Becoming an Artist

Composition #12, working on value masses. Today I challenged myself to create my value composition in five minutes. The goal was to construct a landscape, loosely based on a photo I took at Arches National Park, with a focus on distinct value masses. I set my timer and got to work. When it buzzed, I took a few more minutes to see if I had a "papa, mama, baby" distribution of lights, darks, and mid-values. I didn't, so I reworked the composition a bit until I did. Success. Papa: mid-tones. Mama: white. Baby: black. My finished landscape.  I then worked out a color palette for my small (5"x7") test painting, choosing a triadic color scheme of yellow ochre, naphthol red, and both phthalocyanine blue and ultramarine blue. I added in titanium white and that crazy baby blue I'm using up (see it in the sky), and started painting. My goal: staying true to my value plan. Overall, I'm pleased with my little painting. I think it holds true to my value ...

So, reader, let's jump right in. It's week six (or so) of California's shelter in place for Covid-19 and after much thinking, journaling, dabbling, I've decided once and for all I want to "figure out" this art stuff or quit. Well, maybe not quit, but at least decide not to be a "real" artist and instead just play. The problem is, it's not in my nature to just play. Composition #1. My drawing skills are rusty, to say the least. Here's the plan I've been using for years, which really hasn't been working: order more books, watch more videos, buy more online classes, take more in-person classes, try this method and that method, get confused, go insane; repeat. But with all this time on my hands and no outside distractions, I've had a chance to ponder, what do all these other artists I admire have in common? I've decided it's a dedication, a plan, a method of self-study. So I've borrowed from a few of my heroes, and I...