It’s Not Under Control!

adult learning, art, Attitudes, bottles, brain plasticity, Cezanne, Creativity, failure, Family, Fear, Healing, Lent, Marcus Aurelius, Painting, perspective, Ralph Waldo Emerson, renewal, risk, samuel Beckett, shadows, Stress, Super Bowl

All things will renew themselves in good season, yet we have only the present moment before us. We can’t live in the past, nor can we control the future. We have to recognize even our present moments aren’t always in our control, as we witnessed in the big Super Bowl game last Sunday.

Random Actions Often Determine the Outcomes of Sporting Events

Who would ever believe a punt would hit a receiving teammate’s foot, and suddenly become a live ball? Then get recovered by the Chiefs for a quick touchdown? If you think you can control your circumstances or the actions of others, just watch the NASCAR races at Daytona this weekend. The wonder is they don’t wreck in every turn, but only occasionally during the 500 mile race on Sunday.

Cezanne Watercolor “Mont Sainte-Victoire (La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves)”( 1902–06) by Paul Cézanne. (The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Photo © 2021 MoMA, NY)

Watercolor is more difficult medium to manage than acrylic paints because it’s wetter and refuses to dry as quickly as we want to paint in that same area. It’s not being obnoxious; it’s just being its own true self. Cezanne used watercolors to think out his ideas beforehand, and then worked in oils. Often, he tossed aside the watercolor work, sometimes even leaving it out in the landscape which he’d just painted. He’d learned all he could from it and now was ready to paint his new image, but not a copy of the original painting. This mountain shows up in sixty of Cezanne’s artworks.

Paul Cézanne: La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1888, oil, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

The stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote a series of meditations on life. In one he speaks of all life experiences as being the same. This attitude keeps him from getting too high or too low about what happens in his life. He takes it as it comes. Even death, which some fear as a loss, doesn’t bother him, for if he isn’t bothered about the present, he can’t be bothered about losing that too. Marcus Aurelius wasn’t a Christian, but his quest for equanimity is admirable. Take life as it comes and worry not:

“First, that all things in the world from all eternity, by a perpetual revolution of the same times and things ever continued and renewed, are of one kind and nature; so that whether for a hundred or two hundred years only, or for an infinite space of time, a man see those things which are still the same, it can be no matter of great moment. And secondly, that that life which any the longest liver, or the shortest liver parts with, is for length and duration the very same, for that only which is present, is that, which either of them can lose, as being that only which they have; for that which he hath not, no man can truly be said to lose.”

When we work in watercolor, we have to take what the watercolor gives us. While we can plan, design, and control the outcomes to a certain extent, watercolor often goes its own way. If we work over the whole surface, rather than noodling around in one little space like a puppy sniffing a single spot while out on its morning constitutional walk, we get more done, just as the puppy is more likely to get its “business” done.

One of the reasons we work in a new medium is for the challenge. In school, when I was bored, I’d take notes in class by writing upside down. When that got too easy, I began using my left hand to write upside down. This was a true challenge! I didn’t have any ingrained pathways in my brain for left-handedness, much less the upside-down images. I was truly bored, however, so I struggled on until I got serviceable images. This was the year in which I went to art school as a midyear junior and was taking a freshman level history course.

Tim has voluntarily switched to his left hand because he will have surgery on his right side, which will knock out his ability to use that arm for several months as he recovers. This is a good effort for his non dominant hand. You can tell he focused on the scoop, for it has the most detail. Training our alternate hand to do the work of our dominant hand requires resetting the brain to prefer the new hand. If you try brushing your teeth with your other hand, you’ll see exactly how strange it feels to use a different hand. This is because you have no well-worn pathways in your brain circuitry that makes this routine effort possible.

The fancy pants word for this is neuroplasticicy. We meet this concept with stroke survivors who do physical therapy to rewire their brain connections to make new pathways so they can speak, write, or walk. Everyone who tries a new game, learns a new language, or tries a new hobby also builds new pathways in their brains. Be learners for life, if you want to keep your mind healthy.

Our still life was challenging today. It had solid shapes, a clear bottle, and a metal scoop. Not only were there multiple colors, but textures and transparency also. Gail has had several years of drawing under her belt, so she was able to render the perspective of the still life well. Note the clear blue bottle, which has a wonderful oval bottom. The lemons and limes are distinct also. The grey shape is an antique scoop, sans the handle.

