[Chris Saper]

Hi Karin, Jim, Michele,

I am laughing as I read this post, as I love to paint portrait and still life, and have never painted a decent landscape for my life...

People always say, "Oh if you can paint a portrait you can paint anything!" Ha. I think landscape is so very difficult to do well, and that there is really a lot to know, in order to incorporate it into a painting. (Carlson's Guide to Landcape Painting, what an excellent book!) I also find the compositional decisions unending...should I put this tree here, or to the right, how big, how small. At least for a portrait painter, there's only one right place for the nose, and one right shape. It's either right or it's wrong, period.

I have taken a couple of landscape classes, and I am so intriqued by the different temperaments. The landscape guys whistle, listen to the birds, hang out with their dogs, while the portrait painters are INTENSELY doing EVERYTHING.

The landscape painters seem to be having more fun!
Matt Smith, who is a terrific plein air painter from Arizona, laughs at us and insists that portraits are for painters who are afraid to go outside. I laugh too, since the last time I went outside, by the time I got set up, my canvas had a large, and I mean large, dried bird dropping right in the center. Try as I did to turp it into an "underpainting" the day just continued in a sort of surreal fashion. (I LIKE my studio.)

By the same token, the very compositional issues that drive me crazy in landscape, fascinate and please me in still life.

Burt Silverman comes right to mind when I think of a painter who excels in everything. By the way, Dan Gerhartz is another artist(taught by Richard Schmid) who moves easily and beautifully among all three genres.

Chris