Over the past several years after restarting my artistic engine, the best analogy I can think of is of a car engine sitting idle for decades and someone gets the bright idea of turning the key. Yikes! It was nearly three decades between my high school art beginnings, when Bill Alexander and Bob Ross were a novel act on PBS, and me trying to start that neglected engine in 2016.
Oh, I did doodle some or draw a pencil drawing on business trips, leaving the result in the room or in the trash. But a concentrated effort to get better wasn’t even a consideration as my career advancement and family were my priorities. I was also brought up being told artists were poor until they‘re dead…my Italian Nona..haha. So, it was never a serious consideration to make a career.
Looking back, it was probably the right choice, but I can’t help wondering where my quality could be. Nevertheless, the process of being self taught is having a dramatic positive impact on my work. In 2016, I was really rusty and out of practice. I was weak on atmospheric perspective, color values and harmony, didn’t apply lights or shadows well, and my trees looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, which will never see the light of day.
I started rebuilding my neglected engine watching YouTube on topics like color theory, color mixing, great oil painters and their techniques, and both oil painting and soft pastel techniques. I would take deeper dives into critical skills and concepts used by the Renaissance masters, the golden ratio, dynamic symmetry, oil painting mediums and a host of other topics to replace old, worn out and forgotten skills or just completely learn new ones. The difference has been obvious as you can see here.
The first painting “Resolute Through The Storm” 22”x24” completed 2016 is a soft pastel medium. The sky is clunky, colors are dull and muddy, no real leading lines through the piece and there’s no focal point.
The second painting is also a soft pastel piece “Tranquility” 11”x14” completed December 2021. The improvement is dramatic in the level of detail, composition, color harmony, and values. There are leading lines throughout the piece with focal points to rest your eyes as you‘re being pulled into the distant horizon. Overall, it is a much cleaner and crisp
piece of art.
The stark differences between the two clearly encourages me to continue practicing and studying as I’ve been doing. Although, I‘ve realized I can only go so far on my own without coaching to explain where I still need work, like edges, the play of light and darks, drawing skills, point out what is incorrect with my compositions, and (perhaps my biggest weakness) learn to draw portraits and animals. I’ve tried the latter two topics and they end up looking like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. But the practice and improvements have pushed me to get my work out and seen at local galleries, local art alliances, and shows, which is resulting in periodic sales.
All of these experiences show me there is a space for self taught artists with passion and dedication to learning the skills. The act of creating grants me a peace and it’s been awesome restarting my artistic engine after neglecting it far too long. Where could I have been? Where can I go with the time I have left? I can’t wait to see where that may be.
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