Blogging about art and life

I've tried this before. This blogging stuff. I'm only a great writer in my head. Give me a keyboard and all the eloquent prose goes right out the window. I tried writing about my paintings. It always felt forced, like I was writing for a school project. I got a C- by the way. Never one to back away from something I am not good at, I'm trying this once more. So here goes.

I didn't start out as a visual artist. My dream was to sing, or act, or sing and act. Musicals would have been a great job for me. Then the "real world" slowly crept up on me. I found myself standing in front of a time clock way too many times. Singing in the car on the way to work didn't rid me of all the pent up creative energy that was building, so I started drawing. I found a job as a picture framer and I loved it. I was surrounded by art day in and day out. For a while that's what I did. Work ridiculous retail hours,and create a handful of substandard drawings and one lousy painting per year.

Lots of stuff happened before 2009. I'm sure I'll write about it someday. But 2009 was the year I decided to become a better artist. I had that revelation before, but this was the first time I put some real effort into it. I'm talking working from 9 to 6 at my "day job" and studying painting from 7 to 11, or later. There was a tipping point that brought me to work that hard. Behold, Hollyhock Lane:

This was an actual street a few blocks away from where I lived with actual hollyhocks planted under the sign. For years I thought it would make a great painting. I didn't paint it because I was sure I would botch it up. I eventually did anyway. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad painting, but it’s bad. The colors are all wrong, values are all wrong, the forms do not turn. It was easy to see what was wrong, but not too easy to see how to fix it. There was only one thing to do, forget EVERYTHING I thought I knew about art.

Over the years I bought dozens of books and videos on painting. Each new book sent me to the art store to buy the recommended paints, mediums and brushes. Each painting that followed failed. 

Then I discovered online art forums. There I found a group of working artists who were willing to share how they were able to produce amazing works of art. The answer was simple. Work from life, and treat the study of line and color as a science, not "art".

Four months later I produced this:

Tea With Lemon

I don't know how, but it clicked. Suddenly realistic painting made sense. Oddly enough, at the same time, I realized I knew nothing about art and I had a long road ahead of me.

It took years of unbelievably hard work to bring myself to the point that I could devote all my time to painting. I've been a full time artist now since September 2012. It's an interesting story, I should share it with you someday.

So stick around. I'll talk about my work, my thoughts on the art world, and my adventures along the way. Feel free to comment, ask questions, visit my website, follow me on Facebook, you know, all that fun stuff.