In the oil painting class I took the beginning part of, we made a color wheel as shown above, first making two tints of the color, and then mixing the color and the two tints with the compliment ones, to get a range of “grays” (always more neutral, but not always actually gray) to paint with.

Then we wrote a little essay about a childhood memory of a beloved place, and spent way too long making two thumbnails of that place, finally painting them only in those grays. The idea was we could paint from memory and not just observation, which is valid, but my memories are drenched with more color than the instructions allowed. I am also not a huge fan of a thumbnail, so I’ll admit to being a bit restless taking so much time not painting. My memory, shown below, was of playing alone, in the woods blocks from my house, making “fairy houses” in tree roots, and perching on a rock, pondering and contemplating.

The class moved on to painting an apple, and frankly, I was glad to be spared that by leaving to wade knee deep in painting the landscape on Monhegan.  I love this teacher as a friend, but my teaching style is much more playful; I get my students deep into painting within the first half hour, trying lots of varied things out with joyful abandon and freedom, to learn by experience.