Cédric Mnich's Art Gallery

Update your Favorites ! moving to http://www.cedricmnich.com

Cédric Mnich — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:59:26 +0000

Happy New Year to you, visitors !

I bought my domain name so this blog is coming to an end to continue on the new address :

http://www.cedricmnich.com

Working on several projects in the same time…

Cédric Mnich — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:19:17 +0000

The samurais are stopped right now, waiting for some more drawing and preliminary coloring.

In the waiting time I have been thinking about my ambitious project of Financial stock art.

I am glad to tell you that the first painting of a first series is almost finished. These works will be mixed medium, that is oil painting and other stuff (3D collage). These pieces will be some kind of limited series, each piece being unique. I cannot tell much more right now and I guess quite some time will pass on before I decide to show anything. Why ? Well I know it is not extraordinary from the artistic point of view but some copycats could steal the idea. The series are to be sold once revealed because I want them to be collectors. As far as I can tell so far, all pieces will be 40 * 40 cm. The first one will we pink and blue.

Sorry not to tell more right now.

Oh, I forgot. The blog will be moving pretty soon. I bought my domain name, http://www.cedricmnich.com. No more wordpress extension in the future and I will be able to make a personalized website.

Trying to get some fame… and money ?

Cédric Mnich — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 21:14:35 +0000

As I expected I got no further news from the mysterious girl who wanted to buy my painting. I am now pretty sure this was some fraud scam stuff, as I found out similar mails through searching on Google. No luck for her, I worked several years in a Payment systems bank and I know bank certified cheques (especially foreign ones) are certainly not a sure means of payment. So what’s the point here ? Well, you cash in the check successfully, you send the merchandise and a few weeks or months later, your bank takes the money back because once fully verified, the cheque happens to be fake or stolen or fraud. And you have to pay additional fees to your bank. And no more merchandise of course… Even worse, they sometimes send you a cheque with a superior amount, asking for sending back the extra amount in order to pay the shipping agent. In the end, you have lost merchandise plus that extra amount…

Here is what she wrote :

Hello ced,
Thanks for the prompt response and i will love to purchase it
from you,so pls do withdraw the advert from site,i dont mind adding
an extra €50 for you to take the advert down from the site so that i
can be rest assured that am in hand of the painting. I will also like
you to know that i will be paying via certified bank cheque,Just let
me know how much is the last price you are willing to part with the
painting.You dont need to bother calculating with the pickup ok,i will
take care of that since i am in the uk.So i will need you to provide
me with the following information to facilitate the mailing of the
payment.
1.Your full name
2.Your mailing address be it residential or postal address
3.Your phonenumber.
4.Total Amount

**Once again ,I will like you to know that you will not be responsible
for shippingi will have my mover come over as soon as you have cashed
the check**
Have a nice day
Lizzy

Well, let’s forget it. Another person seems to be interested by the painting but I am not sure he’ll buy it in the end. He probably just wanted to know the price.

At the same time, I am starting working on getting some “fame” in order to sell my paintings (yet to be painted . I found that interesting website on Anthony White’s blog and I decided to subscribe (it’s free) in order to add some more visibility to my website.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile//77239.html

Project 03 – Started

Cédric Mnich — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 21:09:04 +0000

As I said earlier, I am working on several painting projects but as I failed so far putting up the reference pics I need or facing various difficulties, these are delayed. I came back to an earlier project I started a few months ago and am now in the process of drawing the preliminary design. No more canvas this time, I will paint on some gessoed board. I don’t really like canvas so I am giving a try to board.Project 03 will be a Japanese landscape with two samurai horsemen. The composition was made with various reference pieces taken from pics on internet and one main subject (the samurais) taken from a booklet in Akira Kurosawa’s famous samurai movi, RAN. I worked the composition roughly in Photoshop. It gives me an idea of the final project as well as general color tones.

Sketchbook

Cédric Mnich — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:05:02 +0000

I am still waiting further news from my Elf Amazon painting buyer. I removed the ebay ad as requested. Hope the buyer is serious. (Edit : I am now pretty sure it was a scam. The person was willing to pay with bank certified cheque… and the painting would have been take by some mover. Smelled bad. Some Google search and I find hundreds of similar mail/stories? I am waiting for further news from my “buyer” but now pretty sure it was fake).

Not much to tell right now. Still wondering which new projectto start with.

In the meantime, tried to draw some more on my sketchbook with special sketch pencils…

Elf Amazon painting sold ?

Cédric Mnich — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:24:10 +0000

It seems amazing but not even 24 hours were spent before I received a serious inquiry for the painting. Some mysterious brit girl seems very eager to put her hands on my painting, she saw it on FaceBook (yeah, Meg, I did “advertize” on facebook and munchkinpress.com as well). Facebook seems to have been pretty efficient !

So is the buyer serious ? We’ll see…

Elf Amazon painting is available for sale on ebay !

Cédric Mnich — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:49:51 +0000

Well, I finally decided to give a try to selling my very first oil painting : the Elf Amazon. Christmas is coming. Not such a bad idea for a present…

You can bid here :

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110205720314

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110205720314
Will it sell ? What do you think…

My Gordon Gecko painting gets some fame at the other end of the world !

Cédric Mnich — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:27:55 +0000

Internet can sometimes be incredible. All the power of the world wide network has just shown yesterday its amazing power. A guy from Australia left a comment on my blog. He loved my Gordon Gecko painting and even put the picture and a link on his website ! Nothing unusual so far, but the guy is an artist himself and has invented some artistic concepts involving the hard notion of valueing art from the very beginning of its creation… I felt very much concerned by his artistic approach for two reasons : first, I am myself a man of financial markets (I am running two websites about stocks trading : sequoiatradingclub.com and and lavoiedutrade.com) as I work in a Corporate Investment Bank. Second, I have been thinking about a way to monetize art for one or two years as well.

