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I didn't have a clue as to who Helen Van Wyk was when I first picked up some of her videos in a stationery shop in Sydney almost 10 years ago. Since that time I've made hundreds of drawings and dozens of paintings and spent years in an atelier setting -- and those videos of hers still hold up, pound for pound some of the best I've seen. Many by "greater" painters gather dust, but I still watch Helen's shows periodically and learn something every time. She got the job done, based not only on aesthetic sensitivity and rigor but on a work ethic. When she said "Welcome to My Studio," you knew it wasn't time for tea, it was time to roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the business of painting. And you knew you'd have something to show for it when you left.
Mention was made of Alwyn Crawshaw, whose videos (tapes of his BBC series) came into my library about the same time. If you didn't want to draw and paint after watching a few of these programs, then law or accountancy were probably where you belonged anyway. "It's easier than you think!" he'd always assure us at the end of each program. "Why not have a go!"
The cool thing about these folks (and yes, even the much maligned Bob Ross) is that they said, "Much of that exclusive mystical stuff, that legerdemain, is nonsense. There's no reason in the world that you can't be enjoying art in your life today, no matter who or where you are, and here are a couple of ways to get started." If your interest was piqued, you could then take it as far as you wanted.
Good on them. The Van Wyks and Crawshaws, every bit as much as the Met stars, are among my art heroes.
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