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No, Marvin, thanks for the taunt, but I don't purchase and study other painters' instructional DVDs for laughs, nor out of contempt for them, nor to compare myself to those artists. They are all my superiors in the arts, by definition. I buy them only after I've seen the particular artists' work and have been so very taken by it that I wanted to know more about their methods. I buy them because I have more to learn, and I don't rely on one source for all of my information.
No studio or workshop teaches everything about all of it, but I can't get to all the workshops anyway. I'm not stuck in any genre, and a lot of different methods and materials handling and philosophies intrigue me. Yes, it's true, after training in the figure and portrait at an atelier, I could not paint landscapes as well as Jay Moore or Scott Christensen. Their professionalism and generosity in putting their teachings "out there" in DVD form permitted me the extreme pleasure of watching their work evolve from concept to finished masterpiece. By all accounts, their workshops are as full as ever. I certainly didn't just pop some corn and sit back and watch these masters for yucks. Nor do I hold my classical realist instructors at fault for not making sure I could paint like Moore or Christensen before I left.
And no, I don't know if the methodologies of the 19th century can be improved upon. I've been recently told that some 19th century materials, including painting substrates and pigment vehicles, couldn't be improved on, but I'm not sure that's gospel, either. I admit, it's harder and harder to know which shell the pea is under.
The suggestion that this Forum's moderators are deleting your posts, out of some kind of animosity or envy or whatever motivation is imagined, isn't true. You well know that. You have been given completely free rein since being reinstated after the low point in this Forum's history, years ago now. If any of your posts have been deleted, I suspect that it may have been a matter of authorial discretion after the fact. An audit record would clarify who did what, when, if the software here permits it.
That's enough of this thread for me. This last-artist-standing approach doesn't much feed the soul.
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