Colin Ruffell

Canvas, hardboard, paper or plank. A lot of non-artists don’t have much idea about why artists use such a variety of surfaces for their paintings. So here is a very basic whizz through the subject. Stack of canvases in studio Canvas, hardboard, paper or plank. These four surfaces are the common available products that an artist can paint on, or have used, for making his or her paintings. Of course there are also other surfaces such as walls, fences, metal, pottery, and even h

How to sell your art. This is the biggie. The big question that successful artists get asked all the time. And of course the answer is both simple and complex. Simple because the way that anybody sells anything is the same, everywhere, every time. And complex because everybody is different, in different places, and at different times. But the lesson to learn is that the simple way will work, and does work. I am reminded of the tale of the teacher who was teaching something an

Many years later… These two photographs show my daughter and myself [Shyama Ruffell and Colin Ruffell] on a couple of occasions while exhibiting our art together. CR and SR 1968 CR and SR 2016 The first one was taken about 48 years before the second one. Exact date unknown, but probably 1968. Location Bayswater Road, London, on a Sunday, at the Open Air art-exhibition hanging our work for sale onto the railings outside Hyde Park. I was a regular licensed exhibitor at Bayswat

Starve, strive, survive, then thrive. That is the basic formula for an artist to go from the starving artist phase to the thriving artist phase. Phase? I can hear those that question the word ‘phase’ ring out across the ether. So, yes, an artist’s career path can described a series of phases. We start by a phase in the infamous ‘starving artist’ mode. Then move onto a ‘striving artist’ phase, and the ‘surviving artist’ phase. Before reaching the ‘thriving artist’ promised lan