A Start

I was a professional ballet dancer for fifteen years and then, on retiring, I took on a career as a ballet coach, director and choreographer — a natural outcome of the previous twenty-three years of training and dancing.

My first love with art was visual. Through the years as a dancer and coach I painted about ten to fifteen works a year. Now I am in a place trying to jump start a career as a painter.

I got a studio, spent a couple of months organizing it and then I sat down to work. Ugh!

For the last eighteen years I drew with a Wacom tablet (even to this day I am klutz with a mouse), and trying to go back to a much larger form (paintbrush-and-arm instead of a pen-and-wrist) has proven difficult.

I stopped for a month to research proper archival method to stretch canvas, types of paints and brushes, and to reacquaint myself to the basic formulations of well known painters; including their style of work and subject matters. This was more of a delaying tactic. I was afraid after all the time I spent drawing and painting on the computer would have killed off my natural media abilities.

Again I thought I was ready and sat down to begin painting. Ugh, again!

Then I found Bill Inman. What a gifted artist and teacher. Though I had studied for many years in my youth, I had forgotten much. He pointed me in the right direction and, wallah! I found my focus.

Like any art, even with gifted artists, practice is the key. I cut back my hours as a teacher and have found a way to put in at least five hours a day painting. My first works were a bit stiff — drawing skills are paramount when painting — but I have found something within me that is like meditation — something I had forgotten when I painted all the time — and the voice, the feeling, that soft, joyous warmth within has returned when I sit down to work.

Thanks Master Bill! Your videos are exceptional. I love watching you paint.