This post is by Jack White, regular contributing writer for FineArtViews.  Jack has enjoyed a forty-one year career as a successful fulltime artist and author. He has written for Professional Artist Magazine for 14 years and has six art marketing books published. In 1976 Jack was named the Official Artist of Texas. He has mentored hundreds of artists around the world.  Jack authored six Art Marketing books. The first, “Mystery of Making It”, describes how he taught Mikki to paint and has sold over six million dollars worth of her art. You should submit an article and share your views as a guest author by clicking here. 

One of the major reasons artist fail is they attempt to do what they know nothing about.

I’m acquainted with an artist that I’ve spent a great deal of time with teaching him to paint landscapes. Finally, he consistently painted with strong thresholds across the foreground and a splash of light into his subjects adding depth and interest. Great landscapes bring light into the scene and then block the sunshine from sliding off the canvas. Perhaps a tree, bush, pot, anything to prevent the light from slipping too far to the right. Why did I say right? I suggest that light come into a painting from the upper left. We read newspapers and books from left to right. Do the same with your paintings.

Last month, I got his newsletter announcing he was giving up the landscapes to become a portrait artist. I wrote asking if he knew the three color zones of a human face.

“COLOR ZONES!!! What do you mean color zones in a human face?” He shouted back over the Internet. No doubt I scared him. He felt secure, then with one question he suddenly let himself realize how little he knew about painting faces. Then I asked, “If you draw straight lines straight down from the center of the human eye where does it intersect?” Reluctantly, he emailed me the image. It was clear at first glance he owned an opaque projector. The nose on his portrait was too large, telling me his camera foreshortened the image. Many times you see really big hands on portraits. The artist didn’t know to compensate for the camera distortion. You also see a horse with a big head and small rump. If you use a camera for animals, people and such buy a long telephoto lens.

Peacemaker ~ Jack White

I didn’t jump to teach him portraits, because we had already spent five years perfecting his landscapes. He was selling, Very Well. We had been showing him how to look at a scene, select and then execute the painting. Many times it’s what you leave out that’s more important than the stuff you add in. Just because there’s an ugly telephone pole, cell tower or highline wires doesn’t mean you should screw up your painting by including them. Some artist don’t know enough to be selective as to what to not add into a scene. Your goal is to make a painting folks will buy, not to record nature in a perfect delineation. You can’t compete with a camera, but you can paint emotions.

Truculently, the landscape painter emailed me his pride and joy portrait. I could almost feel his anger in defense of his work. His chip was placed squarely on his shoulder. The first thing I noticed was his catch lights were located perfectly in the center of his subjects pupils. This made the subject look like they were on drugs. You see a lot of new and none seasoned portrait artists making this glaring mistake. His photograph had the catch lights in the center of the pupil so why would he make corrections? The reason is he didn‘t know, he simply copied what he saw. He, like so many others, learned to trace or project the human face onto a canvas then fill in the blanks. No doubt he was thinking the client would like the portrait, because he traced a photo. A portrait is much more than a photo copy with the lines filled in. He had the mistaken idea that was all there was to painting portraits. He knew none of the important things necessary to render a fine portrait. He had never studied the planes of the human head. No one had ever told him that the catch light in the eyes are always placed at 11 or 1 o'clock - just at the edge of the pupil. The light shins through the cornea, highlighting the iris across from the catch light. Like a highlight on the top of a jar, the light catches on one edge and reflects straight across. He didn’t understand painting soft edges into a wet background to prevent his subject from looking cut out.

New artists are the worst. They paint a few pieces and then decided to paint some faces. Nothing is as bad as a poorly painted portrait. One thing in common with all beginning portrait painters, they fill the mouth with teeth. Teeth are almost impossible to paint. If they are too dark, the teeth look dirty. Too white and the teeth jump out of the mouth.

I was on a roll my third year as an artist. My income was climbing almost daily and banks were phoning me to do shows in their lobbies, including the First National Bank in El Paso. On Sunday a night, the president and board directors gave me a catered reception, inviting several key bank clients. The place was crowded. Art was selling as fast as I could write orders. I had one large show-stopper, which was my pride. The painting was of a six-horse hitch stagecoach. This was done in my gold leaf technique. When I was about as high as possible an old bow legged rancher, in scuffed boots stopped examining my painting. If my memory is correct, he was wearing jingling spurs, which was not all that uncommon back then. I’d been told he owed the largest cattle ranch in the area. He cocked his head and said as only a loud Texan can, “You don’t know much about a six horse hitch, do yah?” He could not have spoken louder with a bullhorn.

Everyone in the room stopped. You could hear a pin drop. Suddenly all eyes in that crowded room were on me. I gulped, stuttering something in defense.

