The Art Market Smashing Records: You Might Smash A Few Too

  Oh I most definitely appreciate all of the patrons of the world who buy, and therefore support, the world's art. Unfortunately the middle class is rapidly diminishing, and there is a wider gulf between the rich and the poor every day. Wealthy people obviously need culture in their lives, but so does everyone else. How do hundred-aires get into the buying original art game?

  I don't know much about markets, investments, or business in general, but art is hot right now. 

According to an article from the Associated Press viewed here, art sales are up even in a more than shaky economy- in fact records have been broken in succession within the last few weeks. 

Edvard Munch's The Scream

  Pictured above: the late Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's The Scream tipped the first domino with a record sale at auction of almost $120 million on May 2nd of this year. Go Norwegian artists! YEAH!

  The second domino to fall shortly after The Scream was Russian artist Mark Rothko's abstract expressionist piece titled Orange Red and Yellow. The purchase of this minimalist masterwork set the new record for contemporary art auctions at just shy of $87 million on May 8th. Russian artists stand up!!!

Mark Rothko's Orange Red And Yellow 

  A slew of other high value art purchases continued and may still be running for a while. The a-fore mentioned article by the Associated Press reports that the art sales business is booming right now while almost everything else struggles to reach restoration. In the same report linked above Nicolai Frahm of Frahm Ltd in London is quoted as saying, "People feel very safe about buying art. You have a huge amount of new buyers coming to the market. If you have money, you want to be a part of buying art. People almost are considered imbeciles if they have money and they're not buying."


  I'm glad the wealthy are buying art at a healthy rate right now, but they shouldn't be the only ones able to make this kind of investment- right? Believe me, they don't have to be the only ones. How did the previous owner of The Scream manage to own that iconic piece? He was a patron of Munch's. That's right, they were neighbors and the gentleman liked Edvard's work so he became a patron of his art. Do you have friends that create art? If so, and you like it, maybe you should buy some. If you can't afford to spend even a few hundred dollars on original art (I know I can't) you might be able to spend $5 to $20 on an ACEO. Click On This to sort through many many artists auctioning their original miniature art on Ebay.com. Find one two or three artists you like and bid a few dollars on some original pieces. If you're not impressed with the miniature card stock format just remember that The Scream up there was created on cardboard. You never know if you might be collecting the work of the next top selling artist- and it's very affordable I might add. Go ahead, get into the art buying game. Support a budding artist and allow their work to bless your home and your collection. I promise you'll enjoy it immensely.

Commissions For Sale

Link to my new Etsy shop

  My Etsy shop has been down for a little while. I apologize to everyone who has clicked on the shop link up above only to find no items listed. I hope to make up for that starting now. Click on the link to my shop and you will find that I've created a new banner and posted some options for original commissioned art. My goal within the next quarter is to turn this Etsy shop into a place where I can sell limited print runs of new original work every month. For now I have portraits on commission opportunities for sale, but strike while my pencil and stylus are hot because I'm not sure how long I will be able to create customized work with a never ending queue of projects waiting to be finished. Oh the life of an artist. We'll see how well these commissions do at such a competitive price. I'll offer them for as long as I can afford to.

  The commission options are as follows...

Digital Commissions:

      -Custom Drawing of up to 2 subjects- you e-mail me reference pictures and I e-mail the digital drawing to you with no shipping costs

      -Custom Drawing of 3 to 4 subjects- "              "             "

Paper Commissions:

      -Custom Drawing of up to 2 subjects- you e-mail me references and I ship the original drawing to you with shipping costs

      -Custom Drawing of 3 to 4 subjects- "              "              "

      -Custom ACEO drawing of one subject- "            "              "

  Over-all my vision is to continue to auction my original personal work on my ebay account and sell high quality limited prints of those pieces and others on the Etsy shop. Visit both shops often. Of course I will do my best to post any changes here as they come. Thank you all so much for supporting my work!

