Wow. It’s been a long time since I posted to this blog. I have been happily involved with our daughter’s move, our new granddaughter and her sister, the Christmas joy, preparing for a show that starts soon, a workshop, teaching weekly classes, and a clearance sale of older paintings.  Who said that being 70 would give you time to smell the roses?

Why do I write for a blog anyway? Admittedly, it is a distraction and just a bit time-consuming, especially when I haven’t been smacked in the head with inspiration.

When I think about it, though, writing for a blog is something like teaching. Each topic I select, unless I’ve had that smacked-in-the-head moment, makes me take time to consider it from fresh angles - as a new student, perhaps, would see it -  and then verbalize my thoughts.  I take a few more liberties and assume blog-readers are not first-lesson painters, but you see the point.

The best teachers I have had could hook their course of reasoning onto something the student was already familiar with and describe the concept from that perspective. Bill Reese (William F. Reese) would tell his students that approaching a painting was like decorating a room. You wouldn’t start with the ash tray. You would paint the walls and put the rug down. Correspondingly, you should begin a painting by considering the big shapes that constitute the composition, which is the framework upon which everything else hangs.

When teaching, I’m sometimes surprised that I can come up with those parallels or use terminology that I don’t normally use to clarify what I am trying to get across a student. The same thing happens when I write for my blog. The result is I learn the most.

Thanks, dear readers, for indulging my learning.