In 2008, J.K. Rowling spoke at the Harvard commencement exercises, telling the graduates, “Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates.” Because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, taking care for today is the best preparation for the future. Rowling studied the Classics at Harvard, a subject most people would consider useless for this modern era. Yet after a divorce, as a single parent working for Amnesty International, she began writing her wizard novels. Harry Potter is now part of our cultural heritage.

As Jesus said in Luke 12:25-26–

“And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?”

Worry is stressful, for sure, and it’s an example of “bad stress,” along with traumatic events, such as adverse childhood experiences (ACE), disease, divorce, and death of a loved one. We also endure “good stress,” as when we challenge ourselves to lift heavier weights, cook a new recipe, or learn a new language. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his 1841 essay Heroics, paragraph 14:

“The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you.

“Adhere to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, —”Always do what you are afraid to do.”

When I was in high school, the ancient Latin teacher, who had taught my daddy when he went to school, tossed out the challenge, “No one has ever made 100% on my final Latin exam.”

I bit on that challenge like a starving dog bites on a bone, even if it has no scrap of flesh remaining on it. I made flash cards and studied for an hour every night before bed, I was so determined to be the exception to the rule. On the test, I got all the Latin correct, but lost ½ point for misspelling an English word. I never followed up on her retirement, but I fully expect her record remained unblemished. Also, I’m still spelling challenged. I’m thankful for SpellCheck in our writing apps.

Gail W. paid attention to the still life and took care to lay down a close image in a pale wash before she began to add darker washes of color. Her left lime is most successful, with at least six shades of green and yellow in the shape. I also like the highlight on the central lemon. These two images capture the essence of the watercolor medium. Her perspective on the bottle bottom indicates it sits well on the cloth.

Failure teaches us what we don’t know, so we can improve the next time. This is what we call resilience. When I taught art, my students had to find three things they did well in their work before they named anything they needed help on. This was to build up their confidence. For some of them, just making a mark on the page was a start. If we fear making a mistake, we can sketch in a pale-yellow wash. This is very forgiving, like a whisper in the wind. If it’s not quite right, the next few marks may be nearer our desired outcome.

This Is Fine—Leave Me Alone, I’m Having a Crisis

Our mindset is what controls how we react to events in our lives. As one of my friends would remind me, “Not everything is a hair on fire moment.” Of course, when I was a young teen, the least slight or distress caused me to fling myself over my bed in a paroxysm of sobs, wailing loudly, “I’m going to die!” My parents would look at each other and shrug, “What boy is it now?” Fifteen minutes later I’d be in the kitchen looking for a snack, having cried my eyes out, and now I was on to the next thing. As I had more experiences, I learned to roll with the moment. Sometimes you need to wait for the next wave to rise before you take your ride. God’s timing is always right, for our experiences, both the failures and successes, prepare us for what comes next in our lives.

I had some of the same perspective problems as everyone else, especially with the base of the bottle. Actually, it’s a challenge to get a “transparent three-dimensional object on a flat surface” to appear as if it’s actually sitting on a flat surface in two dimensions. Learning some shading techniques and remembering a round bottle bottom becomes an ellipse helps to bring off this sleight of hand. I got my paint too dark on the front of the bottle base and had to let it dry so I could come back in with some clear water and an almost dry brush to pick up the color. This gave me the highlight I needed.

When I got home, I noticed my eyesight seems to be going amiss with my increased age. Lately I’ve not been careful to paint my verticals straight. Either I’m being lazy, or I’m tilting my head as I look at the subject. Maybe my neck injury has something to do with it. I duplicated the photo and used the Apple Pencil to straighten up the bottle and even up its symmetry. I also touched up a few of the lemons and limes. Maybe I’m still the puppy that likes to noodle around and sniff about until I can wrest all I can get from a work. This way I learn all I can from it. Like a kindergartner, if my work ends up a huge grey blob, I can say, “That was a great learning experience!”

