A Portrait I’ve Been Working On

This is one of the options for our portrait group this month. There are some tweaks ahead, but I’m getting close.

Lily and New Project

The above sketch is the first in my new black pocket cahier moleskine. I was rather inspired by Jeanette and Jeanne's participation in The Sketchbook Project. I thought hard about joining in, but decided that I didn't have time - which turned out to be true, I never would have finished it.

But, I still like the idea. I am thinking of filling this with flower sketches...

Sargent: Sweat and Success

Self Portrait
work in progress

Recently I was studying up on John Singer Sargent. He was the artist of the month for my newsletter (sign up for the monthly newsletter here.) He was born on January 12.

I'm sure that I had read about how prolific he was before...but it's rather hard to imagine what over 900 oils, 2000 watercolors, and countless sketches means. So I looked at an average Sargent month...to achieve the above during 1877-1925 Sargent produced over 18 oil paintings, 42 watercolors, and scores of sketches every month for 48 years.

Now, I have monthly goals, but they just aren't even close to that! In fact, for my yearly goals, I decided on 100 sketches and 50 paintings...about a typical Sargent month.

Of course, Sargent wasn't typical. What worked for him wouldn't work for everyone. However, you don't need to be as prolific as Sargent to meet your goals. In your hour of sweat, you should remember this...Sargent considered Madame X his best work. He also struggled desperately with it...even though typical and average don't describe him...hard work, struggle, and perseverance did. Sometimes, hard work, struggle and perseverance lead to great things.