Tim gagnon artist biography

I had no extra time for art, and it was put completely on the backburner. I soon graduated, and had no idea what I wanted to do in life. I attended the University of Maine at Presque Isle, as an undecided student. After that, I started working for a tax software company. After a year, I started to attend the University again part-time, and I decided to take art classes.

After a semester, I declared myself an art major, with concentration in fine arts. I studied under Anderson Giles, who inspired me to let my inner emotions out on the canvas. During this time, I was still working for the tax company, which after the three years I was there, sold out to a larger corporation. After 6 years of working and attending school, I quit my job, and began to paint full time.

I gain my inspiration from the human mind. I find it fascinating how humans think, and act. We try so hard to be individuals, to be different… but by doing so, we are all the same. I find nature to be the most beautiful thing in the world, yet, we are so quick to destroy it. My style is defined by my mood. I can paint flowing clean landscapes, if that is how I interpret it, or, I may paint thick, slashed paintings, that have emotion and energy.

It is also fun to try to interpret other peoples thoughts. To have someone explain an idea to me, and see how close our imaginations are. Everyone has their own style, so how they deal with the content in the negative space will differ. Another thing that is important in composition is how you balance the objects. You want to have your objects off center, going off the canvas or playing with the edges of the canvas.

This lets the viewer to use their imagination and to read over the painting fluidly. Alyice: How do you come up with a profitable pricing structure for your acrylic pieces? Tim: This is the most difficult question for every artist. You can attach value to a lot of different things: time, supplies, size, meaning, sentimental value, etc.

If something has significant meaning, I usually spend more time on it and that increases the price. Artists are often afraid they are pricing their paintings too low. If you spend lots of time on something then it is okay to price it higher. You have to have a balance of affordable pieces and pieces that have higher prices due to time and subject matter.

If you just want to be in galleries and sell your work at high prices, I think your focus should be sending out as many resumes as you can to galleries to try to get picked up by as many galleries as possible. I would rather sell my work directly. I have had quite a few galleries want to sell my work, and I have done it, but I prefer to sell my work directly and have the interaction with the buyer.

In a gallery they have to pay for marketing, the people who work at the gallery, make a profit and pay you. Alyice: Aside from selling original pieces of art, you also provide painting lessons via online video and DVDs. How did this part of your business come about? Tim: When the recession came to town, I had to supplement selling originals.

I had been making YouTube videos for awhile, and would get emails asking me how I did certain things. It ended up working out really well, and now I offer lessons online and on DVD. Alyice: Did you have to learn any special programs for putting your videos together? Tim: It has been quite the process creating these lessons. I started out with just a small handycam and movie maker on a PC.

I eventually purchased a high definition video camera and professional editing software Final Cut Pro on the Mac. There is a steep learning curve with all of these things. Learning how to compress video, edit it together smoothly and upload huge files is pretty difficult and hard to explain. I did a lot of reading to understand all of my equipment and software.

Lighting is also something that is hard to understand. I am now at the point where I can create a video in a couple days although it takes a few additional days to upload. The hardest part is painting a painting from start to finish in 2 hours or less. There are time constraints because the larger the video is, the more you have to compress it, which means loss of quality.

Also there are limits on how big files can be to upload to my server. So it is important to do the lesson in 2 hours or less to get the most effective quality video. Tim: The most important thing that I have learned about making an effective lesson is the way you explain things. I could go on and on about complimentary colors or secondary colors.

People can learn the relationship of colors as they go. I tried a few other instructors but they made the process way to complicated. I did my first successful painting of a horse following Tim's "Facing The Winds" lesson. Tim Gagnon Studio Fine art and online painting lessons. Welcome to. Tim Gagnon Studio. Learn how to paint with acrylics and oils.

Improve your techniques today! Watch individual lessons, or join my membership program and unlock hundreds of painting lessons. Play Video.

Tim gagnon artist biography

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