Red Carnation

6x6, water mixable oil on gessobord, 4/16/15

For a while I had the notion that art should come easily--just flow out of you like a magical spring and onto the canvas. That idea likely stemmed from many of the teachers of art I encountered who seemed to have no interest whatsoever in teaching technique, but simply providing the space and materials and saying "paint." Well, that's an interesting challenge now and then. 

The problem with that philosophy is that it led me to believe that that is how the great masters of painting learned to paint--that their talent was just so inherently great that somebody gave them a pencil and paper and voila! A masterpiece ensued. Which also led me to believe that I didn't have what it takes to be a good artist. I figured that since I had tried my hand at it for a few semesters, and not churned out anything spectacular, I just must not have the chops. 

Well, I'm finally realizing that art, like anything, takes patience, consistency, and a lot of hard work--and a knowledge of how. The great masters I've studied all started out with a classical education in art. And that classical education formed the basis of their eventual greatness (abstraction and all). It's a shame that art education has degraded so much in the last hundred years--to the point that we can't teach a college drawing class how to measure for accurate proportions or mix paint colors. All things I'm trying to learn now... but the catch-up game can be arduous and painful.

Anyway, I guess I've just been feeling a little discouraged about my art the past few days. I want to be able to take the vision in my head and throw it onto the canvas. But I need to be more patient and allow myself the time and space to fail--over and over again. That's what makes painting so interesting, right?

For today, here's a simple little carnation I painted this afternoon. Happy Thursday :)