Fine Arts Model

☛ What inspired you to become an artist?

☛ How did you get where you are today?

☛ What is the main challenge you face when beginning a painting?

☛ At what point in the process of the painting do you begin to feel like the painting is almost completed?

☛ How has painting influenced your life?

☛ What qualities do you look for in people you work with or other artists?

☛ How do you manage balancing work/life?

☛ What do you like most about your career?

If by that you mean success as judge in dollars, then I have failed miserably. I have discovered that being a good artist sometimes has nothing to do with financial success in this business. The business side of art has to do with marketing, showmanship and the bullshit factor.

Absolutely. An easel painter paints for himself; a muralist paints for others. It takes more ingenuity and creativity to work around the clients demands and still get your way. But also, a painting is a self-contained environment; a mural is contained in an environment.

Understanding this principle is what separates muralist from easel painters. You would be surprised to discover how many artists have tried to become muralist and failed. They simply could not adjust their thinking.

☛ Tell us about yourself.

☛ What do you enjoy outside of your job?

☛ Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

☛ What is a goal you would like to accomplish?

☛ Where did you earn your degree?

☛ Why did you choose this institution?

☛ How will your educational background help you be successful in this position?

☛ How would you describe your communication skills?

☛ What drives you to work in the field of fine arts?

☛ Do you prefer to work with a team or as an individual?

☛ What personal experiences and skills do you have within the art community?

In my experience, most clients want to see a finished painting of the finished painting before they say yes to a commission. The only way I will do so is if they pay me for all the time and effort that will take. They rarely agree to do this.

What I do instead is "describe" what the painting is going to look like. I show a sample of my work so they can judge the quality of the draughtsmanship and painting style, and I ask them to trust my judgement. So far, I have had no complaints.

I am neither religious or superstitious; I am agnostic and academic. But I will protect people's right to have their own convictions even if I do not agree with them. I also try to be aware of the beliefs of others because this is going to influence how they perceive me.

It's what I do for a living; it's not my life. I'm not in love with it; I simply don't mind doing it.

Getting paid. ;)

Many school districts can't offer you huge amounts of money for art projects. Explain that you're a natural bargain shopper. You'll always seek out the best deals on art supplies.

You should remind the interviewer of your no-waste philosophy. You don't let kids throw away big scraps of paper that can be used again. You'll try to unclog those stuffed up glue bottles, rather than throw them away.

Also, let them know that you can make artwork from simple, everyday household objects. Maybe you know how to make Christmas ornaments from light bulbs or you can turn empty soup cans into lanterns.

Because I only paint when someone hires me to paint. Except for a few panels that I keep for myself, I have nothing else to show.

Yes, but not because I paint. I am a good artist because of my ability to transform the obvious from invisible to prominent through my expressed observations, which I may or may not choose to communicate in a visual image.

Through a visualizing technique: I listen carefully to the client's ideas and desires and I listen for the things he or she is not telling me. What they want is usually in between.

Then I lie down, close my eyes and do absolutely nothing. In a few minutes, hours, days... a week (it depends on the complexity of the commission), I will have the entire painting visualized in my mind, every detail, exactly as it will look when it's finished.

The rest is easy: I do the required research, gather the necessary props and materials, make some mental revisions, and then, I paint the picture that's inside my head.

Only when doing a teaching workshop. Never on professional commissions. That is not the place to be teaching (though spectators are always welcome). Professional mural painting is not a democratic process or a paint-by-numbers enterprise.

Non-professional help dilutes the quality of the work. Let's go back to the brain surgery analogy: would you like some volunteers working on your head? I do however, take experienced art students as apprentices.

You should have your teaching portfolio with you at an interview. Since you're an artist, your portfolio should include pictures of your own artwork, in addition to lesson plans and student artwork. Be sure the works you show the committee are appropriate for a school setting. Don't show them your latest nude sketch or a violent scene. Keep the content of the material in your portfolio light, upbeat, and positive.

To continue the flow of conversation and to understand the work of the artist this is the best question to ask him in an interview. Every artist has their own unique style of working to brings out their creativity in their work. Every artist follows their own set of guidelines and procedure to do their work. Hence by asking this question to the artist we can understand how they work to brings out the creativity.

It's like having the best of both worlds. It has also produced some funny side effects. One of my greatest artistic assets with some of my wealthy clients, it's generally... my accent. It makes me sound foreign and sophisticated (in spite of being a buckeye from Cleveland, Ohio).

Clients who can afford to get any competent artist are always looking for something extra to come with the package. So they will choose the one they can impress their friends with. They want to say, "I am sophisticated because I picked him".

This is a simple question. Describe your "best work" as a teacher. In other words, you're looking to tell them about project that was engaging to the students, educational in terms of artistic development, and well-received by others when it was displayed. Pass around some pictures of this lesson from your teaching portfolio!

We live in a society and we do have some social responsibility. An artist is the role model for a society. Hence his work can made a lot of impact to the society. There are many problems in the society and we need to solve the problem. An artist can help the society in finding the solution of the problem through his artwork.

As we know that every artist has their own style of working .We need to understand the integral part of his work to know him better. This is also a one of the good questions to ask to an artist in an interview.