Daniel Millions asked:


Landscaping is one of those things many see as an art form. This meaning you can be extremely creative and design breathtaking scenery for a backyard or an office building. Landscaping is also a pricey investment for many people which can run from a few hundred dollars to several millions of dollars depending on the clients preference, taste, and budget.

This is a creative art form to some people who enjoy working with their hands and don’t care about getting dirty. It’s a rewarding job as it leads to more jobs down the line since many landscapers get their business from past clientele who refer them to family friends and other business colleagues. This is also a field of high competition because you will have to go up against other companies who may be larger or could be a chain that works in a single state or even other places and have a larger audience they work with. It’s ideal if you go into a field such as this to look at the market and how the competition fares out so you can take something from that and use it to your advantage and make it better than the competition.

The idea is to stay ahead of the game and to design a business that is more new and modern than the competition. This is ideal for those with areas strongly aiming for the business and marketing aspect of things. With business and marketing skills this also helps many stay ahead of the game and to make the business grow with new clients. This also works well in some people who want to make their business of being landscapers. Landscaping is also one of those areas that you can tailor to your market and client needs since some do specialized work in landscaping for homes and small businesses and some do commercial sized jobs and it all depends on what the market calls for at the time and what the client is looking for.

The nice thing about landscaping is that many businesses have regular vendors they work with for their product needs such as flowers, plants, and even tools and fertilizers and different chemicals used to treat the plants and the areas that are worked on. This is a broad spectrum field that many are getting into because of the rewards of the business that many are finding to be interesting.

Landscaping is one of those businesses that will never go out of business because it’s one of those fields that are needed. It goes along with fields such as Education, Health care, Legal, and Cosmotology it’s a field that many are going to use since they need teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and hairstylists. Landscapers are also needed more since you have a lot of older homeowners who don’t have the strength and energy to mow their own lawns and don’t have anyone who’s willing to do it so they’ll pay a landscape company to come out every year and cut their grass and maintain their yards.

It’s a lucrative business to service older and handicapped homeowners who don’t have the ability to maintain their own yards and need someone to help them do it. Many landscape companies will get a lot of business in the spring and summer months when people will need them the most to cut their grass and maintain their landscaping needs.



Linda

shalee64 asked:


What am I supposed to be looking for when explaining why art fits into its time period? I am doing Landscapes in the Baroque era.

Carl

vernie evangelista asked:


A friend of mine due to hard times has sold some of his properties and one is a painting that belongs to his family years ago. He was astonished to know the “market value” of the said painting when he had it for appraisal. He doesn’t realize what he had been admiring at their living room as child turns out as to what it can be considered a masterpiece!

Art can be lucrative if you had the eye and if you can research a little.

BUYING ART FOR THE NEWBIES

It is not simply for art for art’s sake. You must really know what you want and if you are planning to display it at your house, condo or building. As art is very broad in terms of styles and kind. Asked yourselves if you want a landscape, an abstract, a still life, a pen and ink etc…

How much is your budget? How much are you willing to pay? Most paintings now a days are competitively priced but usually…if you are buying from a relatively unknown artist it can prove to be affordable and the same time it can also be gamble ( hoping the art or the artist in the future can turn out to be another Jackson Pollack, Picasso or Juan Luna).

Well known artist or established artist works are usually high priced but it can prove to be worth your money in the long run. The market value of the art you bought is usually tied up with just how well respected or career driven the artist was. The tendency is his or her price would surely go up if there is a demand for it especially if that artist becomes a national artist—you hit the goldmine!

When buying art works, it pays to asked around either an art curator, professional art dealer, an art gallery owner or used to your advantage harness the power of the net. But really nothing beats when it is recommended by close friends or relatives.

 BUYING ART FOR BEGINNERS

 1) You must know the difference between buying oil, watercolor, pastel or acrylic. It is important to know what art materials are involved with the creation of that art work you are buying. Materials used by the artist should be high quality so the colors would be preserve or retain for a long, long time.

 2) Decide if you are going to buy directly from the artist itself, to an art dealer or go straight to the art gallery. Consider the framing, delivery and other services involved when negotiating with the price or what is included to your payment.

When buying through an art gallery, you usually get to know the profile of the artist and essentially getting a proof or certificate that what your buying is real not fake (as in original) and also verify if it has several reproductions already such as the print version.

If you are buying directly from the artist, you have the option to ask for an authentication paper complete with the artist’s signature.

3) Regardless if what you bought is from a relatively unknown artist or considered a masterpiece, you should also know how to preserve or maintain it. As time goes by it will be moisture and humidity to be the art pieces main enemy! Colors can fade. A retouch might be needed. Furthermore, don’t expose the painting to the sunlight as the harmful ultra violent rays can affect the colors of the paintings.

