You can take the teacher out of school, but you can’t take school out of the teacher. That’s partly why I do a blog. Painting confounds most people, including my former students. There is an instant fear and prejudice because of what people have heard or because of weak teaching. It used to be true that covering up a mistake was difficult or impossible. I retired in 2001 and found that corrections weren’t so hard. It is mostly about attitude and a willingness to be inventive. I used to tell my students that if they made a mistake, call me over because I could probably fix it. That gave them confidence to experiment.

When I worked in oils and then acrylics, the hard part was conception and drawing. Painting techniques were simpler to understand. The downside to watercolor painting is that, because of the nature of water to move, you are never quite sure if what you laid down is going to react with the paper the way you want. After 54 years, I still get surprises. Watercolors teach patience but also freedom to explore. I love it…most of the time. It can create effects like no other medium. I want watercolor-shy painters to see, through my work, what is possible.

The other reason I blog is selfish. I am a lazy and slow painter. I want to blog about how I create paintings. That forces me to paint something daily.