My grandmother, who painted portraits and still lifes, kept a saying written on the back of an envelope, near her easel: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.” She passed in 1970. Years later, Samuel Beckett, in his 1983 story, Worstword, Ho wrote:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

We need to be like great artists and athletes, or the Michelin chefs who just keep trying, falling short, until they get close enough to qualify for their stars. Persistence makes all things possible, and if we “fail,” we’re only getting closer to perfection.

I hope for you a blessed Lent,

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, XII https://books.apple.com/us/book/meditations/id396136148

Neuroplasticity: re-wiring the brain | Stroke Association

https://www.stroke.org.uk/effects-of-stroke/neuroplasticity-rewiring-the-brain

10 Brain Exercises to Help Boost Memory

https://www.everydayhealth.com/longevity/mental-fitness/brain-exercises-for-memory.aspx

Neurobiological and Systemic Effects of Chronic Stress – PMC

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5573220/

“Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better”: Beckett’s unlikely Mantra – Goethe-Institut Los Angeles – USA

https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/los/bib/feh/21891928.html

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-h/16643-h.htm#HEROISM

Lifetime of Learning

adult learning, art, Cezanne, cognitive decline, Habits, John Ruskin, Transfer of Learning

“Transfer of Learning” is a concept in which anything learned in one situation or environment can be applied in another. When I taught art, I would have my students use mathematics and fractions when they cut mats to present their work for exhibition. “Why do we have to use math in art?” they whined, “We’re never going to use it in our lives again.”

“Are you going to buy a house, a car, or shop for clothes or groceries? How will you know you’re getting a good deal?” They got out their pencils and rulers, even though they hated fractions.

This was decades ago, before “Train for Today’s Workplaces” became a mantra among some politicians. The only problem with training for today is the ever-changing nature of the modern workplace, which can make skills obsolete in a mere two years. Executives believe nearly half of the skills that exist in today’s workforce won’t be relevant just two years from now, thanks to artificial intelligence. However, human creativity will always be needed to guide AI. Folks who want white collar jobs today will need to buy into continuous learning, since the current job market will require ever changing skills.

Step 2: add some thin washes to build up the solid surfaces

We’ve all heard the saying, “Jack of All Trades vs Master of None,” but this might be the best possible scenario for our modern world. In our highly professionalized society, we all want the best physician and the top-notch lawyer on our case. Not everyone has the goods to acquire their services. We get the best we can afford. This is the capitalist society in which we live. In a utopian society, the poorest among us would get the same high quality medical care as the President of the United States.

Step 3: add details once surface is dry enough the paint won’t bleed. Doing background while waiting for objects to dry allows you to tighten up the edges of the objects.

“Those who can’t, teach” is a misconception, similar to the Jack of All Trades. Art Teachers can’t stick only to their specialty, but also must offer the gamut of skills from drawing to painting, paper cutting to plaster sculpture, clay pottery to cloth dyeing, and even more multimedia experiences. They have to be able to reach students with a wide range of talents, interests, and expertise, as well as encourage those who are ashamed of their work. Plus, they need to convince the talented to work and improve so they fulfill their promise.

This background discussion brings me to our class’s second experience in watercolor. I noted some instances of Transfer of Learning I can point out when we meet again.

When we paint a house, we dip our brush in a bucket of paint, apply it to the wall in one stroke, and then go back to the bucket for another dip. We don’t keep wiping the same spot on the wall over and over trying to make this one spot look better. In fact, the damp brush is just picking up the paint off the wall! Move along and cover the wall.

Don’t take your eye off the ball. If you want to catch a ball in any sport, you have to track it into your hands or the mitt. I noticed the ones who looked up, drew, looked, drew, checked, drew again, adjusted, and drew some more, had closer proportions in their drawings.

Measure twice, cut once. This is similar to the above sports metaphor. I learned it in the art school wood shop when I was cutting wood for my stretcher strips. Using the thumb or a brush to note the proportions of the still life objects and comparing them to the proportions of your own work helps get an accurate drawing. Check once, measure, check again, measure, and then cut. Air drawing or visualization helps to imagine the proportions before drawing the lines. Drawing lightly so you can draw over the less appropriate shape is an example of measuring twice, and cutting once.

