Ep.99 with Susan Greenstein

So I spend a lot of time just sitting and thinking and looking and the more you look, the more you see. And that's always the case. Hello and welcome to the Learn to Paint Podcast. The show that gives you artistic tools you can put to work. I'm your host, Kelly Ann Powers. Today I'm talking with artist Susan Greenstein. In the conversation you'll learn which materials are worth the splurge and how it'll make a difference in your learning speed. Why you may not want to do a whole drawing before you get into painting, plus you'll walk away with just a ton of great questions to ask yourself when you're starting a painting or looking at others' work. In the Extended Cut bonus, we talk dealing with frustration and how to set up the most important parts of your painting so they stay the most important parts. To find show notes, links to Greenstein's Extended Cut bonus and a link to the Podcast Art Club, where you'll find a treasure trove of over 50 bonus conversations with guests had to learn to paintpodcast.com/podcast/episode99. I start the interview by asking Greenstein how she got started in art. Since a very young child I've been interested in art. My father always brought home all these interesting things for my sister and I to work with, different kinds of markers and surfaces to draw onto. That was always great. That was just something that always came easy to me. It was a way for me to express myself very early on. I was lucky enough to go to the high school of art and design and it was really the beginning for me. I found people that had similar interests and we really learned a lot from each other. Then I went on to Pratt Institute and studied painting and drawing there. I'm sure you got technical skills, but what did Pratt as an institution teach you? It really had to do with me. It was great learning from other students, having some instructors that sent me in different directions. But I think what it really helped me with the most was just believing in myself, really believing in myself as an artist. Also just knowing that whatever work I put into it was what I was going to get out of it. That really set me on a path for that. After Pratt, how did your skills continue to develop and where did you discover teaching? I did illustration for many years and freelance illustration for magazines, for textbooks, and then eventually for children's books. I started out teaching but just for a very short time early on. Then I went back to teaching art to children and really loved that. I worked for a program called Studio in a School for many years. I learned everything that I learned about teaching. I learned there. Then I was lucky enough to work at a school, Brooklyn Friends. I worked with young children there. While I was working, I was always painting and always drawing. The students that I worked with fed me in terms of their excitement, their interest and just exploring everything about materials. My being consistent in terms of painting and drawing, I think fed what I was teaching. Then I also about 15 or 16 years ago now, I joined a cooperative gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's called 440 Gallery. It was a life-changing experience for me. It was just great to have a community of artists that I could talk to and really trust and get very honest feedback from. Also, I had to learn how to put together a solo show and group shows where I'd have to figure out how my work really related to other people's work. It's been a very great growing experience being there. I'm presently still a part of that gallery. I retired from working with children and I discovered that I love working with adults. I love teaching watercolor and other things to adults. But I just realized that it was this great pocket to sort of enjoy sharing what it is that I love about watercolor with adults. You mentioned that when you were at Pratt, you really discovered that getting good was about you. That's a huge realization. So could you just talk more about how you discovered that and what changed that made in you? There's so many different things coming at you when you are in art school. There's people doing many different things and you can very easily get pulled in many directions. It's not bad to get pulled in different directions. I don't think because it's nice to really experience a lot of things and not get stuck in one way very early on. But as I was maturing in school, the more I realized that because there was so much and there were so many different ways of working, I had to listen to my own voice and I had to allow that voice to grow and to listen to that much more carefully. And I think that sort of saved me from being all over the place. So I think it was just out of necessity that I really needed to focus on my voice. There's this interesting idea that we think our voice is just something we will implicitly know because it's us, but it sounds like that took you time to figure that out. It definitely did take time to figure out. And I think any young art student has a big challenge in front of them because you have to figure out who you are, what you like and what makes sense to you, what resonates with you. And it's tricky. I remember like early on someone asked me, another student asked me, so what is your work about? And I really had no idea at that point. I really had no idea and I wish now I could hear what I said. It would probably make me laugh a lot. Because you really don't know, but because you really don't know where you're going to go or where you're going to land and what's going to end up being the most important things, it's