2020 sucked but at least I got better at painting

Once upon a time, baby artist me (late teens-early 20’s) had grandiose ideas of being a famous artist and being able to charge hundreds upon hundreds for custom work. The only thing standing in my way from accomplishing this was skill, discipline, and dedication. I expected things to come easily for me (because why wouldn’t they), and gave up too easily/switched to abstract art when I got the subtle cues from my professors that maybe realism wasn’t for me.

Fast forward to the Great Pandemic of 2020, I decided to take up oil painting aging. Mind you, I had been teaching grades 7-12 for the past three years and teaching helped me improve a lot on my own. Mainly because I always wanted to make sure that I was the expert. With nothing better to do during the lockdown (except play the Mass Effect Trilogy for the first time- WOW), I was able to finally develop that dedication, discipline, and skill that I had been lacking in my youth.

I made so many paintings- a lot of them silly and definitely unhinged- but one of my favorite series, “Bunny Tea Party” and “Slypers” came out of it. This dedicated time, where I really couldn’t go out and get distracted, was exactly what I needed to re-establish the foundational skillset that I’ve continued to build upon since then.

Fast forward to now, I’m going hard on traditional painting techniques (yeah, I’m talking about you Old Dutch Master Style) and reading any books, blogs and listening to podcasts that can give me more knowledge about the style that I want to paint in. 2020 inadvertently set off a thirst for knowledge I had forgotten within me. I’m no longer giving up because it got hard, I’m looking for the next, more difficult thing to do. I feel like the current body of work I’m developing, Glitched, is evident of this.