I started doing art at the Benicia Community Center. I had an interest in water color painting since I was 10 years old and the fifth grade class across the hall had a teacher that taught them that medium.I was excluded. It took me another 60 years to get my hand and my bankroll together and try this art form.
I took classes from Bob Harris at the Benicia Community Center. I wasn’t very good. My next classes were with Steve Schumm from Arts Benicia. I was abysmal. But not being one to give up easily Pat Strout in Walnut Creek was recommended. Under her tutelage, I made some progress. I still wasn’t very good. So I decided to give up on masking, glazing and tilting for awhile and try yet another teacher, Patsy Taylor in Walnut Creek.
Taylor comes from the school of belief that anyone can do visual art and produce artful works. She believes anyone can create a decent product. I didn’t believe her. I believed that one had to be born with a certain talent. However, I was wrrooonnng. Patsy had beginners. of whom I am clearly one, work in charcoal. Wow! Using a model, someone else’s drawing, or a photograph, her students were able with her guidance to reproduce with style what they saw. This is a woman who can teach the uninitiated. What a gift!
The next phase for me was to decide on what subject interested me. I knew charcoal could work as a medium, I had some idea of how to use watercolor paints, and I was learning to draw with Patsy’s help. I even had a class with her where we did work in plein air: Heather Farms, Rush Ranch and Walnut Creek’s Farmers Market were our venue. We learned to do quick sketches. You might notice many in our fair city take out their trusty little sketch books and while away some fruitful hours.
I was realizing that what had always impressed me was that you could identify an artist by a painting they had produced (for the most part). A Van Gogh was a Van Gogh, a Rembrandt a Rembrandt, a Grandma Moses a Grandma Moses and so on ad infinitum. A Susan Johnson a Susan Johnson, a Katrina Van Male a Katrina Van Male, to mention a few of our local artists whose work is identifiable as theirs.
Of course, the people I mention, I consider artists and so do many others. I personally don’t think one should call themselves an “artist” until they receive some recognition as such. It is like calling yourself a “writer” when you haven’t ever published anything except maybe through self publishing. I agree with Patsy that anyone can dabble in paint, charcoal and acrylics. Anyone can write a column….You get my meaning.
But what happened for me, has me exhilarated. I started drawing at Heather Farms and drew a composite. The fountain in the center of my paper, the rose garden, the picnic tables, the Canadian geese, the buildings were rearranged and organized to present a montage that said to me – this is Heather Farms. I have gone on now to composites of Rancho Benicia, First Street, St. Paul’s, the Peddler’s Fair and the Waterfront Festival. I am sketching away and then using watercolors. I am loving doing this. And my work is decidedly my own, not a copy, not a blur, not great or even good art, but immensely satisfying.
And interestingly, I learned a great deal about how this dabbler, me, thinks. I take a bit of this and a bit of that mix it all together, and try to make sense out of disparate thoughts and visuals.
I propose that we novices, who will never really be artists, have some fun with acrylics, charcoal, pastels or watercolors because you never know what aha moments they can afford.

Ellen Blaufarb is a marriage family therapist.

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