Apples with Pot

If I try to be like him, who will be like me?

Yiddish proverb

The hardest thing about painting is making the painting one's own. Although my teacher says its fine to copy other people's work (particularly the masters), he strongly advocates setting up one's own still life or finding a particular place and taking your own photograph and working from it. Unfortunately, I tried that. I took a fabulous picture of a courtyard in St. Thomas and decided to paint it several weeks ago. After hours and hours of working on the stone courtyard I carefully placed the painting in the corner of my studio and dug out this photograph I found on Wet Canvas. I can claim no originality here but I am enjoying turning the photo into an oil painting with Carravagio in mind. That doesn't mean I don't like the above quote ~ it just means once in awhile it's okay to copy. There's a lot to be learned from other people's work.