My roots in art began in elementary school, mostly rendering a “real” subject.
Good motor skills and practice helped me to achieve some measure of technical expertise, though always working in a representational method often fell short of satisfactory expressiveness (something was missing). My expansion into styles that allow for freedom of “inner & outer” experimentation came in recent years.
Perhaps the ‘opposite’ of realism is whimsical art. Now, that is playing at its finest!
