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| Sailing Along the Coast Acrylic on Canvas Panel 16 x 20 in/40.6 x 50.8 cm Copyright Byrne Smith 2014 |
I try to read as much as I can find on how various painters learned their skills and how they use their skills. When I discover a painter whose work I admire I try to find out as much as I can about how they paint the way they do.
You can get an awful lot of information from their websites, reading their blogs, reading their curriculum vitae on their gallery's website, reading articles in various art magazines, and, yes, by attending their workshops buying their DVDs.
Most of the painters whose paintings seem to reach out and grab me have one thing in common: they have the ability to paint anything and make it a successful painting in its own right.
It seems that at some point in their careers they figured out that it's not the object or motif you are painting that's most important. That is, finding a pretty scene and painting a pretty picture is not the point.
What's most important is how you paint whatever it is you're painting. It doesn't have to be pretty to be successful. These painters paint successful and beautiful paintings out of everyday, mundane, ordinary objects and scenes.
I myself strive to be able to paint this way, to take any subject and render it successfully in paint---when I can paint anything!
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