I almost did an ROFL (Rolling on floor laughing) when I read this subject! It's amazing how many Kindred Spirits there are. Karin, it's weird how you read my mind sometimes.
Long long ago, in a faraway land called Las Vegas, I started painting landscapes, you know the wet on wet kind with our lovable series artist, Bob Ross. Although I thought it fun at the time, I quickly became bored with the process, and started branching out and studying all kinds of different techniques, and gathered quite an art library. Once I came across Joseph Sheppards book I have mentioned before, I was hooked on Portraits. It was amazing how much better they looked than anything else I tried. I also did a fair amount of still life's. I have one of orange lilies in a gold vase I will never part with. I agree with Michael, if you find something you love, you usually find a way to get good at it.
My family was asking me why I didn't paint landscapes anymore, so one day I decided to do one. Good thing no one was around, it was an absoulute disaster! I grabbed a rag, dipped it in turp, and wiped the canvas clean! Whew! Maybe if I practiced them more, they'd look OK, but right now there's a big difference in quality between the two catagories for me! And I'm vain enough not to want people to see the difference!
Now here's the weird phenomenom, the backgrounds in my portraits come out fine, even the "landscape" ones. So what's the difference?
