Art School

"Well Crap!"

That is what I said to a (in my opinion) great artist in an e-mail to him.
I went on thusly:

“You have shown me just how much I do NOT know! That is a good thing, but as I just turned 67 today, it means I’d better paint....and learn....damn fast!

Thank you, for your generous and highly instructive blog. Even though it really makes me realize that I will never, EVER ‘catch up’ to those of you have studied and painted and learned for so many more years than I have.”

His reply to me:

”Thanks:
I guess. You can learn an awful lot about painting still. You can paint till you fall off your perch. Try that with basketball, or even golf. Good luck out there and I am glad I have been useful to you.”

Ever since I found his blog, I have been studiously attempting to apply things I am learning from him. Sometimes, I practice different concepts on the same canvas resulting in some pretty odd...in a completely uninteresting way...results.

In one way, it is quite disheartening to recognize how totally amateurish my paintings are.

In another way, it’s quite heartening to have gained enough knowledge and experience to realize that.

You can’t get better if you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. Right?

So...........

I’ll keep painting....and keep devouring his blog entries in my efforts to improve.

If you are an art appreciator, you might enjoy his blog, too, because he shares a lot of masterful paintings done by his favorite artists...and his own, of course. He shows and tells why those paintings are good and how the artist achieved the result. Great paintings are made by design...not by magic...and I’ve found it very interesting to read the details about the craftsmanship required to make a truly good painting.

And by the way, he’s humorous....sometimes scathingly so...and I enjoy that.

All that being said, know this. You probably won’t be seeing any paintings by me posted for a few days...or maybe a few weeks....or a few months....or maybe never again. (Not likely!)

I’m busy playing art school and am not even trying to make a painting decent enough to show anybody.

You can find his blog here.

http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com

I am grateful to be learning new things.