Emulation

I have decided to begin emulation.


Isn’t that a great word, emulation?


It means that I want to be as good or better than an artist that I have fallen in love with.

I was 13 years old when I had my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.


I remember seeing artists sitting at easels set up in front of classical paintings.  My aunt told me they were copying the works to learn how to paint like the masters.




The other night I was watching NYC Arts on PBS.  They were highlighting an exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum of Holbein portraits. I thought to myself, I love his work! I should see if I can copy it and figure out how he made such realistic paintings!  


My goal as an artist is to achieve photo realism.


So, last night I was cruising through Pinterest and I found artwork by Michele Kortbawi Wilk and it blew me away! I have loved horses all my life and as a child I filled my days drawing pictures of horses. Her animal paintings are so incredibly lifelike!


So, I have decided to emulate her; that is, use her art to inform my own work by copying hers, not to sell or in any way steal from her, but in order to see how she does what she does and hopefully use those techniques to create my own lifelike portraits of animals.


Today I started sketching from one of her paintings. There’s no time limit, so I’m going slowly, really enjoying the process and learning from my mistakes. Once the sketch is done I’ll decide if I want to paint the image or maybe use pastels or colored pencils. Maybe I’ll do all three!


When I took the Milan Art Institute Mastery Program I was instructed to use Pinterest to gather sources to use in my artwork.  I had never had much interest in Pinterest but now I have many, many pages of sources. One the pages Milan suggested setting up I called, “Art I Want To Emulate.”


I wasn’t quite sure what that meant at the time but I do now. 


Watch out world!  I’m gettin’ better!!