" Forest Spirit " was quickly emailed to my art team in the school district where I am just now retiring. This film was just what I needed after the end of the school year. My team members wrote me back thanking me for forwarding the letter and I wanted to thank you for starting this contemplative "chain letter." Listening to the birds and watching as you painted was something I could never have imagined. It touched my soul and my spirit and from this point I am pulling out the watercolors and starting to do my own art "spirit." Fourteen other curious minds are doing likewise. Our team consists of 15 women who are the most dedicated and most talented anyone can imagine. I have been very torn about the end of my 33 years of teaching young children, as we all know that we learn more from those young minds than we teach them. The constant challenge of seeing these creative minds grow and develop their own curiosities as to the wonders of discovery through the arts is something I will sorely miss.

I had an interesting discussion with my recent workshop Garden at the John C Campbell Folk School
12x16 inches
oil painting students about the "Dreaded Black." They had been told by other teachers to never use black. After I showed them the superb and yummy colors they could mix with black, they changed their tune. I find with dismay that many workshop teachers hand down rules and regulations as if they have come down from the mount by Moses. We as teachers should be careful about how we influence our students. All rules can be broken successfully and teachers should be more flexible in their approach.

You mentioned
original painting "I'm more often than not using arbitrary colours these days. Two yellows, two reds, two blues, plus black, white, and a gob of molding paste." What are those colours? I want to review and work with the basics again.

(RG note) Thanks, Terry. And thanks to everyone else who asked this question. The colours are arbitrary—that is they vary from painting to painting. But generally speaking these days I'm using a Cadmium and an earth colour for each of the primaries, except for blue where I use both Ultra and Phthalo. Part of this ploy is what I call "handicapping." Colours are chosen at random and squeezed with abandon. The painter then works with what's on the palette and only adds specific other colours if and when needed.

In your video
Three-piece 'Classic' frame with canvas popped in. The clip on the left holds the picture temporarily. Dealers have different methods of holding work in place. " Forest Spirit ," I noticed that the framed painting is matted as one would a work on paper. It looks stunning and it is obviously more protected this way, but I'm curious about your methods. How and why have you have arrived at this method of presentation for an acrylic painting? I am guessing that you had to unstretch the painted canvas for this purpose.

(RG note) Thanks, Lisa. The painting as shown is simply framed in a standard—what we call 'Classic" gallery frame. It has a one-piece linen liner. The painting goes into the frame in the regular way. When the painting goes to the dealer, which it has, it will be framed by them as they see fit-—or as the buyer requests.

I want to use some frames with very wide off-white mat... the kind that you used for the forest painting . It does not appear to be a linen insert. How did you frame this stretched canvas using that wide of a mat? Or better yet, how did you do it or what frame/company did you find this product at?

(RG note) Thanks, Tom. Frame tastes and manufacturing methods vary from region to region. Artists who move around the world often think other people's frames are clunky. Having said that, we think our locally-made frames are understated and tasteful. This type of frame is 'three piece'—that is they are made up of inners, liners, and outers (moldings). If you show your local frame shop a picture, they will be able to put something together for you. There is no point in giving you the name of my guy because he doesn't ship.

Thanks so much for
M Graham & Co. acrylic paints the mention of M Graham & Co acrylics . We are going to test the strength of our white per your comment. I am totally amazed at the number of serious artists who have sent us a copy of your letter. I mean from every corner of the USA and Canada!

(RG note) Thanks, Diane. I used your acrylics again this last weekend in both cool and hot outdoor conditions. I'm using them in the studio right now. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Fun to mix. I'm sure many of our subscribers will be interested in the results of your opacity tests.

I am an inveterate oil painter but I use Where is Waldo?
oil painting acrylic paint to finish the edges of my gallery wrap canvases. My initial thought was to use the cheapest paint out there to "paint the edges.." I found that by doing that I was having to go over the edges several times before I got good coverage. It seems like a colossal waste of time but white edges are not allowed at my gallery. I was wondering if you could recommend a tube acrylic paint that would give me good coverage the first time around. Painting edges is not art. It's gussying up the painting so it looks nice on the wall and I don't want to use up good composition/painting time to do it more than once per painting. I use black almost exclusively for this purpose and have found that 2 or 3 coats are necessary with Liquitex and VanGogh . Any ideas?

(RG note) Thanks, Jace. I sometimes black up the edges for use in the popular "floater frames" that some galleries are using these days. I use Golden Acrylic's Carbon black with a little bit of medium and water. Speedy roll-on is done with one of those small foam rollers that house painters use for going around doorframes, etc. Two passes are still necessary to get down and around the staples or tacks.

I just came back from our waterfront lot up on Ahmic Mist Rising Ahmic Lake
40x60 inches
acrylic painting Lake on the Magnetewan River system. I paint a lot of forests at different times of day in different seasons but I am especially drawn to backlighting. Magnetewan is a very historic area with a set of ancient working locks. A. J. Casson has a famous painting of the little white church in the town and J. E. H. MacDonald did a painting of the sawmill on Lake Cecebe. The Magnetewan is a magnificent river with a canoe route stretching 40 miles from Algonquin Park to Georgian Bay. It also connects several large lakes. My husband Jim and I have done parts of it by canoe.
Anglican Church Magnetewan
watercolour painting by AJ Casson In one spot there is a campground that overlooks three waterfalls. We have named our property Minwashin, which means "It is Beautiful" in Ojibway.

From your own Resource of Art Quotations , "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." (Ellen Parr) I've always been curious and it doesn't seem to dry up except in the presence of an overload of stress or sheer exhaustion. Most children I know are curious. Maybe, like creativity, curiosity is squashed through rigid structure, expectations, and criticism. If we sit quietly and really observe the nature around us (including humans), maybe curiosity can be reborn?

The question how to keep your curiosity fresh 1650
watercolour painting is to keep looking for something more. In my constant state of curiosity I have sought out and found answers to a ton of questions without asking (although I've never been afraid to ask a question). This has been mostly done by simply observing. My greatest curiosity is still the mentality of the art collector. What catches their eyes. The collector is really at the very base of what makes an artist's life livable. Understanding the art buyer is the basis of it all.