Occasionally I teach painting classes at the Art Guild here. I usually have to promote and advertise the classes at least two months ahead in order to get the 7 or 8 students required before I can offer the class. The Art Guild must at least break even. The fees are usually (for my classes) $35 to $45 for a four-night over four weeks class. I usually do them Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. That works out to 12 hours of instruction (a little over 3 bucks per hour for a student.

I get paid twenty bucks n hour, so my pay for the whole class will be $240. If the revenue from the sign-ups is less that $240, I have to call all the people who have signed-up and cancel, or I can take a pay cut to make sure the Guild does not lose cash.

I usually get the right number of students. The first night they all show up. The second week the numbers dwindle. The last time I did a class (October) the number who showed for the second week had dropped to three. Two of them wanted refunds (due to personal problems, emergencies, etc.) So I took a cut in pay because I really wanted to get the class completed.

Teaching these classes is not brain surgery at work. It is fun and enlightening. Most of my students are adult women. Rarely do men take the classes. I enjoy the work as I watch amateur artists grow their skills and craft. I try to keep the challenges light and not push them to the point where they feel overwhelmed.

I have a list of first points that I discuss:

1. Before you begin a painting, consider the subject matter and ask yourself -"Can I pull it off?" In other words, can you do a painting of this?

2. If you say yes to the above, how do you start the painting? Do you sketch it for a while? Do you paint a background first? The sky?

3. Once you have begun the painting, what are your steps to follow? You have to PLAN a painting, from the first stroke to the varnish.

Over the years I developed this strategy in teaching painting. It doesn't sink-in, though, but I keep doing it.

I provide enlarged photographs some times for the class, and the student may use them as subject. I have noticed though, that most of them rarely look back and forth from the canvas to the photo and back. Once they get underway, the photo is simply a guide.

I paint using photos. It is something I must do because I paint in-studio and can't haul all the crap around in the car or on my back. Acrylic painting requires frequent use of huge quantities of water. If Vincent Van Gogh had acrylics he would have had to drive a tanker truck to that wheat field.

Before I commit a painting to canvas I work the photo to my pleasure using this computer. I am good with Photoshop, having owned the programs since the late 1980's, and I use it to whack a photo into what I believe the painting should represent, not what nature or man have made of the actual image. Everything begins with a photo, then into the computer, and finally up to the studio.