Advice for Artists, By Michele de Bragança

• Trust yourself. Don’t try to paint like your favorite painters — find your own voice.
• Be your own teacher. Don’t just stick with what works or what sells, try new things — a good painter’s work is always evolving.
• Work really hard (paint every day), and never give up. You will always have setbacks, and many rejections. You never really “get there.” The carrot keeps moving forward. We are blessed to love what we are doing enough to weather these disappointments. As Kevin Macpherson says, “Painting is sort of like fishing. You are out there enjoying the beautiful day, feeling the wind, taking in the sights and sounds —you never really know if you are going to get anything or not!”