Aloha Robert.
I'm really loving your twice weekly letter. Something to read and re-read or forward to my friends, and it's useful stuff that makes my brain switch gears, and to clear away cob webs.

The best demonstration I ever saw was one by Gerry Puley who was a very fine watercolour painter. She demonstrated how to mix greys. She took every colour on her palette and mixed it with its opposite and made an amazing range of greys. That demonstration has stayed with me for many, many years. When I talk about painting I urge people to experiment with mixing their colours. The greys separate the men from the boys, in my opinion. All of those tube colours are just the ingredients to make the greys.

I, too, have learned that less is more. it is also a lot less weight on one's back.

I am a Special Educator. My career for the past 30+ years has been teaching students who have learning disabilities, mental impairments, autistic labels and speech/language impediments. Believe me when I tell you that to teach these students one must keep it simple. My experience is replete with music, sound, pictures, and practice in order to teach the above mentioned group to read. Each one has their own channel of receptivity so the process is tedious and long. Students are often "written off" by the "system" b/c of a low IQ or another reason will learn to read with us.

We teach ART 2 afternoons a week to our students. A few local artists come in to volunteer and demonstrate techniques to the children. Our visiting artists are valued. Although they often do not have a background in special needs children they do their best to help the children understand.

The students follow along with the assignments to the best of their ability. Some show natural ability. My office is overflowing with students' works. The color combinations and strength of their drawings are often amazing.

Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

It is the "promise" or the sense of promise that each new colour or brush holds. You just never know when this will be the key that unlocks the door to big time art. The prince's kiss could be in that tube of magenta blue-violet.

Mark Twain said something to the effect, “This letter would have been shorter if I’d have had more time” Guess the arts have much in common.

For me, a very timely and appreciated article as keeping the palette simple and mixing my paints is what I am working on. I just finished what I call "The Experiment" oil painting where I mixed my paints. Mixing the paint is so much fun. I also made a Tints, Tones and Shades chart of my paints. It was so interesting to see the results when making this chart. Now I am going to make a chart mixing just my paints with each other. The most fun is seeing it come together on your canvas, surprises happen all the time that may lead you to something you hadn't really thought about. I paint from the head after making a sketch of my idea. Meaning I don't keep referring to a reference photo or even to my original sketch. Once started (now that is the hard part) I let the painting develop its self.

I enjoy working with a limited palette for the simple reason that it keeps my life simple, especially when I am working out of doors. I find it quite enjoyable to experiment with two colours, say Raw Sienna and Ultramarine Blue plus white. It is amazing what range of hue and value one can achieve, and variety as well by using these colours. Doing one hour studies of simple objects in the studio or workshop are invaluable aids in achieving a colour sense and more importantly, tonal ranges that are believable. Moving around the colour wheel and experimenting with those colours provides hours of intense study and one can gain a technical proficiency, as well as a less scientific approach to picture making. Simple palettes also allow the artist to return to a painting after some time has lapsed because it is much easier to remember what colours were used on the piece.

I think you could also say simple is nothing but the essentials sublimely stated... but it is amazing how we think the more complex a thing is, the better it is. I am struggling with this in an intense way at the moment, and feel sometimes I'd like to grab reality and shake its stubborn neck. For years I have been pleased to create the brilliant illusion of space, now I just want the tyranny of distance to let go of me. I've been informed of course that to choose this route is to abandon ship and succumb to the abstractionists, and God forbid, since no doubt my clientele would never cross that threshold with me. What a price, simplicity.

Less is more, more or less!!! I tell my watercolor students you can mix the color you want with 2 not more than 3 colors after that your going to start to get a little muddy.

I agree that the supplies should be simple, but hopefully of best quality. I know a guy who threw his flimsy easel from a plein air vista cliff, with fist threats and shouting obscenities. Talking about a quest for simplicity - he used to tantrum over the bottles of turps and oils with child-safe caps!

