-the passionate visual artist merging his love for art, wildlife and tourism

BOASTING a diverse array of talent Guyana is the home to many skillful visual artists, and Leon “Lee” Hardowar, who is among the illustrious, recently, shared his passion for the arts.
Lee in an interview with this week’s Buzz recounted his journey to becoming an accomplished name within the local arena.

He had first discovered this talent when he became aware of his knack for precession during his simple art classes while still a lad at school.
With a particular interest in wildlife and biodiversity, he would often find himself flipping through the pages of National Geographic books or magazines to replicate drawings of animals.
This, he said is where the love and appreciation of wildlife and art combined began.

At that time his pieces were simple, with just a blank canvas and a few pencils and crayon, but he later shifted to playing around with other methods and fell ‘whole-headily’ in love with painting.
“I started [E. R. Burrowes School of Art] Burrowes part-time classes around 2014-2015, and I learnt the basics of how to paint. And then I shifted from drawing, because before I would mostly use pencil crayons and so on and chalk pastels, but ever since I learned how to paint. I haven’t touched pencil media as much,” he shared.

Lee disclosed that, in addition to painting, he would also do illustrations, where he uses his graphic monitor to draw directly into one software.

While art is sometimes more profitable, he related that not knowing where the next client is coming from is a bit worrisome; “So, I don’t really see it all the time as work unless it comes to show that I have a lot to do.”
The young artist who is also a social media manager for a local tourism-based company, expressed equal admiration for the work he does.
He highlighted, having access to live references for his paintings is a major plus of his nine to five Job.

In his advice to artists, Lee noted that the key to improving art and to get anywhere, is consistency.
“If you’re not consistent, then it doesn’t make sense. Two, networking. You need to know your niche, and once you figure your niche out, you need to find similar people or people in the field that could elevate you, and work with them. Three, if you’re going to take art seriously, you need to take your mental health into consideration and know how much you can push as well.”

He continued, sometimes artists can oftentimes experience burnouts; however, Lee advised that while one cannot fight burnouts, focusing on the simpler of tasks to build momentum to the big ones can alleviate stressors for artists.
Lee believes this is something that has to happen. He also urged persons to not depend on motivation, and to get used to the boring aspects of the job.

Motivation, he said, is not what finishes a painting, but the grind that does.

“I find a lot of artists, especially young artists, they try to hide what they can do, and that doesn’t help you. You need to be out there, because if you’re going to do it as a business, you need to understand creativity is 30 per cent. The next step is marketing.”
Lee added “…don’t wait for the perfect timing. Just start. Just start and everything will get into place, because, if you keep waiting, you just going to be procrastinating.”