Right, I've built up enough material to put out another poll on which of my…
Results Of The H1 2023 Artistic Actuary Poll
Thanks to everyone that responded to my latest poll. I’ve had eighteen responses but things have gone quiet now, so I think it’s time for me to look at the results. The poll remains open and people are welcome to keep voting. Of the 18 that voted, two chose not to see the figure drawing paintings which was encouragingly low but high enough for it to have been a smart move on my part to give people the option to steer clear of that side of my work.
So let’s go. First up, these paintings didn’t get any votes.
I can’t complain, especially as I put my own votes in and they didn’t include these. I was glad to see Looking At You not scoring any votes, justifying my decision to put it in the wheelie bin last week, it being too ugly to put on display and too big to file away.
Then there were those that got just the one vote.
Sad to see The YouTube Six only getting the one vote but I guess there aren’t that many people that are into all of music, food, painting, chess, maths and physics. It was a niche collection. On the other hand, I’ve no idea why anyone would have voted for Neil McCarthy, bottom middle.
Then these paintings all got two votes.
Moeen was the real shocker here for me. I was really pleased with the texture that I got into his beard but that’s why I set up these polls, to show myself what little idea I have about what people like. Otherwise, yeah, it feels like I’m still in the bottom tail of the distribution.
Then these ones all scored three.
It feels like we’re getting now into acceptable paintings. I got good likenesses out of those two cricketers drawn with markers, and three votes is a decent score as marker drawings don’t tend to be big scorers in these polls. John Cleese and Thorpey good too but I still prefer Moeen over them. Let’s move on.
Four votes for these four pillars of society.
The self portrait is my favourite painting out of all of them in the survey but I wasn’t expecting it to come out high as nobody wants a picture of me on their wall. David Suchet, on the other hand, really surprised me. He was one that I expected to be right up among the top scorers. These here are the top scoring coloured pencil portraits, so maybe coloured pencil portraits just don’t appeal?
Stirling Castle got five votes.
You’re kidding me, right? I know the sky came out well but more people liked this than liked David Suchet? Wow. Keep those surprises coming.
I thought we were getting into the good stuff but I’m no longer sure. Let’s see which paintings scored six.
Ah now , OK. I should be thinking separately about portraits and landscapes. People prefer landscapes to portraits and whereas we’re looking at the top end of the portraits, we’re still at the acceptable stage for landscapes. Jerry Garcia, by the way is the highest scoring portrait, and he’s in watercolour, when I thought my best portraits were in coloured pencil, oil pastel and markers. Interesting
Seven!
Ah, now I think we’re getting to the good stuff. If anything, I think it’s the oil pastel paintings in this set and the previous one that look weakest, so maybe there’s a message there that oil pastel’s a popular medium. And there are still figure drawings coming through, which is a surprise. Seven votes for Zaza here is exceptionally high compared to figure paintings in previous surveys.
We’re still not done. These paintings all scored eight.
We’re well and truly into the good stuff now. I can’t argue with anyone voting for these. Another figure there too, and he’s not the top scorer in that department.
These two scored nine votes.
Hever Castle on the left was the top scoring watercolour painting. Not one I’m personally keen on with its penwork but it looks a lot better from a distance or on a mobile phone screen, so I guess it’s understandable that it came out so high. And Stephanie was my highest scoring figure drawing and probably the painting whose score most exceeded my expectations.
Not many to go now. Third highest scorer with ten votes was The Old Bridge, Latheronwheel.
This was my first ever coloured pencil landscape. I’ve still only done four. One of them was too recent to be in this poll. One was that farmhouse on Bodmin Moor that we’ve already seen score seven votes. What was the other one?
The other one was Towards Third Court, Christ’s College, Cambridge and came in second with eleven votes.
So there you go, coloured pencil landscapes are really popular, the three of them here scoring 28 votes but coloured pencil portraits are real underperformers with me, Moeen and David Suchet only scoring 10 between us. The voters have spoken.
And what came out on top? We’re done with coloured pencils, watercolours inktense pencils, markers and Artgraf tailors chalks so what’s left?
Oil pastels, that’s what. This was another of those paintings that I was expecting to do well and it’s no surprise to see it come out on top with 13 votes, a 72% approval rate. I’m glad to see some justification of my decision to put this one through as my main submission to Landscape Artist Of The Year 2024, even if that ended up coming to nothing .
So the main conclusions seem to be that:
– figure paintings are becoming more popular
– coloured pencil landscapes are really popular
– coloured pencil portraits are less popular than I might have imagined
– and oil pastel landscapes seemed to exceed expectations (looking at the six and seven vote ones here rather than the top scorer)
Again, thanks to everyone that voted. You never cease to surprise me.
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