Another interesting thing to point out, most successful artists come from the East or West coasts only. So much of what we know of great art is what is produced by the influence of big cities, big populations, and big money (capitalism). Success in art is a numbers game “PERIOD”. Quality in art is ultimately the job of the individual artist, teachers help us along the way (and can have great influence on us), but anyone who claims to have learned everything from their teacher is starving their soul.

For the Fishmonger’s Cafe: take the boat straight ahead across the Eel Pond, then turn right.

I had a number of teachers that inspired me at various points. One was John Roy, who was my MFA adviser at UMass. He had been Josef Albers’ teaching assistant at Yale, and was a well-known color theorist in his own right. Most of the other students were afraid of him, but he and I really hit it off for some reason. In addition to the benefit I got from his tough thought-provoking critiques, I co-taught his color class with him for several semesters and learned a lot from him about teaching. He ended up being almost like an uncle to me. We had many great conversations that inspired me to look at the world from a different perspective.

Another teacher who had a huge influence on me was the painter Gregory Gillespie. He wasn’t actually on the faculty anywhere, but became more of a personal mentor. I had seen his work at the Hirshhorn in DC, and he was (and still is) one of my favorite artists. He was one of the main reasons I chose to go to grad school where I did, just because he lived in the area. I would go out to his studio a couple of times a semester, and he would show me a lot of technical things about how he painted. Other times we would talk about other things, life and art and philosophical stuff. Just being around him and seeing his paintings in progress was an enormous inspiration in itself, but he also gave me valuable feedback on my own work.

John’s approach to art was scientific and analytical, while Gregory’s was intuitive and psychological. Between the two of them I got a pretty diverse art education.

1. The colors do not have to be robust, this may be suggested by intense chroma in the foreground; the eye will naturally read it and believe it for the rest going back into the picture. The muddiness you see, is not what I see; I would have thought you were directing the looker by purposely muddying the color on one side to suggest the depth of field as we actually really see it to the more focused side.

2. Your right about varying the brushstrokes to achieve more depth; but also consider just building up the paint to achieve the same,(better),effect in the foreground.

3. ??? and I do not know about using the “cooler colors” in the distance. Why tamper with the success that is already here?

4. ..yeah ahuh. perhaps if we added 1/238th of one percent of dioxine purple to the……I’m joking Karl! Seriously, this one could lead to a “can of worms”.

5. Didn’t even notice. By the way, if you remove the pole, where will you lock-up your bike; see the problem with taking things out.

6. I think the foliage is the only thing that needs any attention on the trees, (because most folks recognize trees by the foliage shapes), the trunks are obscured nicely, (that is nice way to handle detail overkill). Seems to me the reason the trees are not as developed in the upper right, is because the is no more paper left to develope them on.

Looks like you had a fine teacher, (there are some good ones out there, that is for sure). If this is how your class operated, this piece of art shows the power those critiques had on you as a student, and the level of skill you were able to achieve in understanding how to produce work this fine in high school. Thanks for sharing them!

As a painter, I see the composition as being pleasantly and believably complex, and quite good; you have plenty of nice verticle movements, the shadows give a nice horizontal motion, and the sunshine behind the vail of trees calls me forth to walk through.

Perhaps the contrast in the front could be aided by slightly more intense chroma (like a dab of pure blue and orange) to suggest the values moving away from them. The line (perhaps of the trail or road) on the left side, one third up, moving in and up, seems a little “hard” to me; the left side is perfect. The shadows look fine and do not need to be lighter the farther back they are; due to the thinning of their lines. Lastly, and something that irks me in my own attempts, is capturing foliage in a more believable texture. This painting is as good as any gallery painting by any top artist out there. Nice work, Karl!