The good news is that it is never too late to get started if you want to be an artist. When I say this, I’m thinking of Grandma Moses. What a story that is! She didn’t seriously get started with her artwork until she was over seventy years old and so affected with arthritis she could no longer hold needles to quilt. She felt holding a brush handle would be easier for her to expand her creative urges. She painted until she was a hundred and one years old.

There are some of us (and I’m guilty here) who drew or painted when we were young but then got caught up in business and responsibilities, children and such, and left our passion by putting it off until retirement. But it is never too late to get started.

I did this pen and ink back so many years ago that I almost forgot I ever did it.  I found it under a stack of books in the closet the other day, and all it did was make me feel disappointed that I had to take a business path for the next almost forty years.

I was always interested in art and was drawing, sketching, studying artists and their works, but was seldom painting. I came from an artist family and knew I would eventually jump back in with a passion, which I have.

For the wannabe artist, there are several roads to travel to reach their destination. First they have to decide what that destination is and above all, they must be motivated and determined. They need to do their research because no matter how much talent they have, there has to be education and practice that goes with it. It doesn’t have to be formal education, but it still has to be education. There are techniques to consider as well as art styles, not to mention the mastering the various mediums in which they choose to work.
No matter what stage of life the wannabe artist is in, their future is determined by their talents, their goals, and their motivation. If they have a definite plan, they are more likely to succeed. Remember, to do nothing will achieve nothing. If their dreams are on the back burner of their lives, it’s time to move them to the front. It’s time to get started and do so with passion.