As an artist I understand the need to work in my chosen mediums, to experiment, to get outside of my comfort zone.
However, our pragmatic world requires that I do other labor to live and flourish as well.
It has taken me most of my life to be in a life position in retirement to draw daily, and to do other types of art.
We live in a grind and hustle culture wherein slowing, down, contemplation, and solitude are not valued, yet are these things we need to grow and flourish in life and our art.
John Singer Sargent shows us what commitment and hard work can do within our God-given talents.
Video from Gammell Lack Institute of American Art
John Singer Sargent, Drawings
"John Singer Sargent without doubt is one of the most popular and accomplished artists of any generation. His skills with the brush and paint are exemplary but behind that obvious fact is his ability to simply Draw well. His draughtsmanship was nurtured and he worked very hard to be at the top of his game, but never wavered in planning carefully any project before him. We are looking into that aspect of his life's work..DRAWING." from the video introduction
Biography
"Born in 1856 in Florence to expatriate American parents, John Singer Sargent received his first formal art instruction at Rome in 1868, and then sporadically attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence between 1870 and 1873. In 1874 he was accepted at the Paris atelier of the portraitist Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran, and attended drawing classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He began to exhibit at the Salon in 1877. Over the next few years several experiences had a significant impact on Sargent's artistic development: during a trip to Spain in 1879 he copied paintings by Velasquez at the Prado, in 1880 he visited Belgium and Holland, where he copied works by Hals, and in 1881 he met Whistler in Venice. The scandal engendered by Sargent's daring portrait of Madame Gautreau at the Salon of 1884 precipitated his departure to London the following year. In 1887 he visited and worked with Monet at Giverny, and made his first professional trip to America. In 1897 he was elected an academician at the National Academy of Design, New York, and the Royal Academy of Art, London, and he was made a member of the Legion of Honor in France..." from the article: John Singer Sargent American, 1856 - 1925