For those who missed Katz

It has been said that anyone can learn to draw but an artist is able to capture the spark that the average person leaves behind. An artist gives life to a drawing. If there was one key to Alex Katz’s accurate painting skills it is his extensive drawing training. While Katz talked about his upbringing and love for his sometimes strange, loving parents, slides of his work through the years flashed on the screen. Katz recalled his youth and his interest in art at an early age. As a boy Katz befriended another boy who was interested in graphic design and would go together on painting field trips. It was his dad who told him that he would be a “fine artist” after seeing his paintings at an early age. Katz took a drawing course before college that taught the precise nature of drawing that hailed exactness over time and feeling. It was these early drawing skills that allow Katz to block in his paintings with such accuracy. While in college, he realized that he needed to learn how to draw faster so Katz carried a sketch book with him wherever he went. Nowadays, Katz uses a charcoal drawing that is transferred to the canvas to begin his work, along with pre-mixed paints and carefully laid out brushes. He definitely is a tight painter who has learned a method which works for him. In between the examinations his nature was lighthearted and he didn’t take himself too seriously. Katz admits, “I am a sucker for a pretty face!”