just important to pay attention to what resonates with you. I think it's so important to go see a lot of artwork of other artists and pay attention to not just what you like or what's interesting to you or what you connect to, but also the things that don't resonate with you. And I think it's important to keep asking yourself the question, what am I feeling? What am I noticing? One of the great things that art school did for me was it helped me not to feel afraid of seeing work that I didn't understand, which just helped me to look at things and just let it wash over me and then sit with it and see what kind of feelings would come up or what kind of connections I had with it or what things repelled me from that work, but that helped me to know myself better as well. Today you work in watercolor. What is it that you love about watercolor? What does the medium give you? If you have good paper, fairly good brushes and paints, there is something about watercolor. The minute you make one brush stroke on the paper, this happens every single time. It's just almost like inside I'm just going, "Oh, you know, it's this sort of natural contact that happens and the way the watercolor falls into, I use paper that's a cold press paper, so it has some bumps in it and the pigment kind of settles in that." And just the way that happens when you're working with it, that's the thing that pulled me to it. And I've never gotten tired of that. It's very exciting. But that's not to say that just as I think, "Okay, I've really got this down. I know what I'm doing. I, you know, there's always a new challenge that will come up and I think that's helpful because it keeps you humble and it also helps you to realize that there's always so many new things to learn. But that's what really made me fall in love with it." You mentioned that good materials. So, for example, what paper do you use and what makes a good paper? And this is something that I feel very strongly about. I feel like for paper, arches is really my favorite paper. There are many different kinds of paper that I have. I have handmade papers. I have papers from all over, different brands, different types of paper. But especially if somebody's getting started, arches is a great paper because it's really dependable. It holds up to a lot of different ways that you might work on it. And that was something that I really learned after I was at art school. Because when I was at art school, technique was not taught. It was really not. That was not in style at that moment, hard to believe, but that's where things were. So, I took a class with my husband. He was also a painter. I took a class a few years after I finished school. I had always worked with watercolors, but I would work on any paper. And a lot of times, and I hear this from a lot of students, they will say, "I was just practicing or I was just trying this out." So, they'll use paper that is sometimes not real watercolor paper or paper that's really inferior. And so, for years, I really didn't understand, and I would work on anything and everything. And the joy that I was just talking about when your brush goes across the paper and the paint settles, that was not there. And a lot of times it would just stay on the surface and it would be dead, like even the color would just not really come to be what you wanted it to be. So, there's a large range of brushes, but you can get some pretty nice brushes for not much money. You can get paint. There's a large range of paint and you can really do well with not a lot of money. I would say that putting your money into art's paper is probably one of the most important things. What brush do you use? And also, what do you recommend in a brush? My most favorite brush. is a mop brush, a squirrel mop brush. And the one that I use is it's by Princeton. The size that I use is a number six. And it's quite thick, but it comes to a beautiful point. So it really gives me what I need in both ways. I can get into some really nice detail with a point. I can really get into small areas. But because the belly of the brush, the wide part of the brush holds so much water and so much pigment, I can do these wide, like really large washes at the same time. So without even changing my brush sometimes, that one brush will do so much for me. But I do have other brushes, all different brands. Sometimes it's because someone's recommended a brush to me or sometimes I will just see something and I'll test it out and I happen to really like the way the point is or how it feels in my hand. That's important. And that's a great thing to test when you're, when people are looking for a brush, like the weight of it and what it feels like. That's super important. But this is my go-to right now, the squirrel brush. - So it sounds like you recommend people find brushes that hold a lot of paint and come to a tip, like that point sounds important. - Yes, and when I teach, I always have a large brush, but each brand has like the numbers mean different. They're not exactly the same for each brand, but I usually have about a size 12 brush and then a smaller one like a size eight or six. And I really try to impress upon students to use the big brush because it's very scary at first. I think people feel like they're never going to be able to control that. But if it's a good enough brush and it comes to a good point, you have the advantage of holding a lot of pigment but also getting into small areas. So I think that it's very helpful and it also keeps you from being too fussy. It's really nice to start out and give yourself the chance to really work on large shapes, large areas, and then get smaller and smaller. So if you're working with a really small brush, there's no way that's ever going to happen. You're limiting your options at that point. - But what paints do you use? - I use tubes. A lot of people like to use sets, like when I teach, sometimes we will use sets. I use a set that's inexpensive. It's called Yorka. And the reason I use it when I'm teaching, it's very full pigmented. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but a lot of times, even when I was a kid, my parents gave me this beautiful set of watercolors. I think it must have had, I don't know, maybe 40 colors in it and it was beautiful. But if it's not good paint, you're brushing your brush on top of the paint over and over again and trying to get color. And so for a long time, I thought that watercolor was just this very faded, pastel kind of color. When you can get some really strong pigment if you have colors that give you that. And so Yorka paints are great for that. They're a very inexpensive option. For myself, I use tubed paint. And the brands I use are, I love Daniel Smith. I know that's a West Coast paint. They, their paints have never failed me ever. Windsor Newton is always a great one, Holbein and Centelier. Those are the ones that I, are my go-to brands, you know, something's on sale. That might be the one that I'll get that time. But there are certain colors, like Centelier makes this beautiful cobalt blue. It's just something about that one always stays with me. You know, so there are different ones will have. Holbein makes a color called Opera. It's like a hot pink. Different companies make different ones, but those are the ones they're interchangeable. And the way I work is that I have my palette that has empty pans in it. And I squirt the colors into those pans. And I leave them out and I let them dry. So they're semi moist when I'm using them. The reason that I like to let them dry is because I go outside a lot to paint. So if they're wet, they're gonna go all over the place. If I wet them, rewet them, I can access the same strength of pigment. How many pigments do you have on your palette? And then how many do you use in a painting? In my palette, I'd say I have about 25 colors, but I definitely don't use all of those colors each time. I'm a real strong believer in a limited palette. And the reason that I feel a limited palette is important is sometimes when you narrow your choices, you actually expand what you can do with them. Like just it pushes you to have more choices within a limitation. So I might have all those colors, but a lot of times I might just decide I'm only gonna use three colors. Maybe I'm just going to use complementary colors and maybe one other color with it. Or maybe I'll start that way. And then eventually I might say, well, I need a little bit more of another color. I might add to it, but I usually try to limit maybe four or five colors that I'm choosing. Sometimes it's a few less, sometimes a little bit more, but I definitely don't use every color that's on my palette at the same time. We're gonna transition to process, but first off, where do you paint and what do you bring with you? I paint mostly outside. I love to paint in my studio. I love to paint around my house, painting interiors or still lives, but my most favorite thing is painting outside. I have spent a lot of time figuring out the lightest equipment I can take with me because I love to paint locally, but I also love to paint when I travel. I have found like the lightest weight stool and the lightest weight table that can fold up and fit in my backpack, my watercolor set, water, just the really the bare essentials that I need. Sometimes I use an easel. It really depends. Sometimes I really like the height of an easel. It depends on the view that I'm after. A lot of times I will take walks and I'll find something and just spiral it away in my mind. That's something I want to go back to paint. Depending upon what I see and how I see it, if being lower down by sitting works, then I might take out my table and my stool if it's higher up and easel would work really well. Also an easel works really well for larger paint. Once you've found a spot, do you do an initial drawing? When I start, I don't use pencil and that's just become personal choice that works for me. I started a long time ago. I would spend a lot of time drawing everything out first and I would do a very detailed drawing. What happened was I would get to a point where I was done with the drawing. It would take me a long time to do the drawing. By the time I got to the painting, it almost felt like why bother? I've already had this experience and it just felt almost like I was filling in the drawing. That is not to say there are many artists that draw first and do really beautiful work. Just personally, for me and my journey, it felt right to let that go. What was interesting was while I let that go, I've always carried a sketchbook and I've always drawn, but when I started to let that go, my drawings became much more detailed and much more patterned and I think that sort of became the pocket for all of that so I could allow my paintings to become looser and more expressive. So it gave me a chance to do both, but in different places. So if you don't do a drawing, how do you know where things are? So I started off a lot of times on mark, save for instance. If I'm drawing, I did a series of trees. I did a series all through the year and I would spend some time looking before I start and there's an artist, I'm forgetting the name of the book, but the artist is Tom Hoffman and he talks a lot about just spending time looking, like