Successful artists must work on their craft.

I have been painting... and painting... and painting some more. Last week, I delivered fourteen paintings for my summer solo show at Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC. (waterworks.org)

Now that I am done with that commitment, I have 'reset' and begun thinking about what I want to create. Also I've been thinking about what is it, specifically, that makes a 'successful' artist? First, successful artists must work on their craft regularly. IF you are talented and paint on a semi-regular basis, you only get so many winning paintings. But if you are talented AND you treat your art making like a job with discipline and thought, it is only a matter of time before you are successful. If one has a regular, serious approach to their art, eventually they will generate a strong, cohesive body of work that folks just have to buy!

Recently, I have become a huge fan of American Art Collector Magazine (americanartcollector.com) as well as Arcadia Fine Arts. Check out this gallery's website and the artist Brad Kunkle...arcadiafinearts.com

Arcadia sold most of Kunkle's new paintings before his recent show even opened to the public! He is an amazing painter and what makes him even better is he has NUMEROUS awesome paintings, not just a handful with the rest of the show being just OK! He is consistently painting strong work.

So, I am inspired by his paintings AND his sales... and I am off to spend a lot more time with my paintbrushes, sketchbooks and models. Although I will not be posting lots this summer because of my residency at the McColl Center for Visual Art, I will try to post more often than once a month!