BeckerArt FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter May 3rd Learning from the Masters
Published: Tue, 05/03/22
Hello
Welcome to the FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter #363
I conducted a day workshop last weekend in Addison, IL. that went really well and it got me thinking about how much I love doing the live in-person workshops where I can stand over the students and really help them in so many wonderful ways.
Last Sunday it was a rainy day so I went looking through some of my old collection of masters art books. I found a couple that reminded me of how much I love going through those art books and admiring those masters' works! It also inspired me to do a paint-a-long this week of the master Nita Engle's work.
I'm very sorry that I had to push the paint-a-long to Friday last week... too many things going on at once, but hopefully, that won't happen again.
YES TO Class at the Civic Center in Libertyville May 5th 1PM TO 3:30PM
YES TO Class at The Studio in McHenry, May 7th 9AM TO 11:30AM
Email me at Beckerart@gmail.com for any info you may need about my classes or workshops.
Learning from the Masters
When I was a student and looking to learn how to paint a certain way I couldn't go to YouTube or Google to help me out. I would collect books from the master painters that I liked. In those books, I would study as much as I could and would spend tons of time drooling over the paintings that I would see in those books. Then I would try and paint the paintings in those books to try and figure out how they painted those great
paintings.
When I was at The American Academy of Art I would also go to the Art Institute of Chicago and visit their prints and drawing room regularly to sit in front of original watercolors by the masters I would study from the books.
The most amazing thing to do was to copy paintings by the masters and see how close I could get to the original and try to learn as much as I could about how they painted their beautiful paintings.
To this day if I find I am having a problem with a certain subject or a certain style I go now to Google and look to see who painted whatever I am having a problem with and I look to see how that artist has solved that problem that I couldn't figure out. This way of copying has nothing to do with the infringement on the master's work, I am not looking to steal the master's imagery but am looking to learn from it and I make sure I give all the credit to the master. This is a way that many artists
who had never had an art education learned their skills... they did it by going through the master's books and reading and painting from those books.
In this week's paint-a-long we are going to copy a painting from the master Nita Engle's work. I always wanted to take her workshop but she had passed away in 2019, but since she had written a how-to book her teachings still go on.
Paint-a-long Details: This week we will be copying the master waatercolorist Nita Engle work. I have always had problems with painting willow trees and seeing this work by Nita just blows my socks off. Thia is a masters work of art!
If you want to show your paint-a-long work to my Facebook BeckerArt Group
