Still working on creating neutral colors from three “recipes”: red + green, blue + orange, yellow + purple.

first: my neutral mixes, plus grey and muted colors.

second: starting with grey (neutral) and adding back in one drop of yellow, one drop of red, one drop of blue:

third: the floor of the art class/studio.

”When once we see keenly enough,  there is very little difficulty in painting what we see; but, even supposing that this difficulty be still great, I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the painting; and I would rather teach painting that my pupils may learn to love Nature, than teach the looking at Nature that they may learn to paint.”

Color theory. Finding the neutral “achromatic” by blending complementary colors. Takes practice to see what’s there – what’s not there! Here’s some of my homework:

And here’s a little 4×6 card, trying out neutrals?

Sir Kenneth Robinson:

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Hard to capture her generosity and humor. But makes me appreciate all the more.

Oil paint represents something to me – not sure what. Seriousness? Commitment? Having to take myself seriously? Not sure why or how oil paint became something other people did – not me.

But here I am, learning oil paint with my art classes. First week – black & white, second week a limited palette: black, white, red (burnt sienna?), some yellow that I was urged not to use full strength.

I took 29 classes with Phil Sylvester  at The Drawing Studio in Portland. Fortunately, he also has written about art-making, so I can continue to access his teaching. From philsylvesterdrawingstudio.wordpress.com, Jan 2, 2018: “I can’t learn and grow if my explorations are limited only to what I suspect will be good choices.” So I made bad choices today, including using lottery tickets that someone tossed into the street (perhaps their bad choices?).

I made a photo folder on my phone for future possible projects. It’s called “Paint Me.” This one got my interest first. The photo was taken at North Beach, Port Townsend.

Trying to learn skies, clouds. This might take years! LOL 😂

I drew him, he drew me. No looking at the page. Guess who is which?