I am the forever student. I am always learning something and have so many interests so always want to learn much more than I realistically have time for. I have been studying Danish for almost a year now (according to Duolingo, I am 67% fluent, though I have yet to converse with a native speaker). Near the end of 2017, I decided to declare 2018 my year of Art Exploration.
My husband is an artist, part of a larger family of artists. His youngest sister is at a fancy art school in Ireland right now. His mother has been painting for 30+ years and is having a show this spring. I have no art at all in my family history, I have only dabbled here and there with things. Of course, you can count my multiple knitted sculpture as art (and I do), but those days are long behind me now as I have not had time to knit since before immigrating to the United States (almost five years ago!).
A thing I do sometimes is go to Salt Lake City's largest thrift store chain, Deseret Industries, and buy secondhand paintings on canvases. Not because I like the subjects (I really don't need a painting of a temple or of 'Marissa' (?)) but I've heard a thing that painters do sometimes is paint over an old painting. For $1 a canvas, how could I go wrong?
However, people keep telling me that you must learn to draw before you can paint.
I have drawn things in the past, mostly stick figure cartoons or goofy animals (mostly cats and sheep, duh), and one year for Christmas I drew caricatures of my husband's family as matryoshka - in lieu of gift tags. But I am only familiar with pencils and colored pencils.
Last week I started a drawing class at a local art store. The supply list was awfully long (!) and I doubt I'll ever be interested in using graphite sticks regularly, but I now have all the things I need going forward to explore different drawing techniques.
I have also started listening to some art podcasts. The first one is the Thriving Artist, and I think I've only listened to one or two of those. The topic was about the business of being an artist, that is, making a living doing it. Very interesting. I just got promoted in my research job last month and have a shiny career ahead of me, so I don't have any plans to be a career artist any time soon, but you never know where life will take you. The other podcast I found is the Savvy Painter - that one comes out every week and it's been very interesting learning how people manage their lives around their painting.
I'm not sure if I'll stick with the drawing class I'm enrolled in - I don't 100% love it, but I'll finish out the month I paid for and go from there. Dan has offered to draw with me (he's taken tons of drawing classes, has been to three art schools) so I think we may take that up. There are other things I want to explore too - such as painting, ceramics, fiber arts, and maybe some other sculpture. We have three kitties now, so whatever I end up making has to be cat-proof, but I think I'm up for the challenge. I do think I have the discipline for self-study though. After training for a half-marathon in 2016 and learning a second language using an app on my phone, I know I can persist if something really catches my interest. So I will explore.
I plan to use all the learning tools available to me. We have a fantastic library system in Salt Lake City with a massive art collection. There is also the Internet. I even have some artists in my life here that I could hang around. I'm not sure about posting pictures of my progress and projects, we'll see how happy I am with them. I'm not interested in being "good" - I'm too whimsical for that. I just want to make things that I like to look at. I joined Instagram a couple of months ago and that will help with inspiration.
If you, dear reader, have any recommendations what so ever - books, videos, podcasts, IG accounts - please throw them my way! I'd love to hear from you and get exposed to things I have not yet seen.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy this year-long journey with me!
My husband is an artist, part of a larger family of artists. His youngest sister is at a fancy art school in Ireland right now. His mother has been painting for 30+ years and is having a show this spring. I have no art at all in my family history, I have only dabbled here and there with things. Of course, you can count my multiple knitted sculpture as art (and I do), but those days are long behind me now as I have not had time to knit since before immigrating to the United States (almost five years ago!).
A thing I do sometimes is go to Salt Lake City's largest thrift store chain, Deseret Industries, and buy secondhand paintings on canvases. Not because I like the subjects (I really don't need a painting of a temple or of 'Marissa' (?)) but I've heard a thing that painters do sometimes is paint over an old painting. For $1 a canvas, how could I go wrong?
However, people keep telling me that you must learn to draw before you can paint.
I have drawn things in the past, mostly stick figure cartoons or goofy animals (mostly cats and sheep, duh), and one year for Christmas I drew caricatures of my husband's family as matryoshka - in lieu of gift tags. But I am only familiar with pencils and colored pencils.
Last week I started a drawing class at a local art store. The supply list was awfully long (!) and I doubt I'll ever be interested in using graphite sticks regularly, but I now have all the things I need going forward to explore different drawing techniques.
I have also started listening to some art podcasts. The first one is the Thriving Artist, and I think I've only listened to one or two of those. The topic was about the business of being an artist, that is, making a living doing it. Very interesting. I just got promoted in my research job last month and have a shiny career ahead of me, so I don't have any plans to be a career artist any time soon, but you never know where life will take you. The other podcast I found is the Savvy Painter - that one comes out every week and it's been very interesting learning how people manage their lives around their painting.
I'm not sure if I'll stick with the drawing class I'm enrolled in - I don't 100% love it, but I'll finish out the month I paid for and go from there. Dan has offered to draw with me (he's taken tons of drawing classes, has been to three art schools) so I think we may take that up. There are other things I want to explore too - such as painting, ceramics, fiber arts, and maybe some other sculpture. We have three kitties now, so whatever I end up making has to be cat-proof, but I think I'm up for the challenge. I do think I have the discipline for self-study though. After training for a half-marathon in 2016 and learning a second language using an app on my phone, I know I can persist if something really catches my interest. So I will explore.
I plan to use all the learning tools available to me. We have a fantastic library system in Salt Lake City with a massive art collection. There is also the Internet. I even have some artists in my life here that I could hang around. I'm not sure about posting pictures of my progress and projects, we'll see how happy I am with them. I'm not interested in being "good" - I'm too whimsical for that. I just want to make things that I like to look at. I joined Instagram a couple of months ago and that will help with inspiration.
If you, dear reader, have any recommendations what so ever - books, videos, podcasts, IG accounts - please throw them my way! I'd love to hear from you and get exposed to things I have not yet seen.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy this year-long journey with me!
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