Making Progress on Brush Milage

"Keep swinging that....." He grinned very wide like a young boy about to get into trouble. Ray gave me a sly look as if he was going to write something perverted. I stared at the book and kind of tilted my head trying to better grasp the situation. The blank spot remained empty.
"Er what?" I kinda scratched my face nervously.
 After a moment of confusion he scribbled the rest of the saying and added a drawing on the paper.
"Can you read it? Do you know what that says?"
"Ummm keep everything that uh brunnnch or is it lunch?"
"Nope thats not it."
"It says keep swinging that brush I write that in everybody's book."
"Its all about brush mileage the more you draw the better you get. Your making a step forward on your journey."      
"Oh ok I see."
"If your doing artwork like this now then imagine what you'll be doing in forty years or even in five."

For the last couple of months I've been going to the Saturday Portrait group. Recently he's been giving me pointers on how to improve my paintings. Ray is the mentor and the grandpa I'd never had. I've been seeing weekly improvement.

Honestly I look forward to what I will become and what I will do next.
I'm starting to understand what Robert Henri meant when he said, "As an artist you have to makeup your mind to be alone in many ways." When I first ran across this I thought oh my goodness hes endorsing hermit artists. Do I really want to live my life like that? Seriously who wants that? Weirdo.

Having thought of that for awhile what he means and reviewing the entire quote, "The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways."

My reinterpretation and from my current understanding. Not everyone can be a grand master sensei in their craft. It takes hours and years of  dedication and intense practice sort of like knuckle push ups. Not everyone can be at the summit of the mountain.

This journey will be interesting. I'm on my way. Watch me. Behold I am like a shark. No one sees me coming but when you finally see me, I'm already there bout to chomp out the competition.


These  paintings have were done in the last few Saturday sessions.

Last session Daniel 02/15/14

The week before Toma  02/08/14

 Just for kicks I was working on this around the same time last year. I think the model was Deb.