My Art Skills Have Improved

During Christmas of 2006, my parents decided to nurture my artistic abilities by buying me a giant canvas measuring 30 x 40 inches.  After thinking about it for quite some time, I decided to paint a copy of a Caravaggio piece called "The Inspiration of Saint Matthew."

I loved the style, the power, and the emotion behind Caravaggio's work, as well as the honesty of it.  I spent much of the summer after my high school graduation painting the canvas.  And by the end of the summer, I had this to show for it:

At the time, I was pretty darn proud of this piece.  I had never attempted anything on this scale before and mixing colors in acrylic paints was pretty new to me.  That summer I learned something about stretching yourself.

Then, in a year, I was on my mission in Arkansas.  I never had time to draw, let alone paint anything.  I had the occasional assignment from my mission president or an assistant to create a poster, a t-shirt design, or a logo; but never anything large.  I occasionally worried that my skills would become rusty without practice.

One day while serving I read an article in the New Era about a boy who was really good at playing the piano.  He stressed and stressed and stressed about serving a mission because he wouldn't have the chance to play for several hours a day.  The young man fretted about this to the point that he almost didn't serve.  Then he was promised by an ecclesiastical leader (I can't remember if it was a bishop or stake president or what) that if he served faithfully, he wouldn't have to worry about losing his talents.  This young man did just that, and when he came back, he claimed that his skills actually improved during the time he was gone. I didn't worry about losing my talents from that day forward.

Flash forward to this summer.  A couple of months ago I was visiting my parents house, where my copy of "The Inspiration of Saint Matthew" still hung on  the wall.  I had just finished the drawing and 2D design classes at BYU with pretty good grades.  I looked at the painting and saw colors that had been mixed wrong, lines that weren't clear, and faces that were. . . off.  I decided that I could do better, so I took the canvas home and repainted over the whole thing.

I'm sure that the year between graduation and serving a mission, as well as the two art classes helped sharpen my skills, but I'm still very happy about how little  my abilities rusted while I was away.

This is what the canvas looks like after I repainted it:

And some comparissons:

Do I owe this improvement in the face of a two-year break to a divine miracle?  I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

P.S.  I looked for that New Era article online, but I cannot find it.  Please let me know if you are familiar with the article I'm talking about.  It came from an older New Era.