by Pooch » Mon Jun 12, 2017 4:03 pm
Reupholstering two chairs? I'm sure You'd rather be painting. I hate when life interferes with what we want to be doing. My wife had me visiting all of the Goodwill stores with her, today. On Mondays they give senior citizens discounts. I'm 65!! (Can't believe it, frankly). She says at least I'm good for something. I think she's kidding. I think. She resells the stuff on E-Bay. Does pretty well.
But...back to art. As far as copying Nagy's work, I do it as a learning experience and also just to see if I can do it. I admire that style. When I paint without worrying about style or brushstrokes it's the subject matter that becomes important. My train, the ship in the storm, the otter, are all paintings where I simply started to paint a subject that I was interested in doing. These paintings are more "my style" I suppose. If I have one. And they are probably the best of my work so far. Trouble is, I WANT to be able to paint like Nagy.
I watched a video, recently, of a lecture given by a well known painter. He said not to worry about things like brushstrokes because that isn't why people buy paintings. They buy it because they like horse paintings. Or flowers. Or because they are looking for a sailboat picture to hang in their living room. They aren't interested in style. Other artists are, though. They will be interested in the way you handled the brush. Trouble is, "artists don't usually buy art."
So, I should make the subject matter my driving force. It's like watching that beautiful Mercedes Benz go by and wishing it was mine. But I can't afford it. I'll just keep driving my Ford. It's just fine and gets me where I want to go.