Young Kim

 Since elementary school in the 1980s in South Korea did not have a dedicated art teacher, it was middle school that I first learned  about the 4B pencil and what art drawing is. My school art teacher had a plaster cast of Agrippa and taught a class once a week about drawing. She liked my drawing and encouraged me to go to art school - seriously.

   When I went high school, I started to save my money to buy art materials, but soon I had to deal with my parents' objections. I knew taking lessons for going to art school costs money that our home cannot afford, and being an artist was not such a good choice for making money. So, I gave up going to art school and chose another major for university - English literature.

  While I was in university, I studied literature, and I liked it. But in extra time, I started to draw cartoons as a hobby. Since I was so religious and joined the Student Christian Movement Club, my cartoon had a Christian theme, and it was quite successful. Many churches used my cartoon in their weekly bulletins.

       In 2006 I started to think about fine art as a hobby..again. I bought my first oil paints and painted some landscapes and still lifes. Still, my life was a roller coaster. I needed money for my early stage of marriage, so I stopped to painting.

     Later I started taking pictures with a DSLR camera. I got to know many models and photographers in the Dallas area and was successful, getting some international photographer awards and numerous magazine covers.

    After COVID-19, studios are closed, and it got hard to take a session. I started to work from home as computer programmer, and in 2021, I came back to painting again thanks to oil paints I got as a Christmas gift from my kids. It was a Hobby Lobby brand with a tiny tube and lots of never-heard-before colors. It was tiny enough to need to buy new paints after a couple of squeezes.

    Soon I bought new oil paints with an unknown brand from Amazon (I did not know what a good brand was at that time). And start to paint again. My skill was not much improved still, but this time, I watched lots of Youtube videos and started to practice. There was not much things I can do during pandemic years at home anyway.

       Yes, I am a self-taught artist, mainly learning from Youtube. I know that I started a bit late, but I am so happy to go back to my dream once I gave up.