David Hockney's Secret Knowledge

[Tom Edgerton]

Margaret--

Before you run off to get Hockney's book and a projector, you've missed the point. Tools and skills are not the same thing. It's as if one assumes that one can establish a nice side business in brain surgery just because one buys the scapel from the same place as the surgeon.

When not working from life, I always start with a careful drawing. This is primarily to learn the structure of the face and head before I start slapping on the paint. In very short order, the drawing is totally obscured, and it's the same long march to the finish, with a lot of side trips and loops on the way. If any tool could streamline this preliminary work, it would still be the same process with the painting. No shortcuts, no tricks. If you can't paint, the result will be horrible no matter what device you started with.

Good painting will never be anything but **** hard. But there is nothing more fun, nor ultimately more rewarding. If it were easy, there would be no museums. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Best--TE