For June 3, 2026

Copying a Favorite Artist

For next week, try making a painting based on the work of an artist you admire.

The goal is not to duplicate the painting exactly.

Use the image as you would any other painting reference: respond to it freely and allow your own hand to remain present.

Give yourself time to adjust to the artist’s touch, palette, and sensibility.

At first, their language may feel unfamiliar. Try not to rush this stage or force their way of seeing too quickly into your own. Let yourself slowly enter the rhythm of the painting.

Ask yourself:

* How does this artist simplify?
* Where are the edges sharp, soft, or lost?
* How do they use color temperature?
* How much detail do they include, and how much do they leave out?
* What feels most different from the way you usually paint?

If you get stuck, turn both the reference image and your painting upside down. This can help take the subject out of context and allow you to see it objectively. As always, you are painting shapes, tones, color relationships, and edges — not “things.”

Be sure to work from a high-quality image. The time you spend searching for a good reproduction is well spent.

Think of this assignment as a conversation with another painter. You're borrowing their eyes for a while, bringing what you find back into your vision.

For May 27, 2026

Working with Red

Red is one of the most intense and emotionally charged colors on the palette.

It can feel warm, aggressive, luminous, or theatrical—but it also has special characteristics that make it a challenge to control.

For this assignment, create a painting in which red plays a dominant role. Any subject of your choice. The goal is not simply to “use red,” but to explore how red behaves in paint.

Consider

Red looks bright because of its chroma but is deeper in value than it appears.

When lightening red, avoid using white only. White can make red look chalky, pink, or dull. Instead, try white plus yellow or yellow ochre.

Red can become dull if it is overworked. Try to put it down with confidence and leave the paint alone.

You may also build red through thin layers or glazes. This can create a deep glowing intensity.

For an even more luminous effect, consider painting red over a clean white ground creating a backlit, almost internal glow.

Neutralizing:
Avoiding Dull Or Purple Reds

Avoid using too much black, blue, or green to reduce the chroma. These can push the color toward violet or purple.

Instead, try using raw umber or burnt umber to neutralize while keeping the red warmer and more natural.

Palette Knife Option

Try using a palette knife in selected areas. A few decisive strokes of red, placed cleanly and left alone, can have more power than many small brushstrokes.

Suggestions

Paint a mostly red composition with notes of neutral color.

Paint red fabric, red ceramic, red walls, or a red-dominated interior.

Build red slowly through transparent layers.

Use thick, direct red strokes against thinner, quieter passages.

Goal

The goal of this assignment is to understand red as both a color and a material.

When handled well, it has tremendous power.

Try to make red feel alive without forcing it.

Class Notes–May 20, 2026

Finishing

Finishing doesn’t simply mean adding more.

It often means refining, simplifying, and removing passages that don’t contribute to the whole.

Sometimes a painting becomes stronger through subtraction rather than addition.

Economy

Economy does not mean forced restraint or withholding.

Paint as many details, color notes, and ideas as you want during the process.
Don’t be afraid of overworking. Explore, experiment, and push things further than necessary if needed.

Then toward the end, begin editing:

  • simplify
  • soften
  • remove
  • keep only what the painting truly needs

Keep something in reserve. Avoid over-explaining.

Often the strongest passages are not the ones added, but the ones removed.

Gauziness

Pay attention to those light washes of paint that partially veil the surface beneath, creating a soft atmospheric quality—a gauziness rather than a fully opaque statement.

    Assignment For May 20, 2026

    Monochrome

  • Your progress speeds when you take one challenge at a time and work it until it becomes second nature.
  • Painting monochrome lets to focus on everything other than color:
    • modeling and turning form
    • lost and found edges
    • atmosphere
    • paint handling
    • subtle value changes
  • Even “black and white” subjects usually contain some temperature variation.
  • Look for warmth in the lights and halftones – cooler notes in the shadows.
  • It takes more warmth than expected to neutralize black and white. Be generous with ochres, siennas, and umbers.
  • White and Ivory Black alone produce a bluish tone, which works well in some passages.
  • Pay attention to paint quality and have some fun with it:

    Thick – thin,
    Dry – fluid,
    Rough – smooth.


    May 13, 2026

    For color, think like an impressionist.

    More pigment, less blending, use compliments. Values and transitions a 2nd priority.

    For realism:
    Prioritize values, transitions, and modeling. Color can be strengthened with glazes afterward. Understating color slightly adds sharpness.

    Blocking In

    Blocking in quickly saves energy for the more difficult decisions later.

    A tight beginning leads to a tighter finish.
    A loose beginning leaves energy in the work.

    Rich colors such as Cadmium Red Light appear lighter than they really are. They can be surprisingly deep in value.

    We rarely arrive at the perfect color on the first go. Most colors evolve through small adjustments in later layers:
    lighter, darker, stronger, grayer, etc..

    Don’t see an imperfect first pass as failure. See it as an opportunity to build more complex color.

For May 13, 2026

Handling

This demo was blocked in within a few minutes using a 3-inch bristle brush.

Starting quickly and broadly gives the work a strength and vigor the are difficult to achieve through a more cautious approach.

For next week, try a simple still life using the largest brush you can handle—a 2 or 3-inch China bristle brush is ideal.

Use every part of the brush–
The tip, corners, sides, even the handle for scraping.

Let the brush rest on the surface as you observe and make decisions.

The more you can accomplish with a single brush, the more efficient and unified your handling will become.


For May 13, 2026

For color, think like an impressionist.

More pigment, less blending, use of compliments. Values and transitions a 2nd priority.

For realism:
Prioritize values, transitions, and modeling. Color can be strengthened with glazes afterward. Understating color slightly will add sharpness.

Review: May 6
Variety & Depth

The moment we look directly at an area, it comes into focus—and so does the next area we look at.
As a result, we tend to develop things too evenly.

Creating variety takes conscious effort: keeping your attention on the main element while seeing the rest peripherally.

That’s the feeling we want in the painting itself.

Two Goals in Painting

Painters are sometimes pulled in two directions.

On one hand, there’s the desire to improve.

On the other, there’s the desire to make something beautiful.

These two goals don’t always cooperate.

Improving requires risk—trying the unfamiliar, losing control a bit, and often not liking the result.

It can feel clumsy, discouraging.

But making strong, beautiful work often comes from working within what we already know—staying in familiar territory, where we feel confident.

The key is understanding the tension.

If every painting is meant to be “good,” growth slows.

If every painting is an experiment, it’s hard to build momentum.

A healthy practice makes room for both.

Over time, these two paths support each other.

Don’t judge your work too quickly.

Ask instead: What was this piece for?