Pointing with a finger that looked ten inches long, he barked, “Look here, you left out this lead line. Without that line the horse on the right won’t know to turn. He needs that line to turn him.” By then, most of the bank was listening. I knew any defense I came up with would be too late. I envisioned a long line of people wanting their money back. In truth I did know, I’d been raised on a working ranch and had hooked up four and six team hitches many times. In haste to finish the piece I forgot the extra line, which is easy enough to do. I finally felt the best answer was, “Much obliged, for pointing out my glaring mistake. I’ll bet my best boots, you would't hire me during dipping time.”

I tossed in cattle dipping, because I knew that with his ranch being so close to Mexico, tick fever was always a threat. Until I mentioned cattle dipping, he was getting ready to leave. He suddenly knew, I knew. He cocked his head again. “I suspect you knew, but forgot to add the line. Too bad about the mistake, I was thinking about taking this to my office.”

Then the salesman in me rose to the top, “Mr. Walters, it might be more of a conversation piece with the lead line missing. You could test people to see if they could find my mistake.”

He broke into a smile for the first time, “Young feller, I bet you could sell refrigerators to Eskimos.” He pulled out a roll of hundred dollar bills that would choke a horse and pealed off 50 crisp new Ben Franklins. Back then $5,000 was my biggest sale to date. When he shook my hand, his grasp was like a vice. I tried to squeeze back with little success.

Then he stunned me, “Boy do you like to hunt?”

I didn’t want to tell him no, so I answered the last time I hunted was with Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson on Governor Dolph Briscoe’s ranch.

“Next year give me a call and I’ll take you to Mexico get you a real deer, those skinny things Dolph (Briscoe) has is embarrassing to shoot.” The old rancher died that Christmas so I never made the hunting trip. I hated his loss, but I no longer cared to kill deer. When I was a boy we needed the meat for food. It was okay back then but just to pick out one with a massive rack for my wall was no longer appealing.

I know of a western artist by seeing his work in the art publications. He does a great job with people, either cowboy or Indian. Then he places them on horses. It’s clear his photographs are taken in a western photo shoot. There are companies providing sets for those doing western subjects to take photos. Thirty to forty artists show up for a three day shoot. The company provided mountain men, gunfighters, Buffalo soldiers, in authentic garb also cattle and horses. When a horse gets tired his ears droop. Since that artist doesn't know horses, he paints the drooping ears as seen in the photos. The rider will be perfect and the horse’s ears will be saying "I’m ready to get this rig off my back and wallow in the mud." This is a clear example of an artist painting what they don’t know. Don’t paint horses unless you know them.

In a recent issue of Western Art Collector, there was a painting of an Indian on a horse killing a bison. The horse's head was bigger than the bison. It was clear he had never seen a horse next to a bison. His lack of knowing his subject revealed how little he knew.

I did a series of McDonalds restaurants in the Salt Lake City area. I was clueless on the history of Mormon Church. I flew out to Salt Lake, went to their library, purchased books and talked to some locals historians. Hand-pushed carts were something I knew nothing about. Remember what you don’t know shows. The franchise owners were Mormon. When my art was installed one called to tell me how authentic my paintings were. That’s because I took the time to learn about the struggle of their migration. If you don’t know, then learn.

When you don’t know, don’t try to fake it. People will see you are a fraud and no matter how good you get they won’t ever truly believe in you again.

It’s always a good idea to make your client the expert. In Salt Lake City, the franchise owner talked for two non-stop hours giving me his expertise on all phases of the Mormons movement west. He offered to get good photographs and be available for advice. If you don’t know, find out before you screw up.

Donald Fox asked in one of his articles what was the best advice anyone had given us. I answered, A. D. Greer telling me to stay focused. I should have said what Bill Ryder told me in 1970, not long after I began making art. Bill was already an accomplished painter when we met. He told me, “Jack you will be tempted to try to paint things you know nothing about. Resist the temptation. People who know…KNOW!”

Frankly at the time, I didn’t know enough to appreciate his advice. I wanted to be able to paint everything. My thinking was all great artists should be able to paint anything. Then I began to observe how G. Harvey had switched from painting bluebonnets to focus on one subject, cowboys on horses walking in the direction of the viewer. In colleg,e he had worked in a gallery carrying Edouard Cortes, who painted wonderful wet street scenes. Gerald (G. Harvey) was able to take the Cortes style into the western motif. He found his voice. He is a millionaire several times over painting what he knows and has become a very respected painter, doing simple, yet powerful work.

My best advice is stay focused until you master what you know. The fastest way to the top is being really good at something, rather than knowing a little about a lot. I see many, many websites where the work looks like ten different artists did the art. If you want to be successful, then find what you know the most about, then become an expert on that one voice.