Recovering from Bad Taste

[Kimberly Dow]

I wanted to write a bit about something I am just noticing.

Since getting online last spring, then later joining this forum there has been a basic shift in what I want to paint. My tastes have changed completely. I had painted for years all alone with no sense of history or exposure to others work. I went to college for art, but my three semesters of art history left me remembering Picasso, but I did not even know who JSS was.

I had been slowly improving over the years by reading a few books and one video. I did not even know the work of the artist who made the video, but it was affordable so I bought it. It made a huge difference in my painting. It was

[Michele Rushworth]

What a great post! I never thought one could learn "taste" from the Internet, but there you go.

[Cynthia Daniel]

This is great Kim. The first belly laugh I've had in a long time - not at you, but at your humor and unabashed honesty and bravery!

[Chris Saper]

Dear Kim,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your post was very uplifting in nature, and I wonder whether you might have alternatively titled it, "moving to my own taste", or some such thing,

I have found just the same thing happening to me, and in the same 12 month span. Although I have been painting portraits professionally for 13 years, I really think I only started ( STARTED!) to paint kind of well about a year ago. I am moving to my own raised bar, and even though I hear "Gee, I liked your old stuff better" the fact of the matter is I didn't like my old stuff better.

Even in the short time you have been sharing your paintings here, I just love seeing your forward motion.

[Kimberly Dow]

Thank you ladies. I have to admit I hovered over the submit button for a minute. If I had clients that logged on I would be horrified, but I don't. It's just the truth anyway, anyone who saw my earlier work would say so. Perhaps we could start a 12-step program.

Chris, you are a classy chic. I say that because I admire how you can turn even the most unflattering thing into something softer and more refined. From 'bad taste' to 'moving to my own taste.'

[Mary Sparrow]

Kim,
Thanks for that post, I have had almost the exact same thoughts swirling around in my head for some time now.

Cheers.

[Steven Sweeney]

This comes at an uncomfortable time, as I hit the half-century mark and use it for few better purposes than wondering what I did with those first fifty years, and most of that time has been spent being clueless, silly, uninformed, clumsy, socially inept, terribly afraid, tentative, impudently brash, abrasive (not always unintentionally -- sometimes ya just gotta do it), rude, crude, and ignorant though generally well-intentioned but terrified

[Kimberly Dow]

[QUOTE=Steven Sweeney]

Kim, I