new studio practice. Although it’s still in its early stages I’m pleased with it so far. However I am feeling very much in limbo this week, neither here nor there. I am currently looking for part time (and hopefully creative) work so I am able to work on my new studio practice without pressure.  However no luck as yet, and time is already flying so fast – as we’re nearly into March already. I am still at the handmade shop in our city centre and will still have to work and exhibit there until I find work – although I have not spoken to any other colleagues about leaving.

Everything feels very over-ripe to me at the moment. I want to mostly let go of my old artwork that is currently on display there and I know that I need to leave and move on – and feel like I cannot move forward until let go of certain things. I feel It would be best for me to leave this shop – as I have said before it is not the right place for art, and many of my artist friends agree. I also do not want the pressure of selling there, or the stress of working there at the moment. So I hope to find a part time job soon. I will talk more about my latest portrait in the next post too! This post will mainly be about what I saw whilst out and about in Birmingham!

New Art West Midlands:

This was a great exhibition that I really enjoyed. I have to say many pieces tackled the ongoing problems of social media (like the blue piece above) which I was really happy to see. There were pieces that talked about out ‘mindless scrolling’ and being constantly ‘plugged in’ to Facebook etc. One piece from artist Jess Eburne involved a transcript of what appeared to be two robots discussing us ‘homanids’ and how we prefer to be ‘plugged in’ all the time and how humans are afraid of being disconnected from this world of constant updates. This was probably one of my favourite pieces.

I’m really struggling with social media lately: part of it is logging into Facebook generally and just having way too much information come at you from everyone’s lives, and before you know it – you have wasted 40 mins mindlessly looking at feeds. The other half is when you have to advertise things on social media; I still advertise my prints and cards for my Etsy shop and am currently part of an Instagram ‘pod’ of local creatives. So when you post you let them know and they will comment on your post and vice-versa. But I end up catching up on everyone else late at night and commenting on everyone’s posts in the pod – and it leaves you feeling drained and exhausted – and definitely like you I need to ‘unplug’ and de-stress. And this is not even starting on algorithms and the fact that small business’ posts hardly get seen or benefit now  – and so this is why everyone is currently jumping ship to new social media platform Vero. The Matrix never ends…!! Lately I feel like extracting myself from it all!

Yet on the other hand..many of my references come from social media! A lot of my female portraits past and in this new work have been referenced from fashion houses, lifestyle bloggers, travellers and vloggers I follow on Instagram etc!

However I’m really happy people and artists are starting to recognise the complex problems social media is starting to present in our lives. But I also think it can only affect you if you let it and perhaps limiting your time on social media is definitely a good thing. Yes creatives must advertise online – but I also think this is just the half of it; the other half is about meeting and talking to actual people. This is something I also have to do.

Other pieces in this exhibition included some walls of brightly coloured pop art style hanging frames, a beautiful installation of lit geometric triangle shapes (another favourite, above) and a very fun rubber fringed sculpture that was great to touch and every so often quivered from a mechanism underneath. There was a lot more too, a great exhibition overall.

The next exhibition we visited was in a following room and was ‘New Art West Midlands: 5 Years on’. This was a smaller exhibition but still has some thought provoking pieces. My first favourite were a series of salvaged stone pieces with coloured wax embedded in them, so it looks like jewels being revealed underneath the stone (below). There is also another large installation again made from mobile phones and iPods! Mounted on the wall in rows in a darkened space. They all have woodland scenes displayed on their screens and birdsong sounds. This piece spoke volumes about how we experience everything within the digital realm nowadays and don’t go out and experience nature and the outdoors for ourselves.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery:

We then had a wonder throughout the rest of the gallery, looked at much of the Pre-Raphaelite Art,(that I’ve always loved) landscapes and seascapes and I was really taken with a modern colourful portrait by the artist Emily Sparkes – displayed alongside classical pieces centuries old. She had painted herself in the style of 18th century portraiture to mimic how women were painted back then but also how they were seen as beautiful and ‘docile’ objects. I found this portrait very interesting as I am also someone who paints mainly female characters and portraits, and I’m interested in how women are seen in social media and also mental health of women and people in general.

