Can a Photographer become a great Painter?

Ok...so I took art in High School and a ceramics class in College eons ago and just scraped by.  I can see beauty from the lens of a camera, distort it if I want and make it into something it may not have been but can I paint?

I see the beauty of the landscape and draw it into my mind but how do I get it to hands and transfer it to the surface of the canvas?

I birth two children who have the natural talent of the arts and are painters in their own right.  It just flows natural to them.  Did it skip a generation?

Could it be that I never really took the time to try?  I always seem to be in a hurry.  Never slowing down.  Some people would say that I have ADD!  I don't.  I use to be so ambitious that I forgot to take time for me and sometimes for my girls.  I was a corporate slave! Dare I say that?  Don't get me wrong.  I was just someone who had to be perfect.  Make the right decisions and do everything the right way.  I forgot along the way that it is ok to mess up....not make a perfect cut or line or whatever!

Then.....I got cancer.  The big C.  It slowed me down.  It made me look at the world in a different way.  It  convicted me!  I don't have to be perfect.  I don't have to be the smartest.  I don't have to be the best of the best....know it all. It is ok to just be me.......

Anyway, I have this blank canvas.  I painted it with gesso and that is as far as I got.  Afraid?  Maybe.  Determined?  I should be.  Can I do it?  Probably.  Will I?  Yes.  When?  I don't know.  Scared to mess it up?   You betcha!  Do I care?  I must because it is still a blank canvas.  Staring me in the face just asking to be finished ....well, at least to be started...... 

Stay tuned.  I will.  When?  I dont' know ...but I guarantee when I do it will be something.....maybe not perfect but it will be something!

Who is Margaret Ruff?

We found a quaint old watercolor in our crawl space in the attic that my husband's Dad acquired sometime in the 1950s from Norway. It was rumored to have been a wedding present to his Grandparents. It's called Ulvik on the Hardangerfiord. I believe the watercolor painting was made between 1870 and 1897. It was signed by Margaret Ruff.

We found a Margaret Ruff who was an Artist and Etcher that was born and resided in Philadelphia, PA but traveled and studied abroad in Europe. She was a member of the Boston Art Club.

She was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and had exhibits at the Boston Art Club, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, National Academy of Design, Paris Salons and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She had also studied under Thomas Eakins. We believe this is the same Margaret Ruff who painted the watercolor.

If anyone knows anything more about this work of art or the Artist please comment.

Thanks!