This past Thursday was the last summer class of my University of New Mexico, Continuing Education class, Painting for the Complete Beginner. It was an enjoyable and fun class for me to teach. I enjoyed seeing how far students had come in such a short period of time. I was so impressed by how the new painters took their tasks seriously and worked so hard. Most did homework on their own and many finished paintings at home that were started in class.

They started the class with just three colors: Cadmium Red and Yellow and Cobalt Blue plus white and black acrylic paint. The first night they experimented with color mixing, then I gave them each a lemon to paint, which was challenging for some, successful for all. In the following classes they were free to paint whatever they wanted.

At the end of the last class we displayed all available paintings that had been done. I think the painters were quite proud of themselves and somewhat surprised at how far they had come in 12-hours of instruction time. I was certainly proud of them.