FAQ

How did Carmine Magazine get started?
Carmine Magazine first started as part of Add My Art Journal on Livejournal.com in the spring 2008. I was interviewing artist friends of mine for the community as a form of promotion. After doing this for a few months I noticed that there were many, many talented artists out there that lack the resources or knowledge to promote their artwork themselves. I wanted to help remedy that so on May 1, 2008 I registered CarmineMag.com and started expanding my ideas.

What gave you the idea to start a blog/online magazine about artists and art related things?
General dissatisfaction with art magazine interviews. I wanted more information about the process, influences and techniques, not stories reminiscing about drinking binges they went on. I’ve also never been satisfied with how generally outdated the information in art classes can be in comparison to the price of tuition for a good art college. I knew that every artist out there has at least one technique or medium that they excell with. I also know that most artists look at other artist’s work and think, “I wish I could work with [insert medium here]. It looks amazing, but I bet it’s really hard to do that.” We are artists, creative thinkers or at least people with a desire to learn things. No technique is that hard and no medium is out of reach if you have the right tutorial and a drive to learn. I wanted to put together a place where artists can show their favorite tips and tricks with other artists. Something like a modern artist trade magazine for those of us that don’t want to spend our careers painting trees the same way they were doing 60 years ago.

How do you find the artists that you do interviews or features with?
Through the internet, that’s the straight forward simple answer anyway. Some of them are friends of mine whose work I have admired for years, some are artists that people have recommended that I check out and some I’ve found through picture bookmarking sites like FFFFound!. There is also a growing population of artists that have approached me in the last year or so with links to their work, I’ve found some of my newest favorites this way. If you’d like to submit your work for us to take a look at, drop us a line at carminemag@gmail.com.

Who writes all of these articles, interviews and tutorials?
Most of the site is written by me, Jami Lee Rosa. I’m an small business owner, writer and artist from Northern California. Other frequent contributors include Sarah Grace, a writer friend of mine who frequently relocates to places around the world. Agent B who makes artwork under then name Serpenthes, when she’s not doing that she can be found haunting around places in Southern California. We have more writers that will be contributing more in the future, as well as the people that write single articles for us. If they are not a normal writer here on Carmine Magazine you can be sure that there will be links in the articles for you to be able to find out more on our contributors.