An important part of our artistic growth is choosing wisely the extent to which we are influenced by other artists. Master artists' approaches to painting includes mastering skills that make a painting work, but most of them will credit their mentors for a major part of their success. Mentors can influence us in a number of ways including our attitudes
towards life, our studio habits and how we look at the visual world. But it is rare that a Master Artist's style will look like his/her mentor's style. It's the deeper stuff that makes the bigger difference.
Richard Schmid gives credit to his teacher, Bill Mosby, yet looking at samples (above) of each of artist's approach to
portrait painting, we don't see a similarity in style. Among Mosby's influences were Monet, Degas, Zorn among others, yet Mosby's work hanging beside any one of them does not imitate them, but gleans from their visions.
If you read biographies of Monet and others I mention here, you'll discover that they were each influenced by artists who came before them and
sometimes their own contemporaries. See where I'm going with this? There is an artistic heritage that can be traced back among all artists, a heritage that goes deeper than pure imitation.
The term "Art Parents" was coined by Stan Prokopenko and Marshall Vandruff in one of their recent podcasts. Their discussion focuses
on their advice towards how to adopt good "Art Parents." I think you will enjoy their discussion.
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