Category Archives: teaching

How to paint, in five easy steps

If anyone suggests using medium or oil at this phase of your painting, back away slowly. There are teachers who encourage students to coat their canvases with medium and paint into it for a sort of cheap faux luminism. These paintings will darken and crack over time.

No, I can’t teach French

My NYU professor pal and I had a cheerful row about a non-French-speaker who is teaching French at Houston Independent School District’s Energy Institute High School. She says that a good teacher should be able to teach anything. I don’t believe it. Looking convincing is not the same as conveying knowledge.  Art, music and language […]

Day off

I’m not in Rochester to paint but to sell a house. Still, when the opportunity presents itself, I can’t resist. Patricia McDermond is the current chair of New York Plein Air Painters (NYPAP). She got a message from a Rochester-based painter asking if there was a chapter in Rochester. That’s embarrassing, because it’s where I […]