My two main mentors these days are Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik, and... that's good news for you.

Nancy Guzik painting me from life

This past weekend, Richard counseled me on whether I should publish my own instructional books or go with a known company such as North Light Books. He said that since I don't have a ton of money to invest in self-publishing that I could go with North Light and it wouldn't cost me a dime. Sure, I wouldn't make much, but I'd get a lot of free press.

The really exciting thing is that Richard said I could start my lessons with, "Richard and I were discussing... Color... and this is what I learned". In other words, he's giving me outright permission to teach things I have learned from him. He's such a generous guy! 

I've also learned a ton from Nancy Guzik over the years, and I truly adore her paintings. She'll be teaching at American Artists' Weekend With the Masters 2010 in Laguna Beach. I"m so excited for her - this will be her teaching debut.

I've got to run off to Dennis Sheehan's workshop today - he's having a St. Patty's celebration with his 15 or so students. He invited some of us Putney Painters to join him, and his studio is close to my house. I'm planning on asking him if I can rent his studio to conduct a couple of workshops of my own: one on art marketing, and one on watermedia landscapes.

Painting in progress - by Richard Schmid:

Something Richard said this past weekend, really caught my attention. As we sat around the table eating lunch (which is Richard's monologue time), he explained that what subject we paint doesn't really matter because all we really can paint is "light". Without light, we can't see anything, and so we paint the way light falls on an object, and the reflected shadows within. The color is determined by the temperature of the light, and the local color of the object.

Here's a flower that Richard began painting on Saturday. The light source was cool light - making the shadows warm. He usually intensifies the saturation of the color in the shadows - why? Because he can!