@Heather van Doorn is one of my IRL students and has been working VERY VERY hard to really understand oil painting. I'm not gonna lie, she picked a HARD image to paint. The image she chose has very subtle paint color shifts and values that she is having to train her brain to see. She took my 5 hour class in IRL June and she has returned 3 times so far for "Open Studio" to continue working on it. How about you guys tell her what you think about it. She still has one more session to get this finished up. This is what we do in "Private Lessons" in the classroom. 1:1 attention to paint THE painting that you want to paint. When you are finished, you will have confidence to paint on your own.

I tell you guys that I CAN draw but don't. Why? I don't really enjoy it. Why? Because my professor Ms. Grimes is still in my head telling me I will never be a good artist. Yesterday, @Heather van Doorn was here IRL during Open Studio here in Wisconsin and I decided I should take my own advice. Push past my fear of fucking it up and just do it. After all, Heather is a really cool cat and isn't judgy. She is super positive, open and just all around cool. So I drew her. It's the first time I have tried any figure drawing in 32 years. Guess what?? It FELT good! I got lost in it. I know it's not right but that is perfectly ok. The FEELING is what I was after, not the outcome. It was the first time I have done something for ME in a while.

You guys!! This is the biggest fresh water fish I have ever caught!!!! Not that size matters that much to me. 🤣 but this one was amazing.

Today we VOTE 🥳 Which of your submitted images do you want to learn to paint? You guys submitted 45 images! That is up from 33 last month. I don't know about you but I love seeing this process unfold. I have no idea what is going to happen. ❤️ Very well done.❤️ You're learning to see like an artist and make objective decisions along with your very emotional decisions. BOTH are important. Below are the Top 6 images based on community input. Why 6? Because they got equal votes. 2️⃣2️⃣ PLEASE VOTE FOR TWO IMAGES.2️⃣2️⃣ 💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎 💎 💎 My plan is to teach two paintings at a time: 💎 💎 One weekday painting 💎 One weekend painting 💎 💎 LIVE sessions are free for Level 3 members. 💎 Replays are available in Premium. 💎 💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎 But what if YOUR image didn't make it but you still want to learn to paint it? VIP membership is the answer and it's all about the personal 1:1 lessons. That means YOUR image. YOUR story. YOUR painting. With much closer 1:1 guidance from me. Now let’s vote 😏

OK class clowns, get your glasses on and let’s evaluate ALL of these submitted images. I shrunk these images down tiny on purpose. Please look at them on an iPad or computer but NOT A PHONE. I am assuming that you have read #🎨 Lesson 2: Composition about composition. Strong compositions still work even when the details disappear. AKA - shrunk down to itty bitty. Open the image below - DO NOT ENLARGE ON YOUR SCREEN. DO NOT ZOOM IN. 1️⃣ Which image grabs your eye FIRST? (let your eye scan across the entire image of images.) 2️⃣ Which image still reads the clearest at this tiny size? 3️⃣ Which image do you WANT to paint? (just because you like it.) Please vote for 3 images like this: B12 G33 D15. (BINGO! HAHHAHA JK) Be objective. There are no right or wrong answers. EVERYONE is welcome to vote - even if you didn't submit an image. (ps, its a good way to level up if you are new here.) 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 🟢🟡🔴 - I have ALSO labeled these images as to their difficulty to paint. This should NOT affect your decisions but provide more information only.