The deCastro Art Blog

We just opened a shop at CafePress! You will find all kinds of cool stuff with my art images and some logo products. Check it out and let me know what you think. Suggestions are welcome!

http://www.cafepress.com/deCastroStudios

I was doing the monthly Copyright mining and found 11 of my paintings taken from my site and posted on Photobucket!

Artists…go do a search for your subject matter and see if your work is there.  Like I did, you can follow these steps to get your valuable images removed from the site.  (I will keep you posted, as to whether Photobucket honors their promises.)

http://photobucket.com/copyright

I won’t post the links, as I don’t want any benefits going to the fool that took them:  Artemis1044 and othylleon  but here is one of the screenshots.  This one is of my Vizcaya, Florida watercolor painting…

The art book with my artwork.

a seven-brush day. Fellow artists…. how many brushes did you hold in your hands today?

New Prints have been added to the deCastroArt store! “Lola, The Maltese”; “Sadie, The Chihuahua” and “Valle de Vinales, Cuba”. Available in Limited Editions and Artist’s Proofs.

http://bjdecastro.com/artstore/

Beware of Forgeries! 

Collectors, Please be aware that yet another site has been stealing my artwork and selling it painted by their artists.  These are forgeries of my work.  If you have any doubt as to the authenticity of one of my pieces, please email me.

oil paintings gallery dot com

You have GOT to check out this 3 year old artistic genius. The little boy uses only his fingers to paint what he sees:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrdRrAjpcDM

de Castro designs logo for OGO, Old Growth Oak Morgan Farms.  A Morgan horse breeding ranch in Northern California.

I just got another call today about a website that is suspect of selling forgeries of ‘Original Oil Paintings by Bj. deCastro at wholesale prices.’  Apparently it was found by a Google search with the words Oil Paintings For Sale in California.  It was also reported to be a seller from China.  I have tried to find this site without any luck.  So please, be careful.  Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have before you purchase from the secondary market.

Common sense usually prevails.    ‘Original’ and ‘wholesale’ are two words that don’t usually go together when talking about investment grade art by any collected artist – especially one still living and working out of their studio.  We want the value of our work to go up for the satisfaction of our collecting patrons.  We do not want ‘wholesale’ attached in any way to the art’s value.  Wholesale means, “selling goods in large quantities for resale to the consumer”.   Original means, there is only one in the entire world.   The collectors of my original works pay a fair price for that honor.

 A big warehouse may have a stack of ‘student’ grade originals from multiple artists from multiple sources to be auctioned or sold at ’wholesale’ prices.   You may find prints and reproductions advertised as ’Direct From the Artist at wholesale prices’, but more often than not, it is simply stated ‘Buy Direct from the Artist’. 

What really peaves me the most, is when I go to these displays in front of the local grocery store, strip mall, etc., that have tons of art stacked up against the walls and a salesperson lurking about.  Straight to my face, they will sell these prints as original works of art – just as I am looking at the straight line on the edge from the printers!  Some are smartly done with impasto strokes over the printed canvas substrate on the front.  And occasionally, I even find half-way attempts at painting over the straight edged line that so evidences a ‘print’.  But many times, I will find them all nicely framed up so there is no opportunity for examination.     Here is another article I wrote on how to tell an original from a print.

If it sounds too good to be true…it is.  Again, be careful.

 
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