I recently read a blog by someone whose opinions and advice I value and respect, but I disagree with his latest topic. He said that artists, particularly if they are selling well, shouldn’t change their techniques or styles. This may be true for younger artists, but for those who have a long career, change is not only inevitable, in some cases, it is necessary.
My own professional painting career of over fifty years has seen many changes, not only in techniques and styles, but mediums and subject matters. The reasons for the changes have been health, trends, gallery requests, personal circumstances and a need to refresh my creativity periodically.
SWITCHING MEDIUMS
My first big change had to do with health. I was painting with oils and doing a lot of turpentine-thinned washes and I became very ill from them. I was forced to switch to acrylics and painted with them for many years until someone suggested that I try watercolors. In college, I was never fond of painting with them, but once I started experimenting with large sheets of paper, I came to love working with them.
My oils had been abstracts and landscapes, my acrylics are seascapes and landscapes, but my watercolors seemed to lead me to painting more florals, gardens and forest scenes.
TRENDS
During the eighties, people loved watercolors, but later the trend seemed to go to canvas pieces. One gallery I was in didn’t even hang a painting under glass. I started back to painting acrylics and loved the new slow-drying paints which allowed me to use some of my watercolor techniques because of their transparent quality.
Recently, I have come full circle to painting with oils again by using a thicker paint technique, absolutely no thinners of any kind, and cleaning my brushes with a special soap.
Below are examples of my watercolors and acrylics – “Spring Spectrum” 40″ x 60″ watercolor and “View From Elizabeth’s Window” 36″ x 48″ acrylic.
