seeing in chunks

Is it usually the case that artists look at other artists' creations with envy? Or are they content with the style that they have developed?

It's not that I exactly consider myself an artist, but I do love to draw and paint. Here's the problem: I draw what I see. And I think it do it moderately well. Why would that be a problem, you ask? Because the art that I stare at, that I drink in doesn't look like the world around me. Impressionists and post-impressionists like Monet and Van Gogh capture the feeling of an image without exactly reproducing it. I love examining up close the chunks of color laid on the canvas, then stepping back and letting it meld into a cohesive image. I, on the other hand, am so tied to the thing I see that I find it practically impossible to deviate from it. When I was 12 years old and first drawing in earnest, I was quite pleased that I could look at a photo and painstakingly create a pencil drawing that looked exactly like it. But as I got older it gradually dawned on me that a xerox machine could accomplish pretty much the same thing (only faster).

When I began painting with watercolors, the medium simply wouldn't yield completely realistic results for me. I was so thrilled by this that I haven't gone back to pencil since. Though I still long to paint in chunks, in blocks of color, I am somewhat pacified by paintings such as this one where I've managed the slightest hint of broad, uninhibited brush strokes. Ah, if only I could see the world in chunks.