Barriento describes his process for one his paintings on the wall at the Print Shop Gallery. He decided to be a professional artist after taking a trip to New York
City and visiting several museums.
to draw and paint professionally. He enrolled in drawing
lessons and art history classes at LaGrange College.
When he realized he still needed to gain more knowl-
edge, he sought out an artist, which he calls “The Master,”
also known as Igor Babailov. He teaches in Nashville.
Babailov has two paintings in The Vatican and made a
portrait of Pope John Paul II. Barrientos googled him to
figure out how to learn from him.
“I didn’t learn how to make portraits from him. But I
learned a very valuable lesson,” Barriento said. “I learned
patience. And I learned that you build up to painting.”
He said part of the building process was learning, read-
ing more books and not getting greedy. He said after 10
years of gaining knowledge and creating art, people were
telling him he should start to sell his paintings, but he
knew he wasn’t ready yet. He was still building up.
Looking to add to his growing skill set, in 2015, he
took video production classes from James Arnold at West
Georgia Technical College. However, what he learned
20 • LAGRANGE LIVING | FEB. 2020/MARCH 2020
from Arnold about art was more than video production.
He learned that Arnold made abstract paintings. After
seeing some of his work, he was inspired again to create
something similar. However, Arnold was interested in
teaching him to become an abstract artist.
At the time, Barriento wanted to paint like the Old Mas-
ters, which generally refers to any painter who worked
in Europe before or near the 1800s. He said he wanted to
create Greek Mythology paintings like the ones hung up
in museums around the world.
There was just one problem — he, self-admittedly,
wasn’t very good at it.
While learning from Arnold, Barriento wanted to take
his hobby of painting and transition it to a full-time
profession. So, he began interviewing artists about transi-
tioning into full time. Many of them told him to go for it,
adding it would be difficult but not impossible.
“Your family’s the one that loves you the most and the
ones that want to protect you, but they give you the worst