It never ceases to amaze me how desperately wrong I can get things sometimes.
Back in November 2005, when I started this site, I wrote in my’about‘ page how I wanted to get my skills back as quickly as I could, to get back to being a full time painter again.Full of enthusiasm, and fresh from the decision to get back to painting, I wanted to get away from my current business and back to full time painting in as short a time as possible. I thought I could hot-house myself back in record time.
Wrong.
I thought that if I took a rational approach to working on simplified exercises, like the still lives, and concentrated on the basics and a few learning tricks like right brain drawing exercises I could short cut my way back inside a year or so.
Wrong.
In my background post, the first post I put up on this site, I tried to find the reasons for me giving up painting ten years ago. I blamed the soulless nature of the commercial work I was doing. I blamed the art colleges for fetishising modern art and originality of expression, and not answering my needs. Then I had a bad nightmare, which dredged up some old ghosts and made me reassess why I never really fulfilled my potential and became a full time painter. I put it down to outside influences placing doubts in my mind about my abilities, which in turn knocked my confidence and turned me from my path.
Wrong again.
Not doing very well here am I? What I dealt with there did have an effect on me, and did make me doubt whether I was up to the mark, and I did bury it for a long time. But it’s still not why I gave up painting.
What was really going on there is that I was avoiding taking responsibility for my own actions. To find the real reason why we do or don’t do something, it can be a lot more revealing to look inside ourselves than around us. The faults which annoy us most in other people are often the very ones which we are guilty of ourselves, but have a hard time admitting to. I’m about to risk deeply offending some people now, and if I do I apologise, but I’m just trying to illustrate my point. Allow me to explain:
‘Its not my fault’ syndrome
Occasionally, we see very overweight people on TV whining about how they’ve tried every diet but they just can’t resist yet another burger, so now they have to have plastic surgeryto lose weight. Now I know that some of these people do have health problems or even psychological problems which they can do nothing about, I’m not talking about them. All the same, my knee jerk reaction is that they are weak, they have no character and it irritates the hell out of me.
Why?
Because I think that they are refusing to take any responsibility for their own actions. The junk food outlets are to blame, or TV advertising. They expect someone to come along and sort out their problem for them with a quick fix. I don’t want to sound harsh. Undoubtedly these things have all contributed to their problems. We live in a society where the health of a nation can be sacrificed for profit. The difficulty for me is when people like that, or in similar positions, refuse to take any of the responsibilty for their problems at all.
Sound familiar? I get so annoyed by people like that because I’m one of them, they hold up a mirror to myself, and I don’t like what I see. If I allowed soulless, commercial drudge work to make me give up painting, whose fault is that? If I get to art college, I don’t get the training I want and therefore I give up painting, whose fault is that? If I allow people to knock my confidence in myself to the extent that I gave up the one thing I was ever really good at, whose fault is that?
You can see where I’m going with this.
I see this kind of attitude more and more, the more I see it the more it annoys me, because it’s precisely what annoys me most about myself. I’m annoyed with myself for giving up painting, but I’m even more annoyed with myself for not working at it when I was younger. I suppose I thought my talent would get me by. Ah, the folly of youth. I’ve always resisted admitting to myself that I have a talent for drawing, I think in part because if I admit that then I also have to admit that I squandered it in the early part of my life. Well, I’m admitting to both those things now.
It seems to me that the more affluent western societies become, the more labour saving devices we create, the more safety nets we put in place against failure, the more freedom and free time we have, the less we take responsibility for our own lives. When I talk to my parents about what their lives were like when they were younger, I seriously wonder if I could have coped. I wonder if many of us could have coped.
You want fries with that?
As we become richer, we become more lazy. These days we expect everything on a plate, and we want it delivered yesterday. Just look at the proliferation of ‘how to’ books and DVDs on painting and drawing that sell these days. I’m not criticising them, they can be very valuable and I have a few myself, but how many people who buy them are prepared to put in the long hours of repetitive practice required to actually gain the skills that many of the authors have learned the hard way?
No book is going to make you a painter, it can only point you in the right direction.
I’m not pontificating from a height here, I’m a child of the affluent west and I’m just as guilty of this as everybody else. Here’s an idea for you: Instead of buying a book or DVD, spend the money on sketchpads instead. Draw something every day until you’ve filled all those pads, and I guarantee you will learn more than you ever will by reading the book, watching the DVD and then doing a couple of sketches a month.
There are no short cuts
Well, this has been a long post and I think I’ve made my point. If I do get back to being a fulltime painter, then I’ll still have drudge work to do, and I’ll just bloody well have to do it if I want to pay my bills. If I’m serious about being a painter again, I have to realise that in the past I’ve taken the head start I’ve been given by my parents, my art education and my talent for granted. (Even now I’m uncomfortable with using the word ‘talent’, but I can’t think of a better one. ‘Aptitude’ maybe.) Now I’m going to have to do the work I didn’t do back then, and no short cut technique is going to get around that, no plastic surgery is going to give me a painter’s eye. And those who refuse to learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
No more whining.
This has also been a somewhat negative post, but the conclusion is positive. I love the work, I love practicing, and I’m very lucky at the moment because I have no commissions to do, I have no drudge work, and I’m free to concentrate all my free time on studying and getting better. It won’t always be that way.
A painter I admire very much gave me this sterling advice recently: “Be grateful for all the fruitful decades you have ahead.” A few short words with a lot of meaning. Thanks, if you ever read this, I will be and I am.
So I’m not going to rush. I’m going to take the time to learn my craft properly as far as I can. If you want to get good at something, all you have to do is practice. It really is that simple, but no one can do it for you, you have to do it for yourself.
