9/20
Today I had the privilege of hearing a lecture from Stanley Rayfield, an artist who painted the former governor of Virginia and who went to Maggie Walker for high school. I thought his art was incredible. I learned that he took his skills form illustration school and brought them into his drawings when he finally found his passion for portraits and faith inspired art. This was interesting to me because his artistic process, especially for painting portraits, involves a lot more planning than I would expect.
I also found it very interesting that he said he really struggled in high school art class, commenting that he was at the bottom of his art class. It is crazy to me how he improved so much in such a short mount of time. I also find it inspirational, as a person who is intimidated by the task of drawing and painting realistically, that he was able to build his skills to that level despite starting off with drawings and paintings he considered bad.
I am curious about how he developed his portrait skills before he went to university. He did not spend much time talking about how he built up his painting skills from being bottom of his class to being featured in galleries, and I would be interested to know wether he simply practiced painting people, took separate classes, or used other strategies to build his skills.
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