Sheep will eat the grass down to the roots, but goats will move on. Actually, I have zero experience with sheep and goats. My shepherd experience is limited to leading a congregation, none of whom could be accused of being either sheep or goats. I only know this fact from Bible Study lessons, and no one rents out sheep to clear a pasture of weeds, but they use goats because goats are smart enough to move on. In art, we need to take a lesson from the goats and move on to another section of our painting to let our colors dry, so we can avoid our colors running into each other.

Our group isn’t training for a new occupation, but keeping a challenge on our plates is a good idea for anyone of any age. Whether you’re trying new recipes or learning to play an instrument or taking up an exercise routine, whatever change you make in your life is important. Doing creative writing or crafts or arts is especially crucial for keeping our brains healthy, for these activities build new pathways in our brains. As we age, having redundant brain pathways is important to keep our minds healthy.

Participation in arts interventions have been linked with improving cognitive function and memory, general self-esteem and well-being, as well as reducing stress and other common symptoms of dementia, such as aggression, agitation, and apathy. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, the interventions which promote social interaction, have multiple psychosocial benefits. While none of our group are experiencing these effects, participation also staves off the same symptoms. Researchers found visual arts programs reduced depression, improved socializing, and increased self-esteem among participants.

Expressive arts activities also help individuals relax, provide a sense of control, reduce depression and anxiety, encourage playfulness and a sense of humor, as well as improve cognition and self-esteem. Making art also nurtures spirituality and reduces boredom. Art also can reflect the emotional and cognitive condition of the artist.

Watercolor with Prang Oval 8 Student Palettes

In the classes I teach, I encourage each person finding their own voice, rather than copying my style. In the art education classes I took in college, the goals of teaching were for students to recreate the closest replica of the teacher’s model, as they followed the instructional steps to the letter.

I’m thankful I never had those teachers growing up, but by the 1980’s, regimented lesson plans were all the vogue. When I began to teach, I gave certain boundaries or requirements for each lesson, such as the use of certain color schemes or coiling verses slab built in clay sculpture, but the rest was left up to each student’s creative interpretation.

My principals were always surprised by the lack of discipline problems in my class, but when young people are given an opportunity to develop their imagination in a positive direction, rather than use it in negative behaviors, life is good. They especially liked the “hand-mouth pop quizzes” I would occasionally make them take, especially when they discovered cookies or chewing gum were involved.

Years later when I went to seminary, I constantly heard the refrain, “Will I be able to put this in my toolbox and use it in the local church?”

As a person who was preparing to be a fifth career pastor, I could only roll my eyes in silence. Every job I’d ever had prepared me for the ministry: renovating old apartments, teaching, preparing lesson plans, selling insurance, studying art history and painting, and learning how to renew and retrain my old skills for a new career. The idea of having a single toolbox that would never need new tools never crossed my mind. Seminary was where my skills to be a lifelong learner were reinforced.

I was writing this on My Daddy’s birthday. He would have been 105 if he’d lived so long. He always maintained an interest in archaeology until Parkinson’s and dementia robbed him in his late 70’s of his memories and his brilliance. He would take us on arrowhead hunting field trips on Saturdays when we were children. Armed with a cooler of lemonade and sandwiches from home, we’d go out to the countryside to walk in a farmer’s newly plowed field, with his permission of course.

In his early retirement, he enjoyed giving tours to school children at the LSUS campus Pioneer Heritage Center and driving the church bus to the food pantry to pick up the monthly food rations for distribution to the neighborhood. Staying active, engaged, and eating a healthy diet are other ways we can keep our minds building new neurons.

One of the interesting research opportunities in art and the brain is the question of whether neurodegenerative brain disorders will show up in an artist’s body of work. The progressive loss of neurons causes changes in the brain, which leads to a number of symptoms, from altered multi-sensory processing to difficulty moving and using one’s body, to subtle changes in mood, emotions, personality, social interactions; to major, disabling cognitive and behavioral impairments. Although we currently only offer art therapy for the elderly, perhaps we ought to be emphasizing the arts from earlier ages and integrate it into all of our studies to help everyone develop limber learning skills to last for our lifetimes.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Half Of All Skills Will Be Outdated Within Two Years, Study Suggests

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2023/10/14/half-of-all-skills-will-be-outdated-within-two-years-study-suggests/

