Doug Holder Fine Art

Friday, March 16, 2012

Comparing an apple to an orange.

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6" x 6" oil on canvas board

: “Oh look, he drew a horse!” With this, I was an artist. What followed were decades of igniting and sputtering out: a summer scholarship to sketch at the Art Institute of Chicago; buying a huge set of colored pencils in Gibraltar while a sailor and toting them along, unused, as a hobo; short forays into drawing and painting at the American Academy of Art, and Wright College in Chicago; doing paintings to fill frames bought at garage-sales or to match our furniture. Eventually, I was inspired by the VAA course where I found that there was actually a scheme to this stuff. There is more to it than rubbing a brush around on a canvas. More to it than "having a gift." There is perseverance, focus, endless study and practice. There is hard, exhilarating work. I sell paintings. I paint in oils, regularly now, not a painting a day, but often.