Featured Artist David Beale

Watercolorist David Beale presents a collection of landscapes from his portfolio and a story of passion for the craft. Enjoy, and learn more by visiting his website.

 

 

I feel that for me art is a state of mind, of approaching life as an ongoing process rather than focusing on goals  My experiences as a music composition student through grad school, as a  Peace Corps volunteer in rural Colombia, gardening, piloting a small plane, owning a remodeling company, building our house, and painting and teaching watercolor all have all been important manifestations of the same process during various phases of a long and meaningful life. I thoroughly enjoy the process and often feel that goals and deadlines interfere.

 

 

I came to watercolor at the age of 50 when my wife enrolled us in an evening course at the local college. I soon began teaching local art classes, and have never stopped.

 

 

I now also teach art workshops both in the US and abroad including Spain, Italy, and Costa Rica. The accompanying images result from six workshops taught in Ireland along the Wild Atlantic Way, the western coastline of a country I hold dear.

 

 

I now schedule a week-long regional and two-week international workshop per year. On my website you can sign up to receive news and announcements about future workshops!

 

 

A story about my son Luke illustrates my approach to teaching. Luke wasn’t thrilled with his violin lessons as a pre-teen. He dreaded the periodic recitals of student works and failed to prepare for what would come to be his last one. I was fairly certain that he hadn’t memorized his assigned piece.

 

 

Much to my astonishment, when his turn came, he stood up and proudly announced that he had composed an original composition for the recital. “A chip off the old block!”, I thought. What followed was enthusiastic but sounded like a random and rambling playing of notes. His performance, beyond demonstrating a good dose of chutzpah, was a great example of improvisation with absolutely no structure. Nevertheless, I was proud of his attempt to manage the situation with an original solution!

 

 

The point of this story? Practically all my students through the years have mastered a competent level of technique. They each have found their unique path to originality. My observation has been that the much harder part of “learning the trade” involves creating a viable structure, a scaffolding, on which to apply their technique.

 

 

My math and music training in particular trained me in the importance of structure, which in turn facilitates freedom of expression. This is what I focus on in my teaching. The surface becomes almost animate. The structure is there, but the improvising occurs throughout the painting process. Improvising is what makes art for me so special, whatever the medium, while the structure provides boundaries and a focus.

 

David  Beale invites you to follow on Instagram and Facebook.

 

 

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