National Endowment for the Arts Study: “Research Gaps and Opportunities for Exploring the relationship of the Arts to Health and Well-Being in Older Adults,” Published by the national endowment for the Arts Office of Research & Analysis

Click to access Arts-and-Aging-Building-the-Science.pdf

Pioneer Heritage Center

https://www.lsus.edu/community/pioneer-heritage-center

Can we really ‘read’ art to see the changing brain? A review and empirical assessment of clinical case reports and published artworks for systematic evidence of quality and style changes linked to damage or neurodegenerative disease

Physics of Life Reviews 43 (2022) 32–95

Introducing Watercolor Painting

adult learning, art, brain plasticity, Cesanne, Children, cognitive decline, color Wheel, Faith, Imagination, John Ruskin, Painting, perfection, quilting, renewal, United Methodist Church

Our art class has worked in acrylic paint for several years, but toward the end of last year, they expressed an interest in learning about watercolors. I said, “Sure, we’ll do that. It’ll build on the color theory you already know, but you’re going to have to learn to plan ahead and learn not to rush to overwork one area. Transparencies are the mark of watercolor, so leaving your painting underworked is better than overdoing it.”

I was met with silence. Then laughter. “What the heck! We’re up for it! Bring it on!”

I love this group. They’re always up for a challenge. I think they’ve bought into my philosophy we aren’t going to be perfect, but we’re always going to learn from everything we do. As a teacher, I reminded parents their children wanted to engage with the medium to learn how far they can mix the colors before the image becomes a dark gray smudge. Then they might even push it even further until it’s solidly black. If you ask a child about their story, they might say, “The family took shelter in the house, but the storm came and blew it all away.” The story would evolve as they pushed the medium to the maximum. They learned the limitations on that day and wouldn’t go as far the next day. The process, not the product, is important.

Young children aren’t ready to draw subject matter from life but prefer illustrating stories from their imagination. They use symbols, rather than attempt to construct two dimensional designs to represent three dimensional objects. Somewhere around age 11 to 14, children begin to try to construct a realistic world in their art. While their drawings at this stage display the use of value, perspective, and light, children are extremely critical of their own success. They consider their drawing only as good as the level of realism they achieve, and they’re easily frustrated. Most people quit making art works about this age, so even as adults, their “functional artistic age” is somewhere between 11 and 14.

When my mother was teaching ceramic classes at her church, she once complained to me how her students, all senior citizens, were like “spoiled children, who each needed to have their own fresh jar of glaze to paint from.”

I asked if she was putting all the new paint jars out in the workroom, or if she kept them hidden in the supply closet. You might have thought I’d just pulled the clouds back from the sun from the way her face lit up.

“Of course! I should have thought of that! I’ll just pour out the colors they need and tell them that’s how it’s going to be. They can share.”

Paul Cézanne: The Park of the Chateau Noir with Well, 1904, graphite and watercolour, Private Collection

The old masters didn’t teach their students light, dark, shading, values, perspective, color mixing, temperature, or any other aspect of the art trade until the apprentice reached around age 10 or so. The rule when I was growing up was a child had to be able to write in cursive. That rule won’t work today, but another hand-eye coordination achievement will take its place.

It takes a while for me to know a new student’s nature, so I can give them the appropriate nurture. Some of my students will go ahead and do exactly what they want to do anyway because they have to see for themselves. They have a high tolerance for “learning,” and “experimentation.” Other students need to be kept from these excesses, because they can’t stand “failures.” Some students need to creep up to the edges of failure in order to progress, since they are so fond of being in control. Gaining the confidence to let go and let the medium have its way will be a growth opportunity which watercolor offers. Other students I can leave well enough alone, and come over when I sense they’re at a struggle point. I can recognize this when they quit working or begin to sigh loudly as they push back from their work area.

I’ve actually had some grownups in art classes cry because they couldn’t master a technique on the first go around. I always expected at least one child in my kindergarten class to shed a few tears when they were first learning to cut on the fold, but didn’t “hold the fold” when it was time to cut. I can repeat this rhyme, ask them to check, and then cut, but at least one will hold the open edges, which leads to two half pieces. I always have to remind them I’ve been practicing this skill longer than they’ve been alive. One day they’ll get good at it also. Effort will pay off. The same encouragement goes for adults, though most of them are too proud to shed tears.

