Bougureau and hope

For those of you that have been following my blog I started this blog 5 years ago after watching a movie about a call center employee who went to school to become a writer and ends up working at a call center because she never found the right time to work on her book. So In this film she gets the idea of going through an entire cookbook and writing about each recipe on her blog. As a way for her to complete something as she had this tendency to never finish anything. Also as a way for her to write on a daily basis.

Then I got the idea for doing that but with my work as an artist, when i originally had this idea to become an academic and official portrait painter for high class society i was in drawing 2 class in my community college. My drawing professor wanted me to continue the standard schooling tradition and get a bachelors degree in fine arts and teach at a community college or college. That way I could have a steady job and do my art on the side. I thought about doing that for a couple of months then i thought "No, I only live once If I do this I am going to do it my way." well My way was much harder then the traditional schooling system process.

My way started 6 years ago with 1 year of drawing classes at a community college, 1 semester of a painting class at a community college, 4 1 week workshops, plus one 2 week workshop on color theory with graydon parrish which i highly recommend!  an apprenticeship (i dont know what else to call it) with a professional working artist, and 1 year of drawing at the Loft Atelier and a short study with Ted seth jacobs and now a 6 week study with Studio Escalier (currently in progress) plus further training when I return to the states and in europe next year...and here I am!

Throughout this entire 6 years I find myself to be reminded of the constant nagging fact that no matter where I go and whom i study with at the end of the day what I do is all up to me.  I could have been studying at Angel Academy for 4 years! and that would be no guarantee of success for me!

I write this specific post because I find myself thinking about my favorite artist, not just because of the work that he produced but his work ethic. Now I know this sounds rather shallow to like a specific artist for there work and there work ethic but the books that I have on bougureau only contain technical historical information on his paintings, his process but i have no information on his ideals. Other then when he was young and at picots studio he did write in his journal that a man that is always talking has nothing to say, so i tried that for a couple of years but have since switched that up to, a man that is not listening has nothing to say.

I have much respect for bougureau and his work ethic, he had small beginnings in a fish town of La Rochelle, France and he worked his way up (with the help of his uncle and his mother, which is a reminder to me as well that no man is an island) through the art world with his strong temperament, determination and passion to succeed. When I first read about him 6 years ago I was working retail at a blockbuster and I was making 7.75 an hour. I knew that part of my sucess was going to be dependent on studying with the right people, the right people being studio escalier, ted seth jacobs, angel academy.. etc.  but at 7.75 an hour I was NEVER going to be able to that. (one thing that people seem to find taboo is the fact that studying costs money as well as time)

So i set myself about to gain knowledge beyond the arts, knowledge that would help me get a better paying job, which in turn would help me pay for the right teachers, which in turn would help me be the kind of painter that i NEED to be.  the process took 2-3 years.  I did study in between and I tried to find painters to take my under but noone was interested. I did finally get the right job with the skills that I had learned and then it was another 3 years before I left for France.  Finally...

Someone had this joke once "If i had a dime for every time alex talked about france, Id have a lot of dimes"...

There were tough times in between and countless nights where I wanted to give up and do something normal, and have a normal life. Yet If i even missed a day or two of painting I would get highly agitated and think Bougureau never took a day off in his life so why should I. My friends supported me as well, my best friend supported me the most. My little brothers and sister did also supported me, which was good because there was a point  in the past 6 years where I didnt draw for 6 months and looking back I feel like absolute shit thinking on it. But I was at a standstill with my bargue plates and I knew that I could only learn so much on my own. But I kept on hoping, thinking of bougureau..

As childish and romantic as it may sound, in reality I feel like I owe a lot of what I have been able to accomplish because of him. We have similiar backgrounds, but we both refuse to give up. Even now during painting class I stop, get frustrated then think "keep pushing, think clearly, focus on hue, value, chroma, etc"" and I keep moving forward.

Because I have hope, hope that one day all this work will pay off and I can make not only a living at painting but live happily as a painter. I want a normal life just like everyone else, but i refuse to be poor or suffer because of it. Its hope that drives me. hope is my fuel, bougureau is a reminder to me that it is possible, and the rest is up to me.