I understand your disdain for the recipe gathering but as an person who has taken art classes, that is the reason we go. Most of us out there making art for our own pleasure (because we do not sell it), are too inexperienced to realize that gathering recipes doesn’t make for success, it is the practice of daily painting that makes us understand more fully how to use those recipes. After purchasing many art supplies, chasing that magic bullet that I thought would make me a better painter, I finally came to realize that the practice did more for me than the magic of what someone else uses. We see the things surrounding the art that seem to be neat and we think that if we had that, we would paint better. If we had that color, our art would look better, etc., etc. All the same excuses for not painting on a daily basis. I now have the time to devote something everyday to painting and have seen such an improvement in my own work.

Yes, artists go the recipe route. I'm guessing that they are also the ones who make a living at what they do. It takes a lot of work to go to the extremes you mentioned. I'm supposing that the more mainstream artist approach is to "not let anyone tell me how to paint." These more mainstream artists, with the bohemian ideal if not lifestyle, turn their back on teaching and advice, because they think that's what an artist does.

I'm still a learning artist, and I imagine it will be quite a while before I stop needing to pay attention to recipes, either in form or matter, either in artistic content or handling and arranging the materials. And if I stumble on a formula that makes me wealthy--as so many of the greats of recent times seemed to do--it's easier to spin off something creative inside financial success and popular acclaim, than to do it while poor and overlooked.

I really enjoyed your letter re keeping it simple. I have been teaching painting and drawing for the past few years and will be doing a colour workshop this month. You echoed my experiences and thoughts with humour. Thank you. You brightened my day.

Among your quotes you left out the old Shaker hymn 'Tis a gift to be simple.'

Besides the primary colours I use 3 other colours and, okay, I add a little white. I teach my pupils how they can make all the colours from the primary colours.

Great art isn't born in art stores.

I like matching personalities to style of painting....not methods... or techniques... If you study artists...who they are...their style of person comes out in their work.

Oh, your comments on color made me smile -"commit & correct" is just exquisite as The Formula! And oh, how those of us in workshops who do NOT pursue every shred of divine dictum from the leader are often looked upon with multi-hued askance - 'Tis a puzzlement, how it is so hard to learn there's no pat answer to learning... Thanks for that "commit & correct" phrase, a formula for freedom to explore - aHA! You've unburied the treasure map!

I find that many workshop attendees follow the recipe idea. To those of us who are a bit more imaginative this is quite frustrating. I would imagine that it is also frustrating to the instructor. I am awaiting the day when an instructor asserts loudly that color is a matter of choice and changes the sky from blue to green (or lavender or whatever) mid-painting to prove the point. After all, the point in a workshop is to learn technique NOT to paint exactly like the instructor.

I have read many good books on color yet I have discovered that the only sure way is to try the colors *I* want and see if they work, if not I can glaze over them to change the color. I find that as I grow as an artist I am less reliant on formulas and excessive numbers of brushes, I generally use five or six brushes, but often just two for a painting. I have a large number of brushes in a drawer "just in case" I need them. The few I use are out on my painting table.

Simplify, simplify!

http://www.geneblack.com

A limited palette creates harmony in the finished piece.

I too, work in a limited palette. With Oriental Brush painting I can choose to work in black ink and shades of black. I usually use indigo, yellow, scarlet, carmine, white and light blue. Chinese watercolours don't have the same number of choices as Western ones. I can mix all the greens and browns I want. I have other colours I use occationally but with theses I can paint almost everything, from flowers, to landscapes to bird and beyond. I don't remember learning how to mix colours. I just know that this colour needs a little of this and that. Maybe I got it from my Mother. She says she doesn't remember learning how to mix colours either. I've been working with colour for as long as I can remember.

I teach a colour class. The first class is using two complementary colours and white. The second class is three analagous, one complement and white. The third is a triad and the fourth is putting everything together called using a dominant hue. The students are amazed at what they can paint and always agree that the first three classes were more fun and more challenging.

This is friggin fantastic

You might not have had middle-of-the-night sojourns in mind when you wrote this column but for years I have been guiltily doing some of my best art when I awake at 4 in the morning - not recommended for everyone, as you say. In fact, I don't think I've openly confessed this to anyone, let alone published this guilty pleasure. Although I don't wake up every night - on occasion, I've been found still working in my 'jammies' at lunchtime.

Robert G. If you have an email for Burton Silverman tell him his studio site is infected. Tried on two dif computers and get "multiple infection". Ron Grauer graurog@sbcglobal.net