Cindy’s Blog
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Community Spirit Award – DrawPj.com Art Competition 2012
Awarded by DrawPJ.com Course Founders This is a very important award. Here at DrawPj.com we encourage community spirit and greatly prize our members with a generous heart. This award is given to the student who has contributed the most towards stimulating...
Best DrawPj.com Online Gallery – DrawPj.com Art Competition 2012
Awarded by Chris Postle This person was selected from all personal galleries to be awarded for the student gallery with the highest standard of artworks created either within the DrawPj.com art course or outside of the art course. This prize includes a trophy and...
Best Major Project Award – DrawPj.com Art Competition 2012
Awarded by Chris Postle For the artwork that demonstrates technical excellence and an emotional connection to the subject. Sponsored by: Chroma Australia This prize includes a trophy, certificate and $280 worth of art materials. Awarded to: Angela Deck Artwork...
Most Promising Artist – DrawPj.com Art Competition 2012
Awarded by Course Founder Cindy Wider For the most promising artist is selected from all beginner and mentored level members. This prize includes a trophy, certificate and 12 months complimentary study under Cindy Wider in the Mentored Level area of DrawPj.com...
Cindy Wider Documentary ABC Open and Queensland Arts Council
Cindy Wider was involved in a documentary program 'Artist by Artist' to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Queensland Arts Council. ABC Open and the QAC produced a series of videos about the lives and work of a group of Queensland based artists. ABC Open Artist...
How To Remove The Blindfold and Access Your Artist’s Eye On Demand
Have you ever felt like you are wearing a blindfold when you begin to draw, as though something is blocking your vision. You try to draw but what you see in your mind doesn't come out of your hand and onto your paper. It feels like there's a miscommunication going on...
Art Exhibition by Course Founder Cindy Wider
Cindy Widers Exhibition 'Rolling Hills of White Flat' at the Cooper Gallery, Noosaville, Australia. 4-7 March 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLp1pOG2JW8 Bush Fires. Sweltering heat. Suffocating dirt and dust. Backbreaking manual labour. Livestock and Farmland. In...
Cindy Wider Upcoming Exhibition Details & Radio Interview
Cindy Wider (DrawPJ.com founder) was interviewed by Diet Simon of Noosa Community Radio in the lead up to Cindy's new art exhibition, which will open in Noosa at the Cooper Gallery, and then tours to Winton at the Waltzing Matilda Centre. Download Radio Interview...
‘Before and After’ Gallery
These drawings represent the progress of students drawing skills while studying the 'Complete Drawing and Painting Certificate Course’ via internet correspondence. You will notice on the left side that people enter the course at various levels of drawing ability, but...
Learn The Secret of How To Develop Your Artist’s Eye And Draw Better Immediately
Download this article as a PDF file and share it with your friends! We often hear people say (about an artist) when they admire a great realism drawing, “Oh he’s definitely got the Artist’s Eye” but what is The Artist’s Eye and how can you can get it? It’s true, you...
Monique Miller blogs about her DrawPj art journey
Monique is currently working though the Portraiture unit of the Draw and Paint In Your Pyjamas art course, and shares her journey as an artist on her blog M. Miller Art, posting the instructor comments on her work, which may be interesting viewing and reading for...
How to know when an artwork is finished
Over the years many course participants have asked us a question that goes like this... "How do I know when my drawing/painting is finished?" This is a good question! Coming to the end of an artwork can almost be as scary as starting at the beginning. There's always...
Your Natural Gifts for Drawing Revealed
Did you know that the average healthy person is on a daily basis already using the skills needed for drawing realistically? The exciting thing about learning to draw is that you already possess natural gifts that you can combine to form the whole skill needed for...
Your Natural Gift of Horizontal and Vertical Comparison
Lets test your first natural gift. Here's your first question (in a series of five). You walk into your living room and there is a painting hanging on the wall. The painting is hanging crookedly. What would you do next? (a) Get a strong urge to straighten it, and then...
Your Natural Gift of Size Comparison
Here's your second question (in a series of five). You go to the kitchen and there’s a tasty looking chocolate cake on the table. You have eight(!) hungry kids who all want a piece. What would you do next? (a) Cut the cake so there are eight evenly size pieces. (b)...
