I LOVE this shot. I do have a full set of watercolor tubes. I wonder if I am still as good as I was when I was studying painting.
My last Watercolor painting class was in the early 80s with Mr. Brownely. He was a young African-American dude with enough passion for art to fill the entire campus. We had an assignment to copy a image from a magazine or any print that had at least three or more colors. I chose one from a magazine, of a river, some bushes in the foreground and barn or some barn looking structure in the back. It was a shot of some place with a river at sunset - dusk. I did not trace it. All was by observation alone, except for some light pencil outlines to keep the proportions correctly (as I saw them).
At the beginning of class we were to set our painting along this one long ledge of the north side of the room. I was extremely unhappy with my work. Almost too embarrassed to show it, but I've seen other's work that were worse yet they had the courage to show their work. I often hear words, like, mortify, or elated, etc. But rarely notice the feeling exactly while it is occuring. I guess this one would have been 'humbled' while I watched other students stop by my painting and comment how great it was. Then this one elderly woman, of about 40ish I guessed, (most of us were in our twenties), stopped at my painting and lowered her head and started to cry. I almost did the same. Her body language said everything. She wanted to paint like I did.
From then on I decided my work would never be good or bad, it would always just be the best I could do.
2 comments:
I LOVE this shot. I do have a full set of watercolor tubes. I wonder if I am still as good as I was when I was studying painting.
My last Watercolor painting class was in the early 80s with Mr. Brownely. He was a young African-American dude with enough passion for art to fill the entire campus. We had an assignment to copy a image from a magazine or any print that had at least three or more colors. I chose one from a magazine, of a river, some bushes in the foreground and barn or some barn looking structure in the back. It was a shot of some place with a river at sunset - dusk. I did not trace it. All was by observation alone, except for some light pencil outlines to keep the proportions correctly (as I saw them).
At the beginning of class we were to set our painting along this one long ledge of the north side of the room. I was extremely unhappy with my work. Almost too embarrassed to show it, but I've seen other's work that were worse yet they had the courage to show their work. I often hear words, like, mortify, or elated, etc. But rarely notice the feeling exactly while it is occuring. I guess this one would have been 'humbled' while I watched other students stop by my painting and comment how great it was. Then this one elderly woman, of about 40ish I guessed, (most of us were in our twenties), stopped at my painting and lowered her head and started to cry. I almost did the same. Her body language said everything. She wanted to paint like I did.
From then on I decided my work would never be good or bad, it would always just be the best I could do.
what a great lesson! I struggled heavily showing my work in school as well. Good for you.
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