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Motivation
I definitely find different things motivating me this year than I did three years ago when I started out exploring oil portraiture as a possible career.
Back then it was the joy of painting again (like play!) after not having picked up a brush for seven years. There was also the novelty of doing this kind of work as a whole.
Now things have changed and the reasons I go into the studio each day are different than they used to be. I now have serious business goals that I track monthly and quarterly, like production schedules and profitability objectives, so it's not like play or a novelty any more.
Now I paint for the challenges I set for myself, both from a business perspective (the production and profitability stuff) and for the ever higher quality goals I have set for the paintings I produce.
And I also paint because, after working at this an average of 30 hours every week for the past three years, there's still nothing I'd rather be doing. Nothing beats that buttery feel of perfectly mixed paint under a soft sable brush, in a beautiful color, defining a form "just so". And nothing beats that moment when a likeness jumps out at you and you feel, "ah, now it's him!"
How about everyone else? What makes you go to the easel every day?
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Threaded Mode
