A great painter (Larry Seiler) whose advice I admire and appreciate once said,
"It takes 120 bad paintings to know something about painting."
In short, this is my blog about learning how to paint. I've done around 120 painting over the last year. I am going to quickly post all the paintings from the first painting to the latest one. After that my plan is to keep painting. I'm shooting for getting a few done every week.
The point of this blog is just to journal my progress, though I am very happy to say I've sold some paintings already. :)
Brace yourself because it starts out pretty rough (first apple still makes me wince) but it gets much better in my humble opinion. The later paintings were built upon the backs of the first ones and I wouldn't have gotten there without them. That's why I didn't want to post just the good ones.
When I finished posting all of the paintings. I'l see if I can get to the "know something about painting" part. That is, I'll see if I can verbalize what I think I've learned. Here goes nothing...
6 comments :
Waiting with anticipation...
Hi Jeff,
Love your blog and have used you as a good example in mine today!
That aside, I'm interested in what you say about your blog being a journal of work and of showing the whole process from good to bad. I've recently been approached by a gallery, my first (I hope!, I think!) anyway the dealer advised me against posting so often. His advice would be - to be as selective as one can, only showing the world the very best you can offer at any one time. I guess he feels the other stuff devalues the good stuff. But I'm uneasy with losing the honest journey approach. Have you come up agaisnt this issue and if so have you decided to carry on regardless or do you have a view?
Róisín
What do you think?
Hey Roisin! Sorry I missed this comment before.
I'm a big fan of the open artist idea. I really don't like the idea of artists as some kind of secretive club that makes magic behind the scenes and just posts up the best of them. I say we let everybody in on our ups and downs. People want to be involved and know about the process. Brings everybody together more as a community. Also it makes it more accessible to beginners. Check out Carol Marine's blog. She lets us know all the time about wipes (failed paintings that just get wiped off with a turp rag). And sometimes she'll post one just for teaching reasons. It shows she cares about the community and that teaching and bringing painting to everyone is more important that self promotion. That's my $.02 worth but I'd love to hear some other opinions.
What a great idea! I found your blog by visiting Elizabeth Weaver's blog. Thanks for sharing your journey of 120 paintings with us.
Awesome idea, and beautiful paintings. Its heartening to see how an artist shares his journey from his beginnings and through his learnings. More power to you!
This is very informative post! Thanks for sharing.
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