Your Natural Gift of Arranging Objects
Here's your third question (in a series of five). You have just moved house and even though the removalists unpacked and arranged all your furniture, cushions and decorative objects in the living room, it’s not organised quite how you would like. What would you do?...
Your Natural Gift of Light and Dark Comparison
Here's your fourth question (in a series of five). You’re on holiday, it’s a lovely summer day and you’ve decided to leave the mobile phone at home, turn off the TV and radio and put away all the clocks in the holiday apartment. You fall into a relaxed holiday doze...
Conquering Artability Phobia
Here's your fifth question (in a series of five). Which of these statements do you feel apply to you? (a) I know I can become really good at drawing with practice. (b) I’m not sure if I can draw but I’ll give it a go. (c) There isn’t a creative bone in my body. I...
You already have the gifts… where to from here?
Conclusion of our series of posts about your natural gifts for drawing... By combining the four natural gifts that you already have with some traditional art skills, you will be quickly able to draw. You don’t need to enter any mysterious altered state of...
How to Get in an Art Gallery Without Trying (and how I did it twice)
You’ve stood outside the gallery and gazed in just wishing that your artworks could be in there, under the bright halogen lights that make every artwork look like its worth a million dollars. If only the gallery director would see your work, if only he would give you a chance, then your dreams could come true. Is its really possible? Could it happen? Well yes it can, but first you have to go under the radar!
Art Collectors – What do they really want?
As an Artist, you are a hunter. You didn't know it, but you are. You are hunting elusive and rare game called the 'Art Collector'. Mostly solitary creatures, roaming the plains of the art gallery establishment they need very tasty bait if you want them to come out of...
Art Agents for Early Career Artists – Good or Evil?
Years ago when I first took the plunge into the professional art world I started out creating screen prints in runs of up to 100 at a time with home-made equipment in my Garage. I figured it would make sense to be able to distribute my wonderful works as widely as...
Art Tutoring – 10 tips for supporting your art career by teaching art
The income of a professional visual artist can be a roller-coaster ride of financial highs and lows, and knowing this, many artists naturally turn to teaching art in order to bring in some bread and butter income. I myself have taken this path in the past, and along...
Creating Mini Art Prints for fun and profit
You've created a brilliant artwork. All your friends want it but of course they don't want to part with the vast sums of money required to prise this gleaming jewel of paint and canvas from your hot little hands. They ask "is there a print available?" The trouble is...
Procrastination – how to overcome it
Life is so busy. There are so many distractions. So many things to keep your eye off the ball. It's almost a full time job being an administrator of your own life. Everybody has their hand out wanting money. Bills keep coming in. Friends demand be Facebooked and...
How to hang an art exhibition
And so the time has come... Exhibition day is almost upon you. You've loaded up the back of your compact car with all your artworks in such a way that you would think that your vehicle must defy the laws of the universe by having more interior space than is indicated...
Taking photos of paintings – tips for non-photographer artists
Photographing art... For me F-stops and exposure times are alien concepts, however, that does not prevent me from making a relatively decent job of taking snaps of my work to pop on websites, brochures or those snazzy little gallery exhibition cards. I admit it. I'm...
Is your Artworld in Recession?
So, what do we do now? Just sit twiddling our creative fingers? Or do we get on and do 'something' while we're waiting for the affluent people to feel affluent again? Okay, enough already! Everybody has now heard that we're in recession and the media seem to bang on...
Is your Art a Charity Case?
For some reason whenever charity committees get together there is always someone (let's call her Jenny Brightspark) who displays their pure money raising genius to everyone by brightly suggesting "Lets have a charity art raffle / auction / lucky door prize" (*delete...
Selling Your Art – The Golden Rules of Art Sales Hand-to-Hand Combat
It's a jungle out there and now its time to engage in guerrilla warfare and hand-to-hand combat in order to sell your art direct to the public. Don't like the analogy? Think all this art sales stuff should be all comfortable and snuggely like a warm blanket? Yes of...