When I began my Artists’ Journey, I found it difficult to justify watching videos. These weren’t your average Netflix thriller – these were videos all about painting, but still I felt like I was wasting my time if I wasn’t doing and instead was watching. Until, that is, I termed this “research and development.”
Of course! R and D is essential for entrepreneurs – what business survives without research? So, time scanning Youtube or following my favourite artists’ websites, or going to art galleries and looking to see how people put paint on canvas…it was all justifiable as research and development!
From time to time I would like to share what I have been watching, and I hope you will share your art-related inspirations. If I look back over the blog posts I have written so far, I have mentioned a few:
- Artists Drew Burnham, Ursula Medley and Tai Shan Shierenberg
- Sky TV’s Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year
- Bloggers and artists Bobbie Herron and Christine Mallaband-Brown
- John Muir Laws
I will add to these Arttutor.com. This was the first art website I really went to for hints and advice. A lot of their videos are on Youtube, but you can also purchase courses. The teaching is simple, matter of fact, and I find I can trust the instructors. The latter is important as not every artist is good at teaching. And, I will add the Bau-Xi Gallery, which you may already have clicked upon to find out about Drew Burnham. Take a look at all of the artist the gallery represents. It is quite an eclectic selection…better still is to walk into the gallery in either Vancouver or Toronto, but that’s not always possible so the website will have to do for now.
R and D will be a regularly occurring part of this blog. It will be a time of pulling together suggestions from previous posts and adding something new to look into. I hope it will also provoke sharing – the world wide web is a massive cauldron full of inspiration and each one of us will find something different. Together we can help each other along this Artists’ Journey of research and development.
Janet and Janet 