Free for you! Every class I teach uses the same 14-color Daniel Smith palette. It has a warm and a cool version of each primary color (red, yellow, and blue) and each secondary color (green, purple, and orange), plus a brown and a black. With these 14 colors, you can paint landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and abstracts. The palette has 20 wells, so there's room to add your own favorites as you grow. I hold a free Palette-Building Class whenever enough people sign up. You'll watch me fill each well, hear why I chose every color, and see how the colors mix together. To save your seat, comment "Count me in" below. When enough painters have signed up, I'll post the date on our calendar and let you know. Why Daniel Smith? It all started with one tube of paint. Loyal to a Color When I started riding the bus to my job at the University of Texas, I decided to paint along the way. I carried an old plastic box palette of half pans that I had used for so many years that most of the pans were nearly scraped clean. On that first ride, I painted with whatever colors were still full enough to use, and I painted a geranium. Photo of Geranium Painting included. The next day, I wanted to paint a longhorn. I had printed a reference photo at home, because planning a painting has always been my favorite part. But on the bus, I realized how few of the colors in my photo I actually had. I painted anyway, and it turned out well, but I made a list of the colors I was missing. At the top was burnt orange, the color I saw most in that longhorn's coat. (A burnt orange longhorn, painted on the way to UT!) Photo of Longhorn Painting included. That night, I dumped my whole box of paint onto the table and hunted for anything close. And there it was: one tube of Daniel Smith Quinacridone Burnt Orange. I had bought it, along with two others, from a Daniel Smith representative I met at Ziegler's, the family-owned art store in Tulsa where I had taught, bought my supplies, shown my work, and had every painting framed.

I want to start by telling you how happy I am that you've chosen to join me here. This community means more to me than I can fully put into words, and I want you to know from the very first day why I'm here and why I've chosen to stay. I need to share something with you. I've just been diagnosed with cancer for the second time — in the same place as before. It's hard news. But I want to tell you exactly how I'm walking into this, because it's the same way I want to walk into everything: eyes on Jesus. After a lot of prayer and a good bit of research, I decided Skool is where I want to be for this season — a place to stay connected, to stay accountable, and to keep teaching and creating alongside people I care about. I've been connected to community my whole life, through the good and the hard, and I'm not about to stop now. Here's what I know for certain: I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in this fight, I want to know more — more of who I was created to be, more of who I'm called to be — not less. Cancer is hard. Staying close to Jesus while fighting it is harder. But I will not let this battle, or this sickness, define me. My eyes are on the mark, and the mark is Jesus. I want you to know something else about how I've prepared for this. I wrote what I believe is the best devotional book I have ever written — not because I'm a great writer, but because I believe every single page was written under the direction of the Holy Spirit. It's called Watercolor Fellowship, and on the very last page, I share a deeply personal story about the time in my life when I was at my sickest, and why that season became so important to my relationship with the Lord — and to my ability to share Him with others now. If you'd like to read it, here it is: https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=iEepnr6zxb9eLmBwBXVRwWmSavMfbuqYyFobvA9wLsD So please hear this clearly: I am not stepping back. Our Zoom watercolor classes continue. I've spent over fifty years painting and teaching, and I intend to keep pouring every bit of that into you — all the best I have — for as long as the Lord gives me breath to do it. That's the calling, and I'm not letting anything take it from me.