As you may have guessed, this site was originally devoted to art. Things have evolved. I have decided to use the blog on the site for a variety of topics (including art)…basically anything that comes to mind that I feel like writing about. This is, in part, an effort to depart from constant exposure to FaceBook. Rather than subject myself to the noise of that environment, I seek to simply communicate with those that are interested in what I have to say. If you care to, you can subscribe to the blog to receive notifications of when there are new blogs or updates to existing blogs.
Meanwhile, what follows is the motivation for the original site.
Much of my inspiration for creating the site relates to a quote attributed to Degas – “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” About five years ago, I retired from a career in IT, and although I had dabbled in painting and drawing during my working years, I now find that I can reach for the brushes as often as I dare. During my journey I have discovered Degas’ insight to be most accurate, at least in my case. What I expected to be easy turns out to be much more challenging. Painting a really good picture is indeed “very difficult”.
Consequently I thought it might be fun to combine my programming experience and my desire to be a better painter in this site. One component of the learning process is constructive criticism…and to that end, I encourage comments on any of my blog articles featuring my paintings. I will offer my own criticisms, but since there is always room for improvement consider this an open solicitation for your input!
I hope that over time, the site will grow to include not only my paintings and self criticisms, but blog entries and examples from other artists as well as links to their sites. I will also include my experiences with workshops or internet resources that have helped me along the way.
Studying paintings is a wonderful way to learn and broaden one’s knowledge, but technical articles also help. There is a wealth of information out there, but a little more can’t hurt? I will try to make note of valuable things I learn along the way, but also invite and encourage other artists to contribute blog entries on technical subjects as well.
So, we are off to the races, and we will see how the site goes. Thank you for visiting and please feel welcome to contact me if you have suggestions or would like to contribute an article.