IKON Gallery:

We then visited Ikon Gallery in Brindley Place where we saw some amazing miniature portraits by artist Thomas Bock from the 1800s. These were beautifully rendered and so tiny; he was an artist that mainly sketched and painted convicted criminals. There was a beautiful dried flower installation piece upstairs along with a room with TVs and some spoken word performance art. However I was more fascinated with the mental health charts on the walls..again this perhaps touches on issues I may be looking at in my own work.

Castle Galleries:

Finally the last place we stopped at was Castle Galleries in the ICC building near Brindley Place. This is obviously widely known to be a very commercial art platform, and to me it is a place where artists who want to sell – sell their work and many reproductions of it! There are some bold pieces in there but obviously caters for a completely different audience than the IKON etc.  I think when you are an emerging artist and are thinking about places to sell your work, you need to be very careful about where you want to sit in the market; although I would like to be a ‘commercial artist’ to a point, I also want my work to have deeper meaning, and make a difference – and don’t think I would go down this route.

As always this has been a very long post – and I thank any of you that take the time to read it! This blog helps me to keep my thoughts in order about my new developing studio practice and artistic journey. Stay tuned for the next post where I will be talking about progress on new pieces.

Date: 18.02.18

Time: 20.28pm

Mood: Optimistic

Listening To: Expanded Perspectives Podcast, YouTube

Welcome to an new episode of my A-N blog for February 2018. The above sketch was a doodle from my sketchbook from just before Christmas last year.

This is just a quick short post about my thoughts and progress from over the past week; I’m hoping to do these posts every week where possible, or every two weeks.

So I’m working on a new body of work in a very different style to what I’ve been doing for the past 2-3 years. In the past few years I’d been making drawings, and illustrations that had no real audience,  or groundwork, research or knowledge of business. Although I worked very hard, it hasn’t really been going anywhere or earning a lot, despite my dream since I was a young child, of wanting to be an artist. I guess I’ve always had the spirit and enthusiasm – and some skills but not really the the know how of where to go with it or how to earn a living from my work.

Having always been a realistic and realism based artist, with the help of a mentor/coach I am now working on something more sketchy and illustrative in a series of new paintings. This is with the aim of creating a more successful business for myself in terms of being a self employed artist. This is also because I feel it will help me step into my potential as an artist and give me the scope I need to develop the art business I’ve always wanted. In my last post I talked about being a ‘commercial artist’ and while that is in many ways what I’d like to become, it’s going to be by no means a cheap or tacky way of earning a living; I aim to make colourful, meaningful work that the right audience will love, and then make a regular living from my work.

So far I have made around 5 small paintings from a series of sketchy thumbnails in my sketchbook. They are very colourful and bold sketchy portraits of women. The references were taken from real people – just random photos that appealed to me or people I follow on social media. I feel I am just starting to get to grips with what my work is about. There are lots of things that I am interested in that I’ve never been able to string together coherently into pieces – so I’m hoping this new work – and the way it is painted – will enable that. At the moment the focus will be portraiture – and the sketchy style and marks made are something I’m still experimenting with and perhaps not quite there yet. I am also planning an upcoming post on the things I am interested in and exploring, so stay tuned for this.

So this week after much fear and stalling – I finally made a start on another portrait. Again this was from a quick sketch in my sketchbook; I then scanned this and went over my lines in Photoshop and the portrait is now ready to be traced onto the canvas. This is my current procedure. However I think it will change and improve over time to maybe just producing portraits freehand straight onto the surface of the canvas. But for now I am quite shaky, and still have a certain amount of fear about the new work, although excitement too.

I’m very pleased with the new portrait and am really looking forward to getting it on a canvas. I plan to to trace and draw the outline the beginning of the week and make a start painting in the studio later on on this week. I have tried this time to think about things my mentor/coach as asked me to consider – such as my colour palette, not ‘overdrawing’ something, the balance of the portrait i.e not chopping parts off – thinking about composition and how much space around the face, head/shoulders etc. I will post about how I am progressing with this piece over the next week or so.

