Comments on: Totally amazing painter is totally amazing

By: artao

artao — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:59:00 +0000

As an artist, I find myself wondering what medium he’s using. I’m guessing acrylics. I’m also noticing there appears to be a divider between the glass — of course. Oils would take WAY to long to dry like that, but not acrylics. Possibly also inks.

as to quality? so what! folk art is just as important historically as fine art as graphic art as religious art … i’m betting he makes a perfectly decent living off it. how many fine artists can say that? ;)

By: ludachrs

ludachrs — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:18:00 +0000

How about this can you do it?

By: anderalert

anderalert — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:15:00 +0000

“Look what I can do!” (say it like that twisted character from old MadTV)

By: Spieguh

Spieguh — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:06:00 +0000

I’ll never stop missing Calvin and Hobbes.

By: Glidedon

Glidedon — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:37:00 +0000

Art is in the I of the commenter

By: petite poubelle

petite poubelle — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Can we get a do-over on this thread?

By: twency

twency — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:12:00 +0000

What do you want him to do? LEAVE? Then they’ll keep being wrong.

http://xkcd.com/386/

By: twency

twency — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:10:00 +0000

Cadmium yellow FTL.

By: nesnora

nesnora — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:59:00 +0000

I’ve been painting in oils, acrylics, watercolor, ink washes etc. for years, but I started when I was 10 years old to Boss Ross specials on PBS. It was my first introduction to creating something resembling art. The brushes and techniques used to create trees and mountains and lakes/water is astonishingly easy depending on the brush used. I also used my fingers to blend. It’s incredibly fun, setting aside the actual artistic quality of this type of painting… after 15 years and 4 of that at RISD, nothing I do professionally now is anything like those childhood paintings, but the excitement of that first garish little painting of happy little bushes is still with me.
For the parents out there, I highly suggest you try this with your 8-10 year old, despite what you think about the art itself (they sell full kits in craft stores). I tried it as a teenager with my younger brother who was 9 at the time, and after an hour step-by-step he created something exactly like this (albeit the speed), and squealed with delight. If you watch his process, all the elements he paints are very forgiving and rely on the randomness of the stroke to make it believable, so encouraging a child to do this is actually quite successful. It’s a great way to introduce that something can be created without “coloring within the lines” and trying to draw frustrating, complex shapes at an early age. With supervision, oils blend much nicer than finger paints too, and dry in much longer periods…

By: Bucket

Bucket — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:52:00 +0000

I saw someone doing this in Santa Cruz over the summer. It seemed to be a new take on the whole spraypaint speed painting thing.

The guy I saw I suspect had some formal training- he did have a few portraits that weren’t half bad, but I didn’t get to see him do those, I suspect they took longer.

I wonder how these things get propagated. Do they have a forum somewhere? Is there a big busker convention with busking panels where people can learn the latest in street performance art?

Actually, that would be cool. I’d totally go to that.

By: rubajz rubajzovic

rubajz rubajzovic — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Oh my god somebody is wrong on the internet! Art is NOT “what we decorate our lives”, art should be much more than a mere decoration. I will not be so arrogant to try define Art as we know it, because this term is, even in modern philosophy, very foggy and there are numerous definitions, but art should challenge us intellectually and not every object is creation of artist. And if art is only subjective, how do you explain that numerous educated people agree on quality certain pieces? Taste do not show how we like certain style, taste manifest our ability to understand and grasp certin style.

By: Festus

Festus — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:59:00 +0000

Is this a Latin American tradition? I saw a very similar (in process, speed and street-location) painter in Oaxaca maybe 10 years ago. But his stuff was mostly pyschadelic.

By: royaltrux

royaltrux — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:06:00 +0000

Sometimes, quantity has a quality all its own.

By: marilove

marilove — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:56:00 +0000

I feel like nearly every comment on this thread is the same. We get it, it’s not fine art.

By: Morgan James Hanam

Morgan James Hanam — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Hey, I’m not sure what you are saying, or how it relates to the post I was responding to. Certainly aesthetics is not simple, and worth is determined through culture, but that doesn’t mean there is no truth value in culture. It sounds like you agree with me.

