Brittany Davis Gallery

Meet your teachers

How to Become a Professional Artist

My name is Nic McGuire, I have been an artist my whole life and have been selling my work professionally since college. I currently am represented in ten galleries throughout the United States and my work is collected all over the world. What I thought was going to be an art career as a surrealist painter turned into an exciting and successful life of a glass sculptor. I grew up on the coast of California in San Diego where I am still lucky enough to call my home. Being a hands-on creative person has been both fulfilling to my inner self and challenging to make my art a successful business to support my family. I specialize in hand blown glass sculptures that express an impressionistic and whimsical sense of life through animals and other objects. My work is about making unique one of a kind objects that inspire the viewer to think about the delicacy and wonder of the amazing world we live in. I am currently working on keeping my galleries stocked up with artwork to sell as well as creating large art installations for commercial businesses and private homes.

What are three tips you would give an artists looking to transition to a full time art career?

Firstly is to find your best ROI, short for return on investment. Ok, you are already a creative artist and are here to figure out how to make the jump from working for someone else to working for yourself. It is of the utmost importance that you focus on how your art is going to translate into dollars in your bank account. What can you make that will yield you the most money for the least effort? Many of my artist friends struggle with this question because they overthink the simplicity of it and start questioning other aspects of themselves as artists. I’m not asking you to “sell out” and make crappy art here just to make a few bucks. The question is: Of the 5 types of art whatever they are I currently make, which one can I sell frequently that I earn the highest amount of profit for the smallest amount of time spent to make it.

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How to be a mural artist

Skye’s art is emotional and raw showcasing her emotions and transcribing it into her canvases and murals for all to see. There is an unintended process to her art that cannot be explained but felt. With Light and dark moments and events in her life, she has learned to let her heart self sooth in creating an expressive flow of paint whether happy or sad, angry or content. There is no style of work that she creates for she paints what she wants when she wants without an outline of what it will be. This is what makes her free.

Skye founded Skyepoet in 2007 to help share art and other artists. She believes that sharing is caring and we are all in it together in this world. She donates murals to her surrounding community and involves locals to take part in her projects. Currently her company offers commissioned murals, original fine art, art rentals and artist mentoring. Her sister website SkyepoetCommunity.com supports her featured artists that she writes about giving them a platform that shares their art, news and exhibits.

“I find that paint and stretched canvas are made for better company. Paint runs through my veins, across my heart and trails to my fingertips transcribing emotion from brush to canvas. I am a Random Sphere of Logical Babble.” – Skye Amber Sweet

Skye Amber Sweet has murals all over Los Angeles. As a successful woman muralist she will share how she broke into the industry and keeps herself busy doing what she loves.

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The Art of the Hustle

David Flury is a self-taught artist who grew up in South Central Los Angeles and whose work is very much informed by graffiti art as well as the work of an earlier generation of Chicano artists. He explained to Latinopia the evolution of his artistic style. David Flury, born in Los Angeles, defined his goals and passion to share his work with the masses while taking art classes in college. Raised by his mother, who is of Guatemalan descent, David primarily connects with his Mayan roots. One may easily recognize the Latino influence in his paintings through the images he creates, and the vibrant primary colors he uses to make each artwork illuminate.
David Flurry has been successfully selling his artwork for decades and showing in gallery exhibits. Get some inside knowledge in his course from this talented painter.

David Flurry has been successfully selling his artwork for decades and showing in gallery exhibits. Get some inside knowledge in his course from this talented painter.

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How to get pet or portrait commissions

Taught by Kathryn PittMy name is Kathryn Pitt and I am an artist From the UK. I haven’t always been a working artist but since moving to the US ten years ago I became an artist full time and becoming a pet portrait artist was born out of this decision.
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Art has always been part of my life. I had amazing art teachers in high school where they introduced me to many creative techniques. I went on to do a Foundation course in Fine Art and then a degree in history of Art,Design and Film. Although my careers have led from creative industries to working with Health and social services I have continued to create in all manner of ways. Like most people art was and is a form of meditation, something that I feel i need to do and explore. I was lucky enough to need to rethink my career after I immigrated and decided I would dedicate my time to painting.
I create many types of 2D content and I try and sell my work through galleries and through my online presence. I also apply to various juried art shows.
It is very hard to achieve financial security as an artist and it is a good thing to have many strings to your bow, or different avenues of cash flow. Pet portraiture has become one of my avenues as it can be a more lucrative way into the art world. I like that I receive a commission for a painting rather than paint a painting then have to try and sell it!
That is an outline of hard facts. The more emotional aspect to selling art is that all artists have an ego and selling a piece of work is a justification that you can do it and that you do have talent. The thought that someone will have a piece of art work on their walls for years to come is a very fulfilling feeling.
Pet portraiture doubles that affect. Not only does someone chose you to commission a portrait, they want you to paint something that they love. The painting will be cherished. The feeling doesn’t get better than that.
Lots of things inspire me to create, light, nature, color are mainstays and are in abundance in Southern California and that has definitely influenced my art in the last ten years. Mostly other artists inspire me. I scour social media in search of new artists, go to as many exhibitions and galleries as I can and study techniques to learn and grow.
Personal development is extremely important. You need to keep learning, ask for and take advice and experiment. trust in yourself and you will know the you are ready.
“Creativity takes courage” – Henri Matisse

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Public Artist

Taught by professional stone carver Rude C.Rude Calderón was born in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he spent the first seven years of his life. His family immigrated with him to Los Angeles, California in 1964 where he has remained all his life.

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Rude’s father apprenticed and worked in his uncle Manuel Zuñiga’s sculpture studio, creating religious sculpture in the Spanish baroque tradition. His deep respect for materials and craftsmanship is rooted in this family history.

Stone sculpture is at the center of Rude Calderón’s artistic work, the past eighteen years have been largely devoted to this medium. His artworks show a reverence towards the handling and natural appearance of materials that infer the omnipresent mystery of nature. His first public art commission from 2004, is titled: ‘Leaping Fish, Nature’s Cycles’, a two piece site-specific sculpture executed out of New Mexico travertine, awarded to him by Los Angeles County Arts Commission, at Belvedere Park Lake as part of the East Los Angeles Civic Center Renovation Project. This work beckons the viewer to circle the lake and the sculptures, thus embracing one in its narrative cycle of renewal. More recent public art sculptures are installed in West Palm Beach, Florida; Incheon, South Korea; Laguna Beach, California; Saticoy Springs, Ventura, California. Two current works in progress are to be installed in Charlotte, North Carolina and San Diego, California in 2018. His private commission sculptures are approached with the same vision of dynamic integration that allows the natural force imprinted into the stone through millenniums, to inform the form and spirit of the idea. Ever-unfolding consciousness and the energies that drive our physical and inner world are a source of great interest and inspiration in his work.

His paintings, sculptures, and prints have been widely exhibited since 1985, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, UCLA/Armand

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