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How kind of you to say those things, Steven, but, really, any gains I have made have happened since I got into an intense schedule of study and painting about two and a half years ago.
To see where I was at that point, just take a look at the (awful!) very first painting that was submitted to the Oil Critiques section of this forum. I did everything wrong -- bad reference photo, very bad color, etc....
In those two and a half years I've painted at least twenty hours a week, and spent another five or so hours each week reading about painting, both online and off. Plus I attended two workshops, a national portrait conference and bought and studied two portrait painting videotape sets.
I don't think any previous learning I had was silently percolating during my seven year sabbatical. I think I just didn't know very much back then, and I was very much out of practice.
My dedication since I started painting again has been due to one simple fact: If I don't succeed at this career I might have to go back to a high tech sales job, which is what I did in years past. I work hard at painting so I don't ever have to do anything else for a living!
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