Today we’d like to introduce you to Rita Kirkman.
Hi Rita, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Thanks VoyageAustin, for inviting me to your series!
I was born an artist. I’ve been using pastel since I was 11 years old and had my first paid portrait commission at 17. I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988. Meanwhile, in 1986, I began a 12-year career sketching quick portraits in amusement parks. These days, I still enjoy doing caricatures at events throughout South Texas, such as the Plano Balloon Fest, Fredericksburg Oktoberfest and the Luling Watermelon Thump—but that’s just a sideline to my true artistic passion.
Since 2003, I’ve developed my own pastel style and technique through independent study and workshops with renowned pastelists. This effort has been consistently rewarded with major awards in national and international competitions. My work has been featured in the Pastel Journal and the Pratique des Arts Spécial Pastel, and published in many others. I’m a Pastel Society of America Master Pastelist and an Eminent Pastelist with the International Association of Pastel Societies. My work is held in public and private collections worldwide.
In 2020 I created a Patreon page full of demo videos and art tips, generously sharing my knowledge and passion for pastel with a growing community of artists and collectors.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Honestly, as an optimist, I quickly forget the struggles and now enjoy the success I’ve achieved.
But if I must dredge up some memories… I do recall… plenty of rained out events; carting my booth contents fifty yards through 8 inches of Gulf coast swamp; a couple of collapsed popup tents from water weight and having to use sticks and duct tape to hold one together… Some events in the early days barely breaking even; over 25 years of trying this event and that event to see where the money is… it’s a literal trial and error, but it’s the best way to really see what fits.
Another thought, working from the $10-$25 market with caricatures for a couple decades and then finally breaking into fine art fairs in 2006 with my paintings was a big leap and took time to understand the mind of the fine art collector and the psychology of pricing.
More recently, struggles with the tech of video streaming for my Patreon page is worth a whole book of bleepers! Devices that aren’t compatible, bluetooth signal interference, shipping delays, forgetting to press record, charger killing batteries, zoom updates (those can really mess things up!), and in general a years-long crash course in all things related to hdmi, OBS, Virtual Cam, capture cards, latency, GHz bands, Adobe and Zoom. Thank goodness for my Millennial son in the house, and Amazon Prime!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My main medium is pastel. I love painting animals, and occasionally landscapes. I have a fairly successful business doing pet portrait commissions, but my true love now is to just paint whatever I want from my own photos, and sell them at art festivals, from my website RitaKirkman.com, or auctioned on DailyPaintworks.com.
My work has evolved into an observation of sunlight and shadow, and I love playing with more adventurous ways to portray light with color, value, and temperature. A popular subject with my collectors has been ranch animals. This works rather well because ranch animals are ideal models of sunlight, and as Claude Monet said, “The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light.”
In my experimentation with color and light, I’ve settled (for now) on a technique that allows for vibrant optical mixture of colors. I have a two step painting process. I create a warm-toned value-scaled underpainting using gold and terra cotta acrylic-based pastel primers. When overpainting with relatively cooler pastels I allow the underpainting to speak, and since acrylic will not physically mix with pastel, the layers remain pure, creating some exciting color vibrations.
Feel free to watch this speed demo video of a large sheep painting, which shows my process in action! https://youtu.be/ANr7rIoLdIg
Who else deserves credit in your story?
I’m lucky to have a very supportive family. (My husband basically lets me do whatever I want, and is currently fixing the a/c in my studio, lol.)
But business-wise, there have been 3 workshops/seminars I’ve taken that have helped my career more than any others:
Sarah Eyestone taught a “Business of Art” workshop when she lived in San Antonio. The most important mantras I picked up from her is “First you have to do the work!” and “Work in a series!”
In Carol Marine’s workshop I learned that to “Paint Daily” is a magic mantra, and one that supersedes and essentially incorporates both of Sarah’s quotes. When you paint daily (and by that I mean complete one small painting a day) you ARE ‘doing the work’, and you usually MUST ‘work in a series’ or at least several small series, in order to come up with enough subject matter for 30 days a month. (Disclaimer: I’ve only averaged about 10-14 paintings per month since 2011. True Daily painting is still a goal of mine!)
The 3rd most valuable advice I learned was to never underestimate the power of social media, which was a strong point of the “Marketing Boot Camp” given by Eric Rhodes, editor of Plein Air Magazine, at the 1st annual Plein Air Convention. His main message was that no one is going to know who you are or what your art is unless YOU TELL THEM! (And that people buy ‘brands’ because they’re familiar… so learn how to ‘brand yourself’!)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ritakirkman.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirkmanrita/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RitaKirkmanStudio/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rita-kirkman-b47a0023/
- Twitter: https://x.com/ritakirkman
- Youtube: https://x.com/ritakirkman
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ritzk/
