I have loved to draw all my life. Even as a little girl, when my brothers and sister were away doing something else, I always chose to amuse myself with paper and pencil — drawing horses, dresses, people. All my life I had only used pencil and was comfortable with that.  I was reticent about getting into color because pencil was so convenient, and color seemed daunting because of all the considerations that came with color that I never had to think about with pencil.
I’ve always loved drawing faces and realized it was time to go further than just pencil.  There were things I could only go only so far in conveying with pencil alone. So I thought I’d take an oil portrait painting class at a local community college. After painting a portrait in that class, I remember the teacher asking several times if I had ever taken a portrait class before because my work was, I guess, fairly good. I felt like she didn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t. (Although I had two university degrees in art, those curricula hadn’t ever encompassed a portrait painting class.)  The students would crowd around my easel to look at my progress, but when they started asking for my opinion on their work, that was a little uncomfortable for me because I didn’t feel like it was my place to take over the teacher’s. One model who sat for the class brought her mother the next week to see the portrait I did of her.
Chris
Looking back on that experience, I think I excelled so quickly at painting because I already had my drawing skills down. The other students were struggling because they were trying to learn two rather challenging discipline at once – drawing and painting — and their works were usually a mess. They got frustrated, thinking they didn’t have any talent, when really they just got the cart before the horse.
Through my years of drawing, I had developed a good grasp of what it took to get a good likeness in a portrait. It takes thorough study of the sitter, measuring proportions and distances with my eyes, and dropping imaginary plumb lines to line up the features. I learned that every detail in a face, the size and shape of every feature and every shadow, could not be overlooked or glossed over. I could not draw a shadow too dark or too light, too wide or too short, because then the face I drew would not resemble the sitter. These are all things you learn through concentrated focus.
All Twittered Out
So in that class, with that skill under my belt, I could give my whole attention to learning how to combine colors in oil (not an easy task). I learned that applying the paint in a certain way could give the face a luminous quality that only the medium of oil can give. I learned the eyes (my favorite part of painting a face) are the focal point of a portrait. The highlight of the eyes, the sheen of the hair, the glint of the teeth, the color changes in the skin – these are extremely important to get right when painting a portrait.  It makes the face on the canvas seem to come alive.
There is much to learn and I still consider myself an avid learner and a student. But I have learned a great deal over the course of my life and my online video drawing series, “Drawing Secrets Revealed,” is a compilation of everything I have learned in an organized, easy-to-understand course that a teenager could follow and an experienced artist would glean a lot of knowledge from. My own work can be viewed at www.sarahparksartist.com.
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Dear Sarah, I wanted to send an email to tell you what an inspiration you are to me. I accidentally came across your work only a few weeks back and I feel like I’m stalking you a little but I truly love it and reading your blogs Is satisfying. I used to love art when I was young, then came teenager years passed and husband kids and I never got back into again. However, I got bad news this year that I have cancer, cut a very long story short I took up drawing again a few months back, and it’s the only thing that seems to take me to a different planet, my whole life has turned upside down, my career will stop because of it, however your work is so truly eye-catching, you have such a talent, and I admire you for setting up your own business, I find myself mesmerized looking at your portraits, they can have so many meanings to it, at this point in my life I can relate to it. I only have took up sketches of my little girls , some famous actors , when I was young I loved oil painting, I’m not brave enough yet to accomplish that as so many failures this year I would ruin me if I made a mess of it, but I just wanted to say keep up the good work, you certainly made my day looking at your beautiful artwork, Joanne , Scotland
Joanne,
So sorry to hear about your diagnosis. What a horrible feeling to have been told that you have cancer. But a lot of people have continued to live long and wonderful lives after getting that same news so they say it’s not the death sentence it used to be.
I have read that cancer thrives on glucose, so it is suggested that cutting down on the carbs would help since carbs turn into sugar in the body. Also, cancer can’t live in an alkaline environment so make sure your body is in an alkaline state.. Here is a good website:
http://healthylife2.hubpages.com/hub/Keeping-My-Body-in-an-Alkaline-State-of-Mind
And cancer cells are killed by oxygen, so see if you can find a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and go there often.
Also, many people have beat cancer by getting into a happy state because the Law of Attraction says we receive more of what we resonate with. So if you do what makes you happy, like drawing, then you should do more of that. Also, gratitude brings us closer to God. I know you probably aren’t feeling very grateful now, but if you constantly thank God for the good things in your life and stay in a state of thankfulness, you’ll eventually get more good things.
I think you’ll beat this Joanne!
Thank you for the nice comments on my work. Probably my favorite genre is portraits. For some reason I love to draw and paint faces the most.
You said you used to love art when you were young. That tells me you have the aptitude to develop into a good artist if you have the right teaching. Talent can be developed but aptitude is inborn.
You said you’d love to get back into oils painting. Most people who paint realism should have good foundation of drawing skills first. Trying to learn drawing and painting at the same time is too difficult because they are both complex disciplines and each deserve the student’s utmost time and attention. I developed a drawing course that took me over a year to develop and it’s one I would have liked to have had when I was just starting out.
So unless you have excellent drawing skills under your belt, my suggestion is to take a drawing course, either mine or someone else’s. Take your time learning the techniques and theories, and practice, practice, practice. Then, when you get good, you can turn all your focus on your painting in oil.
If you are interested in drawing course, you can check out student’s comments about the course I offer at ArtistNetwork University: http://www.anu.drawingsecretsrevealed.com. I also offer the same course on my website: http://www.drawingsecretsrevealed.com for less but weekly critiques are not included. Many of my students had always wanted to be artists, but family and career got in the way. Then later in life, they said they finally had the time and really wanted to learn.
Joanne, please keep in touch, whether you take my course or not, and let me know how you are doing. If drawing “takes you to a different planet” then I hope you’ll get into that dimension often. It sounds like you were meant to be an artist.
Take care, I’m praying for you.
Sarah