You can have all the talent ...

You can have all the talent in the world put only persistence will give you the ability to become a world beater, ironically though talent can only be born from thousands of long hard and repetitive hours of practice.

Take for instance a study carried out by an educational phycologist whose work had convinced him that geniuses were made and not born. With his wife’s help they decided to turn there three daughters into chess champions, the girls studied at home with there house filled with books on chess. Two of the daughters became grand masters while the third being less passionate for the game still ended up being ranked the sixth best woman player in the world.

The same can be said for all pursuits in life like learning to hear and avoid mistakes in music or fine-tuning the swing of a golf club. Champion golfer of past, Arnold Palmer produced an amazing shot once to win a major tournament, later a reporter said to the golfer “That was a lucky shot!” Palmer replied “Yes it seems the harder I practice the luckier I get.”

So the adage goes paint a thousand seagulls and only then can you truly say you can paint a seagull.

It’s that time of year again

It’s that time of year again when we Australian artist’s pack our larger than life portrait projects of to the countries two major competitions; the Archibald prize (over 800 entries last year) and the Doug Moran national portrait prize (over 500 entries). I personally am only entering the DMNPP this year, with a portrait of my 14-year-old daughter. My baby left for the judges this morning, and looking at the photo image now makes me feel both proud and nervous.

Portrait painting, I think is the most magnificent and challenging form of painting, I also find it the most exiting. Having painted numerous commissioned and non-commissioned portraits over the past couple of years I’ve felt exhilarated from start to finish, from considering which medium and style would best suit the sitter, to the last minute touches before a deadline.

The amazing privilege for an artist is to immortalise someone, but the ultimate satisfaction is for someone to see himself or herself. Having said that I think its time for me to try another self-portrait, and I almost defiantly will be painting over a previous one.

In the immortal words of Erica Badu “keep in mind that I’m an artist, and I’m sensitive about my stuff.”

Blank White Paper

Procrastination / artist block; simply sitting down to write this has given me an anxious uneasy tension, in so much as to look at the key pad I am typing on and have insatiable urge to clean it. Well it is covered in charcoal dust and paint splatter, maybe I should give it a quick little wipe over. NO!!!! I know if I do that it won't be just a little wipe, but instead I'll have unplugged the thing and attacked it with cotton tipped buds and three different types of cleaning agents, then only to realise I do not need to have all this crap on my desk.

A dozen CD's half without a casees, a tape measure, a T squared ruler on the top of three unopened magazines still in their clear cellophane wrap, amidst all these flyers and wires. Flyers from past exhibitions, wires from headset for the computer speakers, wires for extra speakers, iPOD wires with iPOD accessories, mobile phone cables that connect to my computer and ther's radio cable for my mobile next to a 9V battery I got for the transistor radio I can not find so I could listen to the footy or was that for a race, and by the way where is my mobile phone??? (no distractions remeber, it is down stairs)

From the seven odd pens on this desk you'd think one of them would work and yes there is a clear corner on one of many scrap bits of paper on this heap. Note to oneself: I really must clean that shelf above the computer.