Where's the Fun in That?

I study with a very proficient oil painter once a week.  For me this is weekly journey of challenges and anxiety, reversing my thinking process of creating a piece of art in another medium.  After 20-plus years as a watercolor artist I decided it was time to step up and learn a new medium.

So when an associate happily told me to "Have Fun!" as I set off to my lesson I had to wonder if this was really a way to have fun.  Art, as much as it is a joyous activity, also can be hellacious on the creator.  When you begin making art you are just gosh-darned thrilled to put lines, shapes, color on paper or canvas. And it may be all you ever wanted to do.  But if you are really committed, dedicated to making art, those blobs of color will never satisfy you enough.

You want more. You want to get better. You discipline yourself to work daily.  You take lessons and read and learn from the masters.  You want to explore and perfect your way of telling a story. You challenge yourself.  You throw out more than you keep.  You wonder what the heck possesses you to keep doing this, to add to the stacks of paper and canvases, to the pile of curiously squeezed tubes of paint, to the seductive smell of linseed oil in your studio.  And often you ask yourself why you continue to do this.

Maybe this is my idea of fun.  With just a little insanity thrown in.

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.” Michelangelo 

Discover more of my work at my website http://www.kryspettit.com/