So that guy is Anthony White. His concept, like all great ideas is basically “stupid like the moon” as we say in France. And like one of my friend always says, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). He paints single paintings showing money digits (eg. $1) and sells them.

As surprising as it is, it sells at a tremendous pace worldwide.

Remember that young brit guy who sold pixels on internet (milliondollarhomepage.com) ? He became a millionnaire in 9 months (1$ a pixel). Yeah, Millionnaire. I don’t know if Anthony White is already a millionnaire but he certainly took the right path to it.

So what’s the point about all of this ? Well, first I am glad that somebody appreciates my work and my art some 10.000 kms (or so) away from here. Yeah, it flatters ego… Second, I did myself had a similar idea two years ago. Painting stock markets related art has been a desire for 1 or 2 years. I kept maturing the idea without getting started even though I saw very similar artistic concepts here and there :

http://www.moneyart.org (a company who created the Bank of International Money Art)

Tom Moran’s art at Tommoran.net ( a former trader who paints stockmarkets abstracts)

Mark Wagner’s art at smokeinmydreams.com (an artist who makes collages with real pieces of dollar bills)

Even if I thought the concepts are innovative, I am not a fan of contemporary art and I preferred starting some more academic painting (more rewarding from an artistic point of view, in my humble opinion). But creating some new art concept can be rewarding too. Both artistically and financially (well, if paintings sell of course…)

But now, all of this made me think of it twice. I do not wish to give up my painting work on Fantasy Art but stocktrading is a great inspiration for me and I wish to give it a try. Today at the lunch time, I wrote down several ideas I got 2 years ago and slightly improved them. I wish to start a series of innovative contemporary art paintings directly inspired from trading. I will start with a first series of 8 paintings to give a start. Today’s improvement ideas will follow on the next series if success is encountered…

Oh ! and by the way, if you got here from Anthony’s site, please leave a comment. And if you are interested in buying the Gordon Gecko painting. Well, it is not for sale, right now. But my attachment to that painting could be diluted in dollars… so you can email me at sequoia @ sequoiatradingclub.com

Stay tuned, as usual…

Genesis of a new painting – Part 1 ?

Cédric Mnich — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:17:54 +0000

I have been pretty busy lately as I started a new job. I still managed to draw in some spare times (in the train, during the morning travel). This is the most interesting sketch in my “artist journal” I got from my colleagues. It is a quickly drawn portrait sketch of my daughter Anaelle. Well… I did my best, with no tracing paper. I can’t really say it resembles my daughter, let’s be honest. Let’s say it’s a good start but hell, the way will be long to getting some good results.

Besides of that, I am currently working on two painting projects at the same time. One is quite advanced as I have the main material (reference pictures) but I am encountering difficulties with color choices, and background composition and distance / light effects. I am trying several ideas with Photoshop. No preview right now, maybe later (Nudity inside !!!).

The other project is more ambitious for several reasons : I have strictly no material to start with. Only a few ideas. So I am gathering at the moment as much reference pics I can to ease my task. What I need 2 or 3 very nice pictures of my daughter in an interesting sitting position… Have to work a photo session with her (not gonna be easy with a 4 and a half yrs girl…). The main composition idea is the following : roughly based on a Snow White scene with animals. I wish to paint my daughter sitting on a tree trunk or root, with a butterfly on her hand and an expression of delight on her face… (hum I told you it won’t be an easy one). She would be surrounded with forest animals (fawn, rabbits, squirrels…) and a gleam of light would fall on her, crossing and fading through the canopy (definitely not an easy one !!!!). I gathered the following material so far :

Snow white idea scenes and overral ambient stuff :

Other visual reference material :

Well I think you get the whole idea now…

Wow my brain is boiling…

Cédric Mnich — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 14:11:55 +0000

A few days passe since my last post. I quit my job last week and my colleagues who know my new passion for painting offered a beautiful farewell present : a wooden oil set along with brushes and an artist’s journal. As a matter of fact I really needed these (new colors !) and a sketchbook to work on studies in order to improve my drawing skills.

I also bought an easel and two masonite boards for bigger illustration projects. I have to coat them with Gesso.

Yeah, I know, my office is a mess…

My head is boiling now with so much quality material : nice oil tubes, sketchbook, easel, inspirational art books from Spectrum… Every passing day brings me new painting ideas… How will I get along with all of them with so little time, and missing drawing talent ? I really need many pictures in order to build some reference gallery.

So what are next steps ?

First of all, I still have to finish the Michael Douglas / Gordon Gecko painting. The background is not neat and uniform because of Turpentine excessive use. I submitted the pic for critics and advice on Conceptart.org forum and got very interesting feedback from experienced artists. My edges are not smooth enough, at least on the cheek (left of picture). I will do my best to retouch it. I still have to finish hair (near the brow). Then I’ll be done with it and will sign it.

Second, I have two important projects. One is for my mother (private commission !) and is to depict my daughter. I first thought I would make a portrait but I think I’ll paint something more fantasy like. It’s gonna be some reference to one of Anaëlle favorites Disney movie : Snow White. The other one is some pin-up girl paintingwith a panther. I have excellent reference material but I am not yet fully satisfied with the composition.

Third, well I have many other projects, at least 4 or 5…

Stay tuned for coming pics and new posts !