Double thumbs up

Your words of wisdom, not only encourage my technical growth, but also instill the courage I require to persevere at something that at times I feel is an impossible endeavor. Thank you so much, Ian.

Thank you for those clear reminders to simplify, and delineate each area for clarity

I love the way you simplify everything and really enjoyed the video.

There are a lot of people out there including artists that think you have to have a beautiful scene to make beautiful painting, but Ian could even make a beautiful painting of a dirt clod.

Life is a Minset!!! BRILLIANT!😮😂❤

"Mastery is ... a love of process." Exactly. You have to enjoy the muddling and noodling and groping, as a child would.

❤❤❤

i really enjoyed the longer video!

Just what I need to get me back to painting and art making, thank you. Very motivating!

Excellent! You really hit the nail on the head and it made perfect sense to me. Thank you.

😮😮😮

Very educative and interesting video, you turned all the photographs into lovely paintings ,even lovelier than the photos themselves! Thank you so much .

Oh,gosh!I hope your book will arrive soon,I have to READ it!🤗🤩❤

Greatly appreciate your videos

Thank you! My preference is bright colors, but I've been sticking with the realistic views and not liking it. Going with this new freedom now. Thank you for the advice and the shared paintings.

Thank you sir your preciese videos are entriching resources for me, wish you gorgeous life

well-said and compelling. Thank you

😢 I’m so sad to see this. While I understand the inclination to return to your own practice. I return to your videos time and time again! Please keep them posted so we can see them. Ian thank you so much for your selfless dedication in sharing these videos. I definitely want to get the monthly program!

Dankef !

Wow, I never thought of mastery like that before. What you’ve just said is probably the best advice I’ve ever heard: just a little tweak of mindset and off you go! Thank you, as ever, for your generosity 🙏🏻

Thank you for the demo and the clear explanation. You are a fantastic teacher.

Thnx Ian, Really enjoyed/appreciated this. Am teaching two of my grandchildren art, beginning with watercolours/drawing. They are 6 (girl) and 7(boy). We started last year and they have loved it because, I tell them "WE" are learning. It has been amazing to watch them so young learning to control how much water they want on the paper and how much paint they want on the brush. It was so fun to hear the 7 year old say ( we used pre made Canson cards for the first time) "wow, this paper is different then our sheets!"

Such inspiring words. Thank you

Amazing demo!THANK❤ YOU!

Thank you, Ian, for this>> "Mastery is a Path..." what a very well stated, important mental attitude shift for the beginning artist. Well done!

This is so true. To know this in this way, I think, removes the assumed struggle and invites the Joy in. Thank you, Ian. Love this. ❤

“Mastery is an attitude towards practice.” ❤️❤️❤️

First of all, let me say how much I enjoy your little videos that help me “master” the practice of art. I came to art after a career as a mathematician, another creative pursuit that I loved, loved. And I found, after many years teaching math, that proficiency in mathematics was related to the joy of doing mathematics. Yes, I found students who had the talent to quickly understand math, but without joy, they did not practice sufficiently to uncover the nuances needed to develop a masterly mindset. Your analogy of the little rudder helping the big one is pure genius. I find that joy of painting is my little rudder to becoming a better painter.

Most people don't drive particularly well, and should be taking advamced deivong courses.

Beautiful

I needed to hear this. Love your videos so much!

Merci beaucoup Ian!

This resonates with me in this stage of my ‘becoming’ an artist. I’ve noticed that I’m more and more diligent about notating (in my sketchbook ) about what’s working in my art, and WHY! And I love the feeling of learning and progressing more and more. Thank you Ian for your focused, well-thought out messages. I share what I learn to my artist friends frequently!

Darkness is good way to not see things.

Thank you Ian, you always manage to explain things in a way that my unmasterly brain can understand.

This really resonates with me. Thank you!

Thanks - this is something that I needed to hear at this point in my artistic journey. I disagree a smidge with the idea that there isn't a thing thing like being talented/ gifted/ a natural simply because I tried harder than most at sports and music and my performance in those areas have always been below average whereas drawing, mixing colours, manipulating clay, and seeing values is something I was leagues ahead of when compared to other kids in my school art class etc, and it came so easily to me - and I sort of feel that I'm allowed to have this seeing as I will never be able to run fast or throw well or have great rhythm or coordination. However, even the kids that were "hopeless" in grade 8 were reasonably good painters by grade 12. With my photography I realised that nearly anyone can get a pretty great shot but an amature has to take 20x or 100x more photo's than the "pro's" to get the same quality shot. I can paint something photorealistically (or nice and painterly depending on what your goal is) but someone who paints just about every day can do it a lot more quickly with fewer layers and more confidence and less reworking etc. So I've finally gotten into painting again (in part because of these videos - I bought mastering composition to help my photography - it has helped a lot thanks) and I realise that to get to the next step up (on an admittedly infinite staircase), I need to paint a lot more because you discover tricks as you go - some of them you can learn from other people (you have some great videos on edges and colour shifts on boundaries and obviously master copies are a fantastic learning tool), but other tricks you have to learn in the trenches like how a glaze with a specific white makes some things counterintuitively appear darker (that's very niche but that's sort of the point - it's particular to my painting style). I'm currently trying out a bunch of other approaches like grisaille and plain-air and I'll likely include variations of all of them in my work as I progress. I'm not usually good at goals but seeing as I managed to complete two large paintings this year for a competition I always say "next time" to, I've decided to start collecting photo's for exercises that I want to do next year. Paintings of hands&feet, and tree shadows on walls, and trees, and still lives with reflective or transparent objects, and clouds, and various other things - I'm hoping to pick a different theme each month. It's been so fun to get into all of this again - it's wonderful to feel this excited about a hobby. And there's nothing more rewarding (and perhaps addictive) as that moment when your painting suddenly pops and comes alive

Thank you Ian Roberts.I learn so much from you. You are an excellent teacher!

Perfect timing. Thank you so much. I really needed to be reminded of all you said.

Wonderful lecture. You bring new things to chew on.

So cool. Thanks again.

Thank you so much for your videos. They add a new perspective for me to try!

Thanks, Ian. You always make so much sense and bring such learning and understanding.

Manet said - "Painting is easy when you don't know how, and hard when you do "

Good video.

I love watching you paint, you have a unique way of attacking the canvas with that brush. I’ll have to look back to see if you’ve covered brush technique in past videos. Thanks as always Professor.

"...YOU become part of the equation, it reveals things about you." Yes, it is discovering what you love, and how intimately revealing that is, that scares people away from true mastery, I now think.

At the beginning you explained how stronger edges draw our eyes, but at the end (and please excuse me if I missed something) you say that the focus is on the group of softer edges, without explaining why the softer edges are now the eye-catching portion, and notwithstanding that very hard and eye-catching edge of the back of her clothing against the wall. I am wondering: it appears that Vermeer made almost an enclosed box of the hardest edges in the painting, with her clothes, the edge of the chair, and the edge of the tapestry on the wall. Is this visual dead-end designed to add to the whole composition without keeping our eyes focused upon it?

Thank You Ian, yes, you have said it plainly simple!