Awesome post! Very useful to have the inside scoop. There was a recent posting on "Ask HN" about pressure to quickly succeed. The exact quote was "I'm 22 and I feel if I don't hit it big within the next 2 years I probably won't". [1, 2] Success is a slow road, as this post so nicely illustrates, you need to constantly be putting in the hours! It's easy to browse HN/startup eco-system and only see the career highlight reels and think: "jeez, I will never be successful", or "Man, how did they get to this point person, must just be a natural", or "I can never be like that". But, this behind the scenes view shows you what success looks like on a day-to-day basis (hard work + passion + education + tons of practice + over many many years). What is funny, is that we often only see the end result, and just assume it was an overnight success.
As an artist, I constantly have people stumble across my recent work and exclaim how much they like it. That's awesome! It makes me feel so good. But they see that without the context of the years that came before it. They don't understand the struggles that lead to that piece.
So this article was all about providing some of that context.
Thanks for the perspective and this incredible article. It's quite motivating and I love how you use the light (being a photographer I think it's easier for me to see) and the details/texture.
Going through the article, I felt two transitions:
a. Where you did portraiture with landscape background,
b. where you did the imaginative landscapes
would do imaginative sketches of landscapes
The place where the article really connected/resonated with me was:
But then I started getting annoyed. I got annoyed with how students are taught
and with how art schools take advantage of eager young art students.
I saw too many of my peers taken advantage of. They charge tens or hundreds
of thousands of dollars and give very little in return.
So for one thing, I wrote that angry rant that a few of you might have read.
In 2013, I started Art Camp.
What you are doing is incredible and it's nice to see your passion being cohesively molded into a purpose which helps you to give back.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9837493
[2] sorry to use this as an example, but looks like new account / throwaway