Trading Original Art With Judy Brick

Chicago Looking South... by: Judy Brick

 Artist Judy Brick and I are members of IllustratedATCs.com an international community of artists who make ATCs and ACEOs. We traded our art cards recently, and I had to share her work with the world. We found out that we had both lived in Chicago at some point in our lives so we decided to draw city skylines for eachother. She would draw our beloved Chicago, and I would draw my beloved Los Angeles which is where I currently live. I love her blue and violet color pallet in this piece, but my favorite element is the soft watercolor clouds in the background. This card reminds me of many humid Summer mornings riding the red line on the L to downtown. Not only did she send me this wonderful ATC, but she also sent me some blank vintage paper she found at an estate sale pre-cut to ATC size. Thank you for a great trade Judy!

Los Angeles in watercolor by: John Tallacksen

  Above is the card I painted and traded to Judy. I found an older picture of downtown Los Angeles and I let that inspire my color scheme. The piece was delicately painted in watercolor because the city's fragile water supply has been on my mind a lot lately. Downtown rises above the horizon line like a crown against the faded blue sky. Down below in the foreground is the barrios where there are stories of good times in the light, but also sorrowful times in the shadows. The shadows and silhouettes make the houses in the foreground stand out and therefore reinforces their closer proximity to the viewer. I hope to bring some of those stories to my audience in future pieces.

  Trading original art for original art among other artists brings a very satisfying feeling. The idea of miniature art being traded like currency between people is very appealing to me. I encourage you to join our global community in the trade.

Spray Paint and ACEOs Hecha en L.A.

Green Iguana- spray paint and deco markers on trading card by: John Tallacksen

  The very green and yellow iguana above is my second experiment with aerosol paint and ACEOs. As far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong, there is only one other artist in the ACEO world who uses spray paint and that is Daniel Flores. 

  Personal history lesson: I met Daniel Flores in Los Angeles back in 2008. We were both a part of a local art movement called L.A. Street Productions. Back in the early 90's L.A. Street Productions became the first collective of artists to create ACEOs and ATCs in the L.A. area. There still aren't that many artist in Los Angeles making trading cards. Mr. Flores became one of our premier ACEO artists. He continues a very successful run on selling ACEOs on ebay to this day. For a while he was using spray paint to create his backgrounds. I saw that and decided to try it myself. I am an advocate and practitioner of street art (only legal) so of course I loved the idea of taking my deco markers and spray paint collection into my body of miniature artwork. You'll find that this is a unique style within ACEOs emanating from L.A. and quite possibly nowhere else as of this writing.

Please visit my auctions on ebay.com to bid on this card and many more.  

Sea Gull ACEO And More

Herring Gull ACEO by John Tallacksen

  This art card is one of my latest auctions posted on ebay.com. Some of my auctions are running out of time so make sure that you aren't missing something you would like to bid on. I plan on posting more this week so stay tuned!

Tales From The Sketchbook

As mentioned before I've been spending a lot of time in the sketchbook with some social groups like Drink and Draw and Sketchcrawl. Below are some of the latest sketches. 

Mi Oración

This piece is being auctioned over the next 9 days at my ebay store.

Title: Mi Oración (my prayer)

Description: A painting on a broken skate deck of Death losing it's sting over the city of Los Angeles, and hopefully your city as-well.

Story: The broken skate deck I used for this piece was given to me by a young skater from my neighborhood in Los Angeles. I collect these from the skaters so I can turn them into art. I find it fascinating that this board of wood has not only traveled the streets and hidden corners of my city, but literally slid across almost every surface I can imagine. What other artifact knows the city more intimately than these skateboards? The jagged crack that runs through this particular deck reminded me of a city skyline which gave me the idea for this piece. Mi Oracion has been in different art exhibits around Los Angeles at Tribal Cafe and Mama's Hot Tamales. It is a very special piece to me because of the prayer it carries. 

Medium:Aerosol paint, acrylic, deco markers, white-out, and twine to hang it.