The Cart Before the Horse?

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Using Sight-Size Method in the Adirondacks, NY
Watercolor by John Hulsey

There is great interest today in reviving traditional methods and techniques of painting. Much of this interest comes about from the loss or absence of these methods in the teaching curricula of many art schools and university art programs. We have informally surveyed numerous artists of our generation who went to school in the 1960s and 1970s and found similar stories of art curricula based on “free expression”, unfettered by knowledge of the craft and techniques of painting. It was believed then that the Big Idea was paramount, and artists should choose the media to suit their big creative ideas on a case-by-case basis, as needed. The knowledgeable application of that media, whether oil paint, chalk, watercolor, collage or something else, was considered to be of less importance, even irrelevant or out of fashion. In a sense, those instructo…