Once more for the people at the back, for those of you who just got back from the bar and for myself: There are no short cuts.
Posted 19th February 2006
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Thank you for your honesty.. I am really struggling with not having been taught this as a full time artist and feeling like a failure. Harold Speeds writing on modern art helped so much for me to see why form was not taught in 1975 in art school. Thank you !
Thank you Devi.
thanks for sharing – I’ve found so much of what you said to be true for me – and I’m a couple of decades older – still, I’m enjoying honing my skills and not looking back and blaming anyone else for my lack of progress – I’ve really enjoyed just spending time drawing and am discovering that the improvement has brought commisions that I thorougly enjoy – portraits of people and their pets, which I never though I would do because I was “an oil painter” and did mostly landscapes – I think I’m now addicted to graphite and pastels – I LOVE to draw far more than I enjoyed oils – I will still paint, but not exclusively – and I think the paintings will be better because my drawing skills are so much better. Thanks again!
Thanks Barbara, I’m really glad you found the post useful.
I’m also very glad to hear that you’ve found what seems to be your natural medium! If you’re enjoying it more, doing better work and getting commissions…well, I think you must have found your natural home 🙂
Thanks men. I cross on you today, begin to read the last posts, and i wonder, how he began?
You are a source of inspiration on many others old souls who want to be an artist in this life. What i like most, is from where you put your words, from the heart.
Since the last year, i learn to see me. My lights, and my shadows. And learn the connection between the universe, art, and oneself. It’s all the same.
And from that point, i realize many things. And your site, it’s like a consciousness dome, where we come to see us on the art mirror of life.
Thanks for your life.
Hi Paul.
It is 2020 now and I am reading through your post from the beginning. I usually never have the patience to spends this much time on blogs or or take the time to comment. But this post brought tears to my eyes. Because in hindsight now I know what you have achieved now 15 years after your first posts.
I, myself am at exactly this stage in my art journey. Somehow even though I have always been an artist spirit, I chose engineering for education. Spending half my life on doing something I really don’t like because society&family told me to have a real job. So many regrets and blaming everyone and life circumstances. Thinking that it is too late. I am too old and I don’t have time left to achieve what I dream of. But in reality I am now in a situation where I have ample of time for painting. ANd I have had it for the last five years.
Thanks for sharing your journey and inspiring with 100% honesty. The world we live in is not kind always to sensitive artist souls for who art is a necessity for a meaningful life . Not a hobby for amusemant only as many non-artist think. So it is good to meet kindred spririts that share their support with technical and personal aspects.
Life can go so wrong sometimes, I know! In fact I’m a master at messing it up and missing the obvious.
But it’s never too late. I’m so glad that you’ve found your way back to what you love, as I did 15 years ago and – to be honest – as I’m still doing now.
Thank you everyone, (especially Paul and his honesty and insight). Reading this blog has made me think and helped to push me in the right direction. I can relate. Thanks for helping me to look in the mirror without blinking. I wish the best to all of you!
Paul,
This was a profoundly moving post!
Here I am in 2021 seeing how far you’ve come from those difficult early days!
As a child I drew from pictures in books, yet it was never encouraged. Rather, my writing “talent” was what was encouraged, but with no clear guidance as to how to make a living from it. I went to college, earned a B.A. in Communication, expecting to earn a successful living in advertising/public relations. Long story short, that never happened. I last worked as a secretary in 2010, losing my job due to the Great Recession.
In 2011, a friend who was studying towards her B.F.A. offered me the opportunity to paint in oil. I had NO idea what I was doing, but with her guidance created something far better than I expected. It was truly life-changing!
I agree with you completely on preferring “aptitude” over “talent” when describing a person’s seemingly natural abilities at artistic endeavors. If painting is a “craft,” then drawing is most certainly a “skill” which can be taught.
Many artists, when asked why they create art, respond with something like, “Because it’s in my blood.” That is far too nebulous and ethereal an answer to such a profound question. You see it is in my blood. My late grandmother and her brother were both classically trained professional artists, first commercial then fine art. I feel very keenly the weight of this heritage. It quite frankly scares the Hell out of me!
I fear if I never pursue art seriously I am betraying my heritage. I also fear the inordinate burden of possibly becoming a successful artist.
What do I do? I certainly don’t paint!
I buy art supplies I don’t use, periodically deciding to give it all away to someone who could use it. (My husband stops me!) I read artist blogs/forums and watch art videos online. I hang out with my artist dear friend who doesn’t want me to give up on painting. (I go to the art supply store with her.)
Lately though, I’ve “rediscovered” you, Paul! What you’re saying about simplification, Munsell, etc., finally makes sense to me! I feel I’ve had a personal epiphany, and now have a renewed sense of confidence to at least try once sgain! I don’t expect to become any great/successful artist, but I might possibly become a competent hobbyist. I even have a new painting planned, inspired by your lovely daffodil paintings. I hope to give it to an old friend who might appreciate it.
So the question remains: is being an artist a “gift” (or curse)?
Is art a craft to be honed, a hobby to be enjoyed, or profession to be practiced?
My grandmother worked as a freelance commercial artist after her marriage to a wounded WWI vet. (My father began working as a boy of 8 selling magazines door-to-door to help feed his family during the Great Depression.) She later became modestly successful as a portrait artist in her 80s-90s (she died at 97, painting up until she was at least 95). My great-uncle gave up a successful interior and movie set design career in NYC after a health crisis, returning home to Billings MT to become a widely collected sculptor (none of his pieces are owned by the family):
https://www.meadowlarkgallery.com/HazzardHarry.htm.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll just pursue painting for the sheer joy of it!