By: marilove

marilove — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Your overuse of emoticons is obnoxious, especially considering they almost always follow a highly condescending sentence.

By: sarahnocal

sarahnocal — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:40:00 +0000

It might have been impressive if the result was actually something good, but this? Not so much. Anyone can produce mediocre work.
You need to get out more if you consider this “amazing”.

By: kairos

kairos — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:29:00 +0000

It made me think he was a really clever hipster-troll elizabot for a second, cause it’s so consistently used, but there are comments that don’t fit. Was actually pretty disappointed.

By: blueelm

blueelm — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:09:00 +0000

Neither an ipod nor an ashtray are considered fine art. Though I bet you would take a rare ashtray made by a ceramicist who is highly regarded and that has provenance because it was owned by some one terribly important and therefore carries a market value of several thousand dollars should you choose to sell it and the potential to appreciate, over an iPod that will likely be worth less than $20 in two years. In this way it is easy to see that nothing in the world of aesthetics is simple, and that the idea of “worth” is pretty much determined by culture.

By: Teller

Teller — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:21:00 +0000

“More apples on a table? Geez, Paul, and it takes you a week?”

By: Morgan James Hanam

Morgan James Hanam — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:18:00 +0000

Do it! (seriously) and include the comments, and maybe you might get a mention on Boing Boing…

By: Rob Boyle

Rob Boyle — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0000

quantity over quality? thats why we have the color lithography.

By: Morgan James Hanam

Morgan James Hanam — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:05:00 +0000

I don’t think you can have it both ways – either you’re “snobby” or art has no intrinsic merit. If “most of what’s produced” has no worth then you are actually being incredibly “snobby”. Much easier to actually ascribe relative worth to things. I bet you’d take an ipod over an ashtray. Why? Neither has any “intrinsic worth”. In this way it’s easy to see this position is actually reverse elitism, based on the idea that only currency matters, since nothing matters.

By: 666beast1

666beast1 — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:01:00 +0000

The short attention span of the internet strikes again. Do not confuse the speed with which he works with the paintings having any qualities that extend beyond the mediocre. If you think these are great, invest in Thomas Kincaid, coming to The Metropoloitan in 2087 for his one man show.

By: kringlebertfistyebuns

kringlebertfistyebuns — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:54:00 +0000

Sophomoric, intellectually sterile. ”Low” art.

The problem with being avant-garde is knowing who is putting on who.

By: kringlebertfistyebuns

kringlebertfistyebuns — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:48:00 +0000

Okay, Ruskin, we get it. It’s crap, kitsch, and kitschy crap, and all that. You’re edgy and discerning and a defender of Fine Art – we surrender. Your cookie is in the mail.

Fine art it ain’t, and I don’t see anyone suggesting it is. But if we take “totally amazing” to mean “neat to watch, and impressive that it can be done at all,” then yes.

The speed with which he’s painting doesn’t exactly lend itself well to finely-rendered works – it’s hardly surprising that he’s not turning out miniature Brueghels.

By: anondrea

anondrea — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:44:00 +0000

A guy at our hotel in Mazatlan years ago did pictures like this, though not quite this fast. I bought 3, for two reasons: 1) they make excellent souvenirs because they remind me so strongly of the atmosphere of the place, and 2) I genuinely think they’re pretty. I’m sure nobody would hang them in an art museum, but that doesn’t mean they’re not art.

By: ROSSINDETROIT

ROSSINDETROIT — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:38:00 +0000

Here’s my nuanced view on this art. I would buy it from him directly if I was there when it was painted but I would not buy it from a gallery. Part of his art is the performance of its production. If you get that performance with it, it’s art. If you don’t, it’s craft.

By: Jonathan Roberts

Jonathan Roberts — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

It kind of reminds me of someone solving a rubiks cube – for a while you don’t really know what’s happening until the painting starts to take some shape. Similarly to the rubiks cube, you just need to master some fairly simple techniques, but it seems like magic when you watch someone making what looks like random actions that turn into a meaningful form.

By: kringlebertfistyebuns

kringlebertfistyebuns — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

Ah, here it is…the cutting-comment-accompanied-by-smiley-emoticon gambit: Rhetorical crutch for people who can’t own their nastiness since 1982.