Another thing I forgot/didn't have time to talk about was my general philosophies as an artist. I had planned to talk about little about my favorite artists (Van Gogh, JS Sargent and N Rockwell) and, in particular, a quote attributed to Sargent...
"Talent counts for much, but effort counts for more"
The reason for mentioning that quote is that some of my work, and watching me do it, may look easy but there's years of training, practice and hard work behind it... the talent part just means I had some natural ability to start with. There's just no way I can squeeze hours of hard work into a 15 minute demo.
Sometimes, I finish a piece and have no clue how I did it, generally my mind is somewhere else when doing it. The more I tend to think about doing the work, the more labored it is.
I think it is all muscle memory, sort of like how athletes do their jobs. And yes, it is hard to teach that other than saying practice, practice, practice...
It's also a swagging amount of confidence. Plainly said, I'm not afraid to put down a mark with my pencil or paintbrush (because I know all that practice will fix whatever goofs I make). Again, I can't teach someone how to have that amount of confidence because everybody's paths to that are different.