For our first class, belated as it was due to the recent weather and my brief hospitalization for a small blood clot at the turn of the year, we chatted about the difference between acrylic and watercolor painting. Acrylic painting is more forgiving, since we can paint over our less precise marks. We saw some Cezanne watercolor landscapes to see how a real master draws and paints.

Paul Cezanne: Le cruchon vert, watercolor, 1885/1887, Louvre, Paris.

Watercolor’s luminosity depends on the sheet on which it is painted, for its brilliance is a balance between transparent washes of pigment and the light bouncing off the bright paper back to the viewer’s eyes. At first, Cézanne worked much as he did in his oil painting, applying the watercolor densely, filling in underlying pencil outlines, covering the paper completely, and highlighting with white gouache. Later he thinned his watercolor and laid down veils of color, incorporating blank paper for highlights. He often applied watercolor to dry, semi-absorbent paper, creating layers of crisply defined brushstrokes with ridges of pigment at their edges.

Our class, because they are used to the dense pigments of the acrylic paints, painted much like the early Cezanne gouache works. It takes a while to learn a new medium, especially one so radically different from their prior experiences. But just as it takes time to learn, it also takes time to unlearn! Ask my golf coach about changing my swing sometime. We’ll get the hang of it eventually.

After checking out the master, we then worked on mixing the secondary and tertiary colors from the primary colors from our Prang 8 Color palettes on our 140-pound watercolor paper (not sketchbook paper, which is thinner and will buckle under the slightest bit of water).

I was still on painkillers for my shingles, so my painted circle never quite closed itself. Instead, it was more of a rainbow, an image of hope after all this rain and my health troubles. My secondary colors looked like rainbow mushrooms popping up from the rainbow. The wetness of some areas bled into some of the colors, giving me the tertiary colors. I had a bit more success working the wet in wet in the blue grey cloudy sky.

One of our new students, Gail W., imagined her color wheel as a flower in a field. Tim W. focused on the colors as patterns. I had the sense I was looking at a portion of a quilt in progress. While we had the color wheel as an image, we weren’t bound to recreate a wheel.

Tim B. Always has a unique viewpoint, so his color wheel is moving through space. Mike used some pastel colors in addition to the Prang colors to experiment with the difference between them. He’s used to thick paint with his acrylics, so allowing more water to flood the surface and allow the light to bounce back through the paint will allow his painting to glow more brightly.

Gail S. finished out her wheel in good form. She has good transparency of paint and mixing of colors of the three sets of colors on the wheel. Gail typically paints with thinner washes in acrylics, so her technique in that medium passes over easily to watercolors.

As a first start, we’re on the way. Next week we’ll try a small still life. I hope to be in less pain, so I’ll have more of my brain cells available, or at least they’ll be within hailing distance. I have some great Cezanne still life watercolors to share. A still life will test our drawing skills and our painting skills both. The Victorian art critic John Ruskin said, “No good work whatever can be perfect; and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.”

Mike’s color wheel with Prang and opaque watercolors

We aren’t being graded, so when I say “test,” no one ever fails. We only find out what we’ve learned and what we need to improve upon. Trust me, “we’re all going on to perfection, by the grace of God.” After all, this is a United Methodist art class. If I may quote Ruskin again, “The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” By this he means, art changes us. Art also opens new horizons, allows us to overcome challenges, imagine new solutions, eases our stress, finds companionship, learn resilience, appreciate culture, and develop new skills. At every age, art builds confidence, teaches us compassion for ourselves and others who try new things, and helps us keep an optimistic attitude. I personally believe art keeps our inner child alive and well. May God renew you daily in joy.

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Drawing Development in Children: The Stages from 0 to 17 Years https://www.littlebigartists.com/articles/drawing-development-in-children-the-stages-from-0-to-17-years/

John Ruskin—The Stones of Venice

A Guide to Cézanne’s Mark-Making and Materials | Magazine https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/589

Cezanne’s Watercolor Pigments. https://cool.culturalheritage.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v14/bp14-09.html#:~:text=C%C3%A9zanne%27s%20watercolor%20technique%20allowed%20the,before%20application%20to%20the%20paper.

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It’s Not Under Control!

Lifetime of Learning

Introducing Watercolor Painting

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