In my last post I also mentioned getting out and ‘seeing art’ – and ‘feeding myself’ art as we were fed whilst at university! And I’m pleased to say I have my train booked for the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, London on the 10th March (it runs from the 8-11th March 2018). I am going with my friend from our studios, also an artist. I will also be going to visit the New Art West Midlands Exhibition this week whilst in Birmingham. I am hoping to have an art based morning/afternoon visiting various art venues in Birmingham. If anyone has any suggestions of anywhere else I could visit – do comment below, I’d be very interested!

So this has been the progress for this week, and hopefully things are slowly going in the right direction! Stay tuned over the next week or so where I will be posting new thoughts and progress and hopefully about places I have visited! As always, any thoughts and comments are welcome and hopefully this will help anyone else on a similar journey!

Date: 11/02/18

Time: 19.52pm

Mood: Spirited and Ambitious ..but slow..

So welcome to another A-N blog post! I actually started this post several days ago and have had a very busy week, with no real time to sit down and think for a while. And there has been some great highlights over the past few weeks. In following on from my last post – I did create a list of ideas for what my life would look like if my art practice and business were running the way I’d like them to – this really helped. I wrote things like ‘I am working in a 100% more directed way’ and ‘I am creating collections and series of works rather than random pieces’ ‘I am comfortable pricing my work’ etc. When you write things like this – it helps you realise all the aspects you’re still NOT sure of that you have to work through.

The other great thing that happened a short while back is I went to visit the studio of my mentor/coach and we had some great discussions. This post is going to be about what I learned during these conversations, how it affected my thinking and current plans created for my work from this. I came away feeling extremely positive about my new work.

The first thing we spoke about was getting out and seeing some art; because my aim is to become more of a commercial artist (not tacky, but pieces and paintings I can make a living from that also have meaning and serves people in some way). But also to try and make some connections and meet with potential galleries that could offer feedback on my work so far and for possible representation in the future. So it was suggested I visit places like the Affordable Art Fair in London (there is one coming up held in Battersea 8-12 March 2018). Also to look at who is exhibiting, galleries/artists and pick out ones that I most identify with. You need to have an agenda when walking around art fairs;  to have art that you want to see, but also an idea in mind of galleries and people that you potentially want to make a connection with.

This said, it is also important for myself and other emerging artists to get out and see general exhibitions, as well as ‘feed yourself’ art in other ways – for instance I’m planning to regularly visit our University Library to research for my new work. I graduated from university around 5 years ago now, and I left with a whole framework of ideas, thoughts and themes surrounding my then practice. I would love to build that again around my new work.

The other important aspect about people seeing my new work is having a website for that new work – the pieces I have made so far. My current website really only displays the work I still sell as prints and cards on Etsy; however in moving forward it has been suggested to change my site so that it is more simply a landing page. Rather a ‘business card’ style single page displaying a selection of new works and contact information. This I am very happy to do, and will post the link on this blog when the site has been remade.

Also we discussed aspects of what to focus on in terms of making art. One of the things that I have noticed about contemporary artists is that they very often work in series. This is something I’ve noted above and in my own planning, however not something I am necessarily used to doing! I think in my older work and realistic drawings I tended to create things randomly; there were always attempts at series and collections, however I always set myself too much work – too many things to work on at once – and could never keep up. This is one of my downfalls! So for this new work it was suggested I start by creating some women themed portrait series’ i.e. ‘Women In My Life Who..’ etc. My work has always been mainly feminine inspired however I would also like to include men in the new work. I generally draw women because they’re easier – but it will be extremely beneficial to learn new skills and adopt new approaches in this new work.

Finally, an important and shaky subject we discussed was getting part time work. I currently exhibit in a local handmade shop – mainly stocking items from designer-makers local to the West Midlands, such as jewellery and ceramics etc. There is art; however not much and art prints etc really aren’t very popular, the only things I really sell are cards. My rent there is £20 a month however I only make just over my rent every month – sometimes less – and commission is also taken off.  It isn’t really helping – and I also work there two days a month. We discussed that it would be much easier to get a part time job and leave, which I am happy to do – although I have been part of the shop for 3 years now, never really selling a lot but always trying very hard. And having tried to work full time with not much coming in has been very challenging. However I feel it is the right thing to do if I ever want to get on my own path and find the right market for myself and my work.

