Today’s Quote: “Formal learning can teach you a lot, but many of life’s essential skills are the ones you have to develop on your own.” lee iacocca

I made a frustrating discovery in my painting class this week,
only to make another one starting a year later. equally
new to this class, this was my fourth lesson, i realized everyone had a formula for organizing their palettes. Each
student had a color scheme that he followed very precisely, and
each arranged the paint on his palette in exactly the same way.

I didn’t make this observation until this particular class,
because I had never allowed myself the freedom to hang around
the paint loft at the beginning of the previous class. This class
It had been going on for many years. Everyone knew everyone else,
and Clyde, our instructor, had also known his students for years. They ate lunch together after school, joked around during painting time, and were generally one big happy family. But I was intimidated by them. They were all very artsy from New York. Most of them were much older than me, each with ten or twenty years of painting experience. I was the baby of the class. The one with a dozen paintings to my credit. Nobody really asked my name. Nobody particularly cared. So when I got up the courage to ask Clyde about this palette technique, he replied that yes, there was a precise way, with very precise colours, in which one arranged one’s palette in preparation for painting.

This is not how I had been taught. Two previous teachers had done
very different. My original instructor, Luisa, is Colombian. A brilliant painter, she painted in a Latino style. Boldly, but precisely. We students painted casually,
by the pool, with frequent interruptions from Luisa’s Colombian
housekeeper, who refreshed us tired painters with very hot
espresso to the snap of Luisa’s finger. We make our pallets
placing paint on styrofoam plates, and we placed only the colors we thought we needed for our painting that day.

My second teacher taught me only six lessons. He hated the idea of ​​the plate, and when I came to my first class with a stack of Styrofoam, he automatically relegated me to the neophyte bin. She insisted that I go out and buy a proper palette, and hire a glass cutter to custom cut a rectangular piece of glass to fit inside. That was the right palette — and I dare not go to class without it! And again, we place the necessary paintings for our particular painting of the day.

So when I got to Clyde’s class at the famous Silvermine
Art School in New Canaan, with a suitable glazed palette in
hand, I was feeling pretty confident. Several tucked canvases
under my arm, my huge art container loaded with tubes, brushes,
coal, Liquin, turpentine and the like, I settled quite a bit
easily. And Clyde had never discussed my palette with me. Soon
this fourth class, I finally asked Clyde about this palette
stuff. She immediately walked over to Alex’s easel and brought
behind a table -very official looking- of oil colors arranged in a
precise order around a rectangle, without variation and with
exact oil colors explained. We were to place our colors around a
rectangular palette every week when we arrived, exactly in that
order, regardless of what we were painting. and he hated
glass idea. Wanted me to use disposable paper pallets for masking-
slammed into a tray table. Hmm.

A couple of hours later, I went to our local library to look up the
Wolf Kahn paintings. Unlucky. But I read the last number.
from American Artist magazine, which had an inspiring article on John Asaro. I drooled over his work (he has an unusual palette of glorious, radiant colors and bold, fresh strokes) to get to the end of the article to see that he had a very precise palette, which the writer spelled. to a failure. It was different from Clyde’s.

Why all this fuss about my art class and my palette? most of you
Don’t paint in oil anyway!

The lesson is this: these three art instructors were
extremely accomplished. All were prolific painters. all had
exhibited in shows. And John Asaro has received international
acclamation. But they had all learned the proper fundamentals. So
they continued to discover their own technique. Your own style.

Such is motherhood. There are certain fundamentals that you must
learn. You must learn the proper care of a newborn. how to clean
her ears, suck her nose, bathe her. there are fundamental
principles of good hygiene that you should not only practice
yourselves, but teach your children. You must learn the
basics of good nutrition so you can provide nutritious meals for your family. You need to learn the fundamental principles behind aerobic exercise and strength training so that you can be a fitness model for your children and help them begin a lifelong commitment to exercise. You should learn about certain classical readings, so that you can help develop your children’s mind. I believe it is fundamentally important that you nurture the souls of your children by providing instruction in religion and that you guide your children to have faith, reverence, and love for God. It is essential that you inspire your children with beautiful music that transforms their souls and instills in them an appreciation for the giants that came before them.

But the techniques with which you do it can be as varied as there are mothers and children. Because I could instill proper fitness in him by having my daughter perform classical ballet; You could let your tap dance on your kitchen floor. I could teach my children to appreciate music by having them play the classical violin. Yours can play the violin or play the drums in your garage.

It is important that we learn from each other. straight
observation, and reading good articles and books on
creativity and motherhood, we can shed great light on
how to do our job even better. I learn a lot from my readers, who email me priceless stories and anecdotes, whose
perspectives have hurt me and have helped me grow as a mom and as a person. You would not have learned the “palette lesson” if you had not directly observed other students. If I didn’t ask questions.

Motherhood is not a science. It’s an art while you lie down
colors, make sure you have the right fundamentals. But then
release them with your own style. Your own technique. Dare to
paint your days with your own fresh and bold stroke.