Portraits v. Landscape v. Still Life?

[David Dowbyhuz]

I agree with most of what's been said.

I've always felt that desire is the prime motivating factor in doing anything well. If you want it bad enough, you'll devote the time, energy and resources required to achieve it.

As to the division of these three disciplines in subject matter ...

Like many of us, I get the most satisfaction from painting people; not necessarily "portraits". Helen Van Wyck liked to say that if you could paint a convincing bowl of apples, you can paint portraits. (Sorry, Helen. I don't like to paint apples.) Some still-lifes appeal very much to me, but by the same token, I believe I'll go to my grave before I paint a vase of flowers. I've developed a basic aversion to painting almost anything man-made as well; don't like straight lines, although ironically there are all kinds in what I'm working on now. Have never done an "architectural" painting, and maybe never will.

Landscapes? More interesting than still-life to me, but how many can you paint without trees? (I absolutely despise painting trees (perhaps because I can't do them well, or at least it would take far too much time than I'm prepared to allow to satisfy myself. I wish I could throw out all my greens! What a wretched colour to paint with.) I'd like to do more figure paintings outdoors, where the landscape-y part would be incidental to the person/people in the scene. Winter landscapes are great, and may be explained by the above.

In the final evaluation, we'll likely do what we like, economics aside.