easelspace.com

Direct link to newsletter at Caroline Jasper's website:
http://www.carolinejasper.com/index.htm

Excerpt:
COLOR CORNER - Color vs. Value:Color attracts your eye and prompts emotional response. It can also help to identify subject, interpret image, and impart overall mood or message. However, while color provides the entertainment, value does all the heavy work. Value is the essential impact factor. Value, more than color, imparts the illusion of spatial depth and form. Light and shadow differences (value contrast) define surface contours and imply volume. Our brains rely on dark/light data collected by our eyes in order to make sense of what is being seen. We see value first, color second. The absence of color in black and white photos does not confuse us, nor does the waning visibility of colors as sunlight daily fades to darkness. Value stays on the job when there is insufficient light to reflect color. In every painting's delicious recipe, value is cake itself. Color, is just the icing on top.

TIP for better skill in seeing values: Compare digital camera shots of both your reference and your painting. Accurate value representation is far more important than matching colors in the reference. If the painting is dark where needed and light where needed, it will carry the image visually. It matters less which colors are used.

--------------------------------
Caroline's books and DVDs contain many references, demos, and exercises pertaining to the importance of value in art.
www.carolinejasper.com

Our Philosophy:                                                         

Chad Wooters has a relatively simple formula for Artistic Success which can be seen on his site   www.chadwooters.com

Artistic Success = Peer Recognition + Personal Achievement + Sales

We think that sums up the philosophy of easelspace.com.

Peer Recognition - Through showing your work on here, you can get to meet like minded artists, create groups and share opinions, helping to build peer recognition.

Personal Achievement - We might not agree entirely with Chad on this one, but there can be no greater sense of achievement the day someone pays for your work. Even if you don't currently enjoy many sales, or any sales at all, you have to believe that someday you will. You are a professional. You deserve to be paid for your work. Period.

Sales - easelspace.com allows you to link back almost everywhere to your own website or sites like faa and help drive your sales.

---

Search engines really like content and changing content even better. It is YOU, the members of the site, who are the engine that drives the changing content of the site. You can achieve this by regular posting of art work (little and often therefore is more effective than many at once), by commenting on your own postings and those of others, and generally by active participation in groups, discussions and forums.

This behaviour results in a win/ win situation for all of us, the higher we are on the search engines the more users get to see your work."

---

Blogs and Articles:

Don't forget we have the blogs. If you have your own blog elsewhere, why not think about copying snippets every so often on to easel and then linking back to your site.

A few members have started doing this already, with some great information and interesting articles. Their websites show they have a real feel and understanding for marketing, but it is hard work and that is where easelspace can help, with all these useful tools in one place.

---

Groups :

Members can debate hot topics in specially created forums and post video and photos as part of their replies. Participants are notified of any new responses by email. What's more, groups are able to keep their own forums private. * Participants can follow discussion topics, receiving email alerts when someone responds * Groups can have their own private forums within them * Members can embed YouTube videos and photos into their responses

---

Forums:

Members can debate hot topics in specially created forums and post video and photos as part of their replies. Participants are notified of any new responses by email. What's more, groups are able to keep their own forums private. * Participants can follow discussion topics, receiving email alerts when someone responds * Groups can have their own private forums within them * Members can embed YouTube videos and photos into their responses

---

Twitter:

We have started building up a following on twittter and will be using that more over the summer to attract more visitors to the site, so any new art work and helpful articles posted on easelspace.com will certainly get a mention. If you are not using twitter we highly reccomend it, give us a follow and we will follow back.   Twitter

---

Gallery:

As a courtesy to fellow artists please only upload 10 images a day in the main gallery, this is to ensure everyone gets a fair viewing of their work in the main gallery