This was a very long post! As always thank you for reading, and feedback, advice and comments are always welcome. This blog is very therapeutic in jotting down and ordering my thoughts about making new art and this new journey – and if it can help others in any way, that would be amazing.  Join me over the next few weeks where I will be posting new updates, thoughts and progress!

Date: 10/01/2018

Time: 20.39pm

Location: Home

Mood: Un-inspired (Truth is best)

So a Happy 2018 to all – and I hope the early days of the new year are treating you well!

I feel refreshed in terms of a new start and lots of potential ideas – but also dread of the thought of it being like last year and all the running around I did and ‘busy work’ for little or no results career wise or financially. On the one hand I’m determined to do things differently and focus on my new work and paintings but on the other I’m not sure I’ve currently got the energy or spirit to put into another huge endeavour, only to let myself and other people down or not gain anything from it. However, at the beginning of every year I make plans for the year ahead, and although it has been very sluggish and slow – with still parts to finish – I have done the same this year.

I would like this blog to help other artists out there who find the journey of Self Employed Artist a struggle at times. As I always say to my best friend when we talk or meet up to talk about our journey – if I do this – and master the art of being a self employed artist with a successful business – I would love to teach others how to do it.

So I am going to share what I do at the beginning of each year. I believe you can do these things anytime you would like a change though, it doesn’t always have to be the New Year. I always start off with creating several documents, this has expanded over the past few years – depending on the things I’ve read or things that my mentor has asked me to think about. One of the main things my mentor Dean told me to create was a To-Don’t List; all the things you are aware that you are doing that are completely not serving you at all and that you must stop doing!

This is actually a very useful exercise and you may be surprised with what you come up with.  Some of mine this year are for instance quite simple: ‘Don’t set yourself too many pieces to work on at once’ this is one of the things that I do often and it depletes my energy, trying to focus on too many paintings or even developing too many ideas. One maybe two at a time only. And ‘Don’t finish work at 11/11.30pm at night’. I do this all the time, going to bed at 2am-3am. I’ve realised at the end of every day, no matter what you’re working on (unless it’s an emergency artwork deadline for a customer/client) you mind and body needs some downtime to relax. But also because if your mind is focused on your work all the time – especially creative work – you’ll find it harder to make progress if you’re not switching off from it. This is something I feel I really need to learn, as I hardly ever switch off from thinking about where my work is going.

Other documents I create at the beginning of each year include ‘Things I have Established From [Year]’. So on my ‘Things I Established From 2017’ document one of the things I established was that I am not very good currently at talking in public or to other people about my artwork, and get very tongue tied, nervous and just rattle on about things just to make conversation and that aren’t necessarily the truth or what my work is really about. And if I want to have a successful business in any sense – this has to change and confidence has to be developed.

This year I have also created a Research & Learning List. For instance mine includes aspects of the above and confidence growing in public talking, but also business and finance aspects I don’t yet fully understand. And finally my Goals For 2018. This year I have tried to just list things simply and not over complicate. My main goal this year is to develop my own voice as an artist, and be on the way to developing a business that I’m proud of, that’s more solid and that has a great future. I also think if it is a goal like this – to actually think about and write out what this would actually look like. For instance what would you be doing day to day? Where would your income come from? Where would your main customers be? Where would you exhibit? Where would you sell? etc – rather than everything being vague and aimless. I feel you really need to be specific about what you want. This this the one thing I still have yet to do – but will do this over the next week.

Of course the main thing about writing out such lists and plans for the year is that they’re in a place where you look at them a lot. Last year I left mine in a ring binder that I was aiming to put my research in and hardly looked at them! My goals for the year were also printed out and stuck to my wall right in front of me at my desk at home – yet I hardly looked at it. So I think there needs to be some kind of conscious effort or ritual of familiarising yourself with your aims and goals every day so they bury themselves into your subconscious, whether reading through them at a particular time each day or writing them out (and not making it a chore to do so). As we are in such a fast paced world today, that things like this are easily forgotten as life takes over – and before you know it, another year is over – a bit like what happened to me in 2017!

As always – constructive thoughts and comments are welcome, and thank you for reading.

Stay tuned for my next post as I will be talking about recent studio happenings and my new work in production!