4) Your art should reflect your aesthetic taste. Choose art that can help you relax like a landscape or underwater. An art that can make you think like abstracts, an art that reflects your dreams and fantasies like surreal paintings. It brings out your personality and something that brings a certain kind of fulfillment—one that you can be truly proud of hanging at your walls.

5) You must remember value or price of your art work will not go up over night. Hence, treat it like a mutual fund or a time deposit. 

6) Always buy from reliable sources. The traditional way is still the best there is.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN RE-SELLING YOUR ART

1) Finding a prospective buyer is not easy. Unless, you have a cultured/art loving network. You can off course go through the expert hands of an professional art dealer or art gallery owner but they also get a great deal of share of your selling price.

2) Keep all the receipts, relevant documents like a copy of artist resume or any proofs of ownership. Especially if is a high end piece of art work.

Later on with enough experience you can build a collection that you can benefit from it in the long run. Always remember…time is your friend; don’t assume you can profit from your art work right away. The good news is…art doesn’t really decline instead its price usually goes up!

In the meantime, enjoy that priceless beauty of the art work you had purchased.

 http://noliespanola.bravehost.com



George

Suzanne asked:


 

The beauty of the heavens and the splendor of Mother Nature have found expression in art from time immemorial. The function of art has always been devoted to expressing beauty in all its diversity. No wonder, Aristotle described art as an imitation of life. Human beings take delight in the works of imitation (representation). This explains why man has always tried to represent whatever he sees around. The consequence of this human desire was the inception of landscape paintings- a genre as old as the first century A.D.

 

Landscape art refers to the portrayal of scenic beauty of nature, with the sky and weather conditions taking a considerable area of the canvas. The word ‘landscape’ is of Dutch origin (‘landschap’ meaning a sheaf or patch of cultivated ground). The word was finally included in the English vocabulary in the 17th century. The 15th century witnessed landscape painting gaining recognition as a major artistic genre in Europe. The themes used in these paintings chiefly drew from religious subjects, as can be found in Rest on the Flight into Egypt, the Journey of the Magi, or Saint Jerome in the Desert.

 

Historians often trace the origin of landscape painting to China. However, it was not before the Middle Ages that this genre earned recognition. The Italian painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti is credited with making the first painting devoted to landscape in around 1335. The development of this painting gradually initiated with travelers exploring their surroundings. In Rome, the ‘classical landscape’ flourished through the contribution of Paul Bril and Adam Elsheimer and the Italian painters, Annibale Carracci and Domenichino. The French artist, Claude Lorrain, reproduced some of the best instances of ‘classical landscape’. Set amidst classical subjects, his paintings gave over to vast landscapes with areas of light and space.

 

The 17th century saw landscape paintings embracing domestic and familiar settings especially in the works of the Dutch School- Van Goyen, Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Hobbema, Koninck, Cuyp, and others.The 19th century witnessed English painters taking cue from the Dutch and reproducing exuberant paintings in oil and watercolors. Wilson, Crone, Constable, Turner, Cotman, and Bonington are some of the notable names of the time.

 

Post Constable and Turner, the development of landscape painting occurred in France. The Impressionistic Movement cast a profound influence on this genre of art. The invention of oil paint in a tube changed the style of art. Since then, artists could go out and paint directly from the landscape. Vincent van Gogh carried this tradition forward, where he depicted personal emotions through his paintings. The blend of Romanticism and new Surrealism can be found in the early twentieth century, especially in the painted landscapes of Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland.

 

With the dawn of the modernism, landscape painting found itself projecting some gritty realism, paralleling the work of the ‘kitchen sink’ school in literature. However, landscape paintings are now showcasing a poetic approach as well; the works of Roger de Gray are an instance.

 

Thomas Cole took the landscape painting in the US to new heights with the foundation of the Hudson River School. As times keep on changing, the trends observed in every genre of art keep changing as well. New explorations, new movements, new innovations have always taken art to new heights, and so has landscape painting been influenced by these trends. Original paintings by the renowned landscape artists are treasured and will be treasured by the generations to come.



Brenda

Doc Watson asked:


As some of you might already know I can paint realistic and surrealistic paintings (and do so often enough) and portraits.

But over the years I’ve heard the cliche many times over that artists paint abstract art because they don’t have the real talent to do real art.

That’s not always the case, my friends. I work in abstract art also because it allows for a whole universe, a mental landscape, of expression that realism and neo-realism often enough does not allow.

Want to see what I mean here? It frees the creative soul and, when it comes out right, it’s fun!

http://pics.livejournal.com/unmired/pic/0003w0fc/g16

(As always you can click on the image to enlarge it.)

Why do you paint abstract art?

Andrea

I can has a cheezburger asked:


and i dont mean like drawing , painting i mean like pop art landscape, Manga, cartoons

Kathy

Jai asked:


I like flowers, art, landscape and the beach are naturally beautiful…

Ralph