Building on the past
by Greg Conley
The core of artistic skills continues to fracture into ever smaller niches of skill, digitization, audience, and market. Sometimes it is good to look to the past to learn artistic craft and what drove and inspired those who have produced art for it's own sake throughout history.
The high esteem once bestowed to artists in the far past, when they were officially greeted and embraced by government and church alike, is a long forgotten notion.
Artists are indeed greeted and embraced by a culture that is struggling to exist just under the radar of popular culture. A culture of creativity and self expression in the fine arts. We are the original "artists." And we are those who strive for expression.
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"Under the Big Top" - Watercolor ca. 1930
by Frank Wilcox (1887-1964)
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Some of us are quite normal, some of us are whack jobs, some of us "suffer for our sanity" to paraphrase Don Mclean's Vincent, and most of us are a balanced mix and in general quite nice people who can make amazing things from nothing.
Our skills and experience levels vary from unskilled but prolific to overskilled and stifled. Sometimes the rare combination of skill, drive, and high work ethos produce people who shine above the rest.
Sadly, watercolor has on occasion suffered a certain artistic stigma due to misconceptions about permanence, or it's being a "serious" medium. This last peeve perpetuated by oil painters in particular. The twits. I find watercolor a more spiritually demanding medium than oil.
Many Famous Artists throughout history have used the special qualities of this aqueous medium for its unique combination of spontaneity, color, and the unique blend of painting and drawing skills in one artform. Some dabbled with great skill and some embraced it as their primary vehicle of expression.
We've collected a select group, currently a top 40, of historical and contemporary artists here, who we consider to be of the highest caliber. The Masters. The artists who inspire us and show us the various paths that have been followed in the past.
Explore the links in the drop down menu above and beyond to the places and images that inspire and interest you. The more you see, the more you'll be able to find yourself as an artist.
But if you ever do feel fractured and put upon as a watercolorist, find some refuge in the fact that there are thousands of us out here perpetuating this artform to the best of our educations and abilities.
And we're having a grand time.
—Greg Conley
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