just taking the time to sit with whatever your subject is and look. And that was something that I didn't always do. I would be so excited, I would sit down and I get started before I even realized I was started and I've really learned how to slow down and look and have a full conversation inside my head about what I'm seeing and ask myself a lot of questions where the darkest places, what places will I leave that are going to be the lightest? This is a really big, for instance, a really big tree. How am I going to express that in this size paper? There's lots of greens. How many greens am I going to think about in this painting? Are there any other colors that you might not expect but that I can pull into this painting? So there's lots of questions that I'll ask myself. So I spend a lot of time just sitting and thinking and looking and the more you look, the more you see and that's always the case. So I'll put some marks down just to anchor where everything is, just how tall things are, how wide they are, and a lot of times I'll work from the outside in so I might work painting in the negative space around whatever shape or form I'm painting and that really helps to describe the actual form sometimes more than painting the actual positive object. And then I'll work back and forth. I might start that way. Sometimes I don't start that way. Sometimes I start from the inside out. Sometimes I will start with the actual tree or whatever it is that I'm looking at. And then I go back and forth. So it's a conversation between what's around it and what's inside of it, back and forth. And I think a lot about where do I want the edge to disappear? Maybe some wet on wet, where the colors really blend and the edges really becoming. Not as distinct and then other areas where they're really sharp distinctions. So those are things that I think about a lot when I'm starting. You've been at this for a while. So much of that stuff you now can do in your head. For someone who is earlier in their journey, maybe they don't have the skill yet to do that in their head, are there other ways? to do that planning or should they just jump into the painting? A lot of times I'm teaching people that are just starting out or coming back to their practice and one of the things that I do and I'm teaching is maybe doing a study before you start a larger painting where you are really limiting some of the variables within a painting. Like if you take out the choices of color and it's just tone you're just working with maybe graze, it really helps you to see things that you might not see if you're working with everything. You know, if you're working, if you're thinking about full color, it might really help you just to take some of that away and you might see things a little bit more clearly. But I guess the thing that's most important is not to get overwhelmed. And I remember very distinctly when I started getting overwhelmed and feeling very frustrated. So my goal when I'm teaching and when I'm talking to somebody that's just starting out is to just break it down so that it's approachable and it's not like what do I do next? That's the hardest and that's the worst feeling when you're really trying something new. I had never sort of considered also that we'd walk in with this idea of what a painting is. And so we're sitting there looking at the tree and the bush and the house and we are feeling overwhelmed, but we still think we have to do that complicated thing. And the truth is we don't have to. We can do it however we want. Absolutely. There are many choices and I think that's an important thing that I try to convey when I'm teaching. That there are a lot of approaches. There's a lot of ways you can look at things and you don't have to take everything in. You can really decide to take a much smaller amount of things in so that it doesn't feel overwhelming. I remember I had mentioned earlier that I took a watercolor class after art school. It was a great class and I learned a lot, but there's a difference between taking a class and then applying it to your own practice. And so I took this class and then I went off on a vacation during the summer and I had the whole idea of using wet on wet and creating this beautiful surface where the paper was wet and I would let the colors flow together and that would dry. And then it was sort of like now how do I reserve all that beauty but paint on top of it and create some distinction. So like those little steps that you need to know like making those transitions. What do I do next? How do I get from point A to point B so that it makes some sense to me. So that's the challenge and I think that's the important part so that it doesn't become too overwhelming. You're looking at a scene. So let's say you're looking at like a house with a garden and like some trees in the background. How do you break up that scene in your mind? The most important thing I feel in terms of getting started is to look for the biggest shapes. Really try to find the shapes that are it's funny because I wear glasses and so all I have to do is take off my glasses and everything is much broader so I can see shapes much more easily. I always tell people that don't wear glasses to just squint because it just makes it so that you don't see every leaf on a tree or you don't see what's going on inside the windows in a house. You just really see the shapes and the largest shapes and that's a great way to get started. And then one of the things that a lot of times students will ask me is when do I do the detail? And so I'll start with large shapes. I'll look for the lights and darks. A lot of times it's funny but I will start not with the lightest areas. Like some artists I think with watercolor will start with the lightest areas. For me I look for darks like middle-range dark somewhere in the middle not the darkest ones but somewhere in the middle and I'll look for some of those darks in what I'm seeing and that helps me to start making some distinction between things. The other thing that's really important is shape next to shape. Say I have a house and that's the lightest part of my painting and there's a dark green tree right next to it. The dark green tree is going to define the shape of the house just as much as the house itself. Things next to each other help to define the shapes that each one of those things are. Sometimes when we think of watercolor we think of big wet and de-wet washes but that's not necessarily how you work. So how do you hold the shape of a tree and the shape of a shrub that may in the end be bunch of small marks to build them? I said I'll start with large shapes and then I'll start to look for the shapes of the shadows that are within them. Say we're talking about a bush right? So I'll start to look for like where those deeper spaces and what kinds of shapes are those deeper spaces and I do love pattern. It makes what I'm looking at makes sense to me and so it's the patterns or the rhythms within things and so I'm always looking for those or I'm always responding to those and I think one of the things I love about painting nature is that there are patterns and there are things that definitely repeat themselves but there's also these surprises if you're really looking things are not always the same. For instance if you're doing a group of flowers you know they might all sort of be leaning one way and there's a few that are leaning another way or twisting around in a certain way so I love predictable pattern but I also love the unpredictable things that will happen and so that comes as I'm building these paintings it comes in terms of defining the darker areas and finding the patterns is also about continuing to look for those darks and lights but finding the pattern within those and the kind of mark making that I like to do. Are you letting things dry generally? Let's say you're building up a tree, a flowering tree. Are you letting layers dry in between? Are you working in another way? Depends. I mean there are certain times when I really want it to still be wet and drop color into it so that it has a beautiful transition of wet on wet. Somebody said to me and I love this this quote somebody said sometimes you need to get out of the way to allow your work to do what it needs to do and and I just I love that and watercolor is a great example of that because watercolor will do its own thing and through the years I've learned how to let watercolor do its thing so if that's wet on wet I might give it the chance to do its thing but I'll leave it alone so that's one thing also leaving it to dry if I want to layer things is a very important part of my process and I always equate it to cooking when you first start to learn how to cook but you burn things because you're not really you don't have sort of years and all directions, years and eyes in every direction you might hear something sizzle which means it's going to start burning like you might hear a certain sound and not realize oh I better attend to that right away and so with painting especially the way I work with watercolor I want things to dry so that I can start to layer them and I'm working in many areas at the same time if one area is very wet I might jump to another area that's drier and then just keep going back one of the things I like about working that way besides the fact that I need to do that so that things can dry is that I like to attend to all the different areas on my page at the same time so that they all have a relationship like I'm not thinking about you know that I'm painting something and oh the sky is later or if I'm doing is still live whatever is behind it is a consideration that happens at the very end if you do that it feels like an afterthought it doesn't feel like everything in the painting is having a conversation together I do like sort of attending to many things in the painting all around letting it dry kind of forces me to do that when I'm at home when I'm working in my studio one of the best tools is hairdryer because that can speed up the process of letting things dry completely but you know it has to be bone dry in order for you to put a layer and for the paint underneath not to move around but I will always sort of talk myself into oh it's it's almost dry it's ready and the rule is the rule even if I want to try to talk myself into it the paint is going to do it it's going to do and that's the rule so you always have to wait completely before putting another layer on and I always have to remind myself of that how do you know when it's really dry what cues do you have I will look at it first of all if it's I can touch it at a certain point it's almost dry and I can touch it it's cool to the touch and it just feels a little damp and it's not quite there yet I would never touch it like when it's really wet because then you get a a great big fingerprint in it but when you feel like it's almost dry if you touch it just a little bit you can feel the coolness and if it feels that way you need to wait a little longer because you like pattern and because you're thinking about pattern your work has a level of complexity to it so if you're looking at let's go back to this flowering tree flowering shrub when you're looking at a specific flowering tree what information do you take from it and try to get accurate as those anchor points you were talking about and what can you just sort of of not worry about what does that balance look like for you? - That's a great question. You know, when I was talking about at the very beginning having that conversation and spending time really looking, really just having a relationship with whatever it is that you're looking at, almost having a conversation with it. And so I will ask myself, so say there's flowers. What are the characteristics of those flowers? Are they pointy? Are they rounded? What's next to it? Like I love sometimes describing the shape of a flower or a kind of leaf by what's next to it. It might be a deep space that is really dark that's going to help me get the edges, those specific edges. And I love to hold on to some specificity in those flowers or the kind of leaves that there are or the kind of bark that's on a tree. I love to find the things that really strike me and it's almost like telling a story. It's let me tell you about this thing that I found that I think is really beautiful. And then there are other parts of the painting like they're not the main characters. They're the supporting, you know, they're the supporting parts. And my choice is a lot of times to allow those to be less defined. So it's really a matter of choosing where you want the intensity of the specific parts to be and where you want to let it go. So that's how I choose where things are specific and where to let it go a little bit. - You found the big shapes. Now you're working on the smaller shapes that are within the big shapes. Where do you decide I'm gonna paint that thing versus a thing? - That's a great question because that's so much about what I want to do within my painting. It's not just an icon of a house, right? It's not just a house. It's that specific one. So the kinds of questions I like to ask myself are what kinds of shadows are on that house? Like how is the light hitting that house and what kinds of shapes of the light are creating that particular object, which is the house? And every single thing that you look at, the light hits it a different way and the shadows are shaped a different way. So it's really paying attention to those really specific things. And as I said earlier, a lot of times people ask me, so when do I go in and do the details? And I think that the details are found in finding the more and more specific shapes of the darks and the lights. And so the more you find those, the more you get into the detail and the more that becomes that very thing, more than just a thing. Because you work in layers and just because of the nature of watercolor, how in your process do you make sure that you have held space for the lights? That's a really important thing and that took a long time to find that and to be more and more aware of preserving the lights. And that has to also happen when you, like in that conversation that you initially have with yourself early on. Where is the lightest part of this painting? Where does it still stay light, but maybe a little bit darker and making sure to keep some areas untouched and really let the white of the paper come through? That's going to be your lightest areas. A lot of times, and I don't know the answer to this, but if you get a watercolor set, there's almost always white in it. And I don't understand why, because it's not quite watercolor. There's a paint called gouache, which is opaque watercolor. It's not quite that because it's not that opaque, but it's a little sort of chalky and it's a little like it has almost like a film to it. And a lot of times when people are starting out painting if that's in their set, they'll use that thinking, okay, I'm going to lighten up my colors with that white. And it never really works. It gets just muddy and chalky. So the best way to keep your lights is to first of all, preserve the white of the lightest parts and just don't touch those areas. And a lot of times it helps to paint the negative space or whatever is next to that light area so that you can find the shape of that area by what's next to it. So that's super important. And then if you have areas that are maybe a little darker than your lightest lights, just really watering down your paint so that you just are using very little pigment and more water in a ratio, more water to pigment. And then just moving on to using more and more pigment as you want to get darker. - It's so great in these conversations. I'm always struck by how much thinking and strategizing happens in painting. We have this idea, we'll be first walk into painting that you just walk up to a piece of paper and throw down paint. But the level of thinking and strategizing, keeping all those plates in the air as your painting, this painting, that takes years to develop those skills. - It does, it definitely does. But I think wherever you're starting, even if you're just at square one and you're starting right now, it's really part of the journey. And I don't paint every day. My goal is always to paint every day. Sometimes life gets in the way and that doesn't happen. But I paint at least every few days I'm painting. And if I don't, I don't feel completely like myself. But there are going to be, it's something that there's just a range of what can happen. It's true, you have a lot of things in your head while you're working, but it's a balance because you want to have those things in your head and you also want to lose all those things. It's like you have them, you're thinking about them and you are being trained. The more and more you work, the more you understand those things that you have to think about. But at the same time, you also want to let yourself just explore what could happen. And for as many paintings as I've done, they're not all successes. There are many days when my attempt at that time is just not going to be what I wanted it to be. But I know that this is something that a lot of people say, it's really, I feel like it is a practice, like a literal practice. You're always trying something and sometimes it works out so that it reaches what you're aiming for. Sometimes it doesn't, but the more you work, the more it's not such a tragedy when things don't go well. I think when you first start out, every painting that you do, you really hold on to that and you feel like that's defining you. But the more you work and the, you know, if you do like many, many paintings and you keep going, it's not as precious as that. It's just part of, and I know now that if I do a painting and it doesn't work out, maybe it's just in my eyes, just completely not what I wanted, there's going to be some seed, something in it that's going to help me on my next painting. So the more you work, the more you start to understand that a bad day is just a bad day. It doesn't define you in any way. It's just a bad day. That's just part of many things that happen. So the things in your head, I know that's what you were asking about initially. You know, so you build that. You just build that as you go. Sometimes you learn the most from the missteps that you make. And so that helps you to figure out what you need to have in your head as well as all the good things that happen. And you just build that as the more you work, the more you understand what's going to help you and what's maybe not going to be the greatest choices. And as part of that, there is a lot to learn in any medium. How important is it for learners to let themselves be learners? Not the beginning of their journey. It's super important. And I think that is the hardest thing for people just coming to watercolor that are new to it or even people coming back to it. You know, I've seen this happen before where somebody does one painting and they just say, oh, this is just not for me or I'm just not good at this. So my goal is always really to try to help people see, really point out what they accomplished and really help them to sometimes they can't see it. And it's helpful to have another set of eyes, maybe a more experienced set of eyes, seeing some of the choices that they made, whether they realized it or didn't, and how that's going to help inform their next painting. And also, I like to do a lot of different things when I'm teaching so that they get to see that there is not just one approach that you can really come to it in different ways. A lot of times it has to do with limiting your palate or how you start a painting or the kinds of questions that you might ask yourself when you start. And I think it's helpful to have participants in a class really feel like this is a road that they're starting on and that one painting like, it doesn't have to be a precious thing. It's just part of something that they're building and it's going to take a long time, but getting there is really the fun part. - What are some of those questions that are useful to ask when you're just getting started in a painting? - A lot of times we'll work with still life. Sometimes I do plane air workshops, sometimes still life or interiors. You know, a lot of times they'll, they will draw what they're working on. And if we're talking about still life, for instance, they might draw one object and then thinking about relationships between that object and then object that's next to it or behind it, starting to look and ask themselves, [BLANK_AUDIO] So where does that start? Is it halfway up? Was it behind this bowl, halfway up, or is it lower, or asking themselves where the next object will start, and how it will connect to the first one, and so forth and so on, just where it sits next to the object that they already drew. So that's the first thing. And then I'd say it's very important when you're starting, especially if you're working in a controlled environment, not outside, but if you're working from a still life, have a direct source of light, so that it makes it really clear, and it's very helpful to see where the darks and lights are. If you're just using light from a window, you're not going to get that same definition. It's helpful to have a strong direct light. And then ask yourself, where are the darkest darks, and looking for the shapes of those, and looking for though, you know, there might be two pieces of fruit, and there might be a space in between those two pieces of fruit that, you know, it's actually a shape. It's not just a mark, but it's a real shape. And so really looking for those kinds of things, are there any exercises you like to do with students to help with some of these important ideas? I do something early on where we pull a wash so that you're starting out with a lot of pigment and water, and you're starting out, say, on one side of a bowl, and then you have to learn how to make it go from dark to a little lighter, to a little lighter, until there's no pigment at all, so that you can have something that really looks like it's a transition from dark to light without any breaks in between. And those, some of those little tools, they're very helpful, just a lot of times what I will hear is, so how do I convey that? What can I do to show that something is around, or show that something is 3D? Those are some of the steps, or the little bits, those tools that can just help you get started, and help you ask those initial questions