A short introduction from my side. I’m Bert, living together with my wife and three kids in the north of Holland. I have a background in biology and medicine. At the moment, I work as a psychiatrist in a hospital. I have a passion for art and like to draw and paint. I intent to start at an art academy in Groningen (de klassieke academie) in september, if all goes well. For now, I follow Paul Foxton’s colour course. I only recently discovered this site, mentioned by a fellow student. Although I have been painting a bit in the last few years, I feel I am a beginner with regard to really discipline yourself in order to improve. Having contact with like-minded people can help you set achievable goals and challenges. I guess we live in a lucky era that such things as internet exists to learn from others far from us!
Welcome aboard Bert! It is great to find you among the community here. I do hope that you find our resources invaluable and our community supportive and inspiring. My wife and I are very excited to see this site growing so quickly. Please do not hesitate to present any questions you may have during your time here. There are some incredibly experienced and knowledgeable members here that can indeed help to see that your journey thought the world of painting and drawing is as effective, efficient and rewarding as possible. Best wishes!
I agree is great that technology can give us access to such a bounty of knowledge and build communities of like minded people that understand our passion and struggles to improve. As they have been there and overcome them and happily help us tackle obstacles they have conquered to improve our technique.
I look forward to seeing your work and discussions in the threads.
Thank you, John! With regard to my work, it is not much yet, and looking around here, I see a lot of very good work indeed. At the moment, besides the colour course, I went back to the basics by drawing Bargue and drawing from other painters. I just learned of the K12 package from the Ani Art Academy and see some very helpful exercises in it and think this is also good to do. But as you notice, my problem is to remain focused and stick to achievable, but constructive, goals. Writing this down right now, I realize it might be helpful to show some sketches and work with the question what a good goal might be to work at for the following period.
