Thursday, December 14, 2006

Always an Art Student

I have been working all week on paintings for my MFA in illustration(need the degree to teach on the graduate level) which are in watercolor. I have realized that regardless of what medium I work in, it makes for overall progress. The medium is less important than the fact that I am painting. Still I find myself anxious to get back to my little paintings. Some days it is effortless, like the painting is painting itself. It is almost an out of body experience. Other days it is like the hard labor of giving birth. I have a friend who started as an illustrator who has gone on to become a famous portrait painter. I may have spoken of him before, Joe Bowler, http://www.joebowler.com/. I consider him a master in his field but he is also a tireless student. He loves to talk about painting and is always studying the work of the great portrait painters like Sargent, Velasquez and Sorolla. I love that painting is such a process. It is never boring because you can keep learning and getting better at it. Quite frankly being a professor keeps me learning all the time. Over the years I have tried to take workshops from artists whose work I admire. The workshops are always humbling because I never produce masterpieces. Nonetheless I always learn something no matter how hard. I especially enjoyed workshops with Charles Reid and Charles Sovek.

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