Happy Balance

So I am an artist/photographer, and I love to paint.  I have had little training.  Some may think
this is my disadvantage and why my work doesn't look like everyone else's.  My friend Beth
came over to paint for the first time today.  We realized that there needs to be a happy balance
between being trained in art and discovering your uniqueness in art making.  Beth was on her
own today with all the materials to create a painting with no training at all, just a love for art and
sculpting clay.  Well, Beth learned to sculpte her own painting.  She took to the palette knives
with excellent results.  She caked on different acrylic colors and then subtracted them with her
knives.  If she had been taught to paint today by a teacher she would never have learned to sculpte
a painting.  In fact, name a teacher that knows how to do this technique.  I can't.

I too have learned to paint in my own way.  I cherish to nuggets of discovery when I just let it all
hang out and try something "not printed in the bulletin."  When you are free to create amazing
things can happen.  I am open to this teacher.  I can see a painting and get good ideas from it.
Then I can do it my own way, or I can take the sum of all I have experienced and put it on the
page or canvas.  Beth was open to the nuggets she got today.  I look forward to seeing more of
her "sculpted paintings" in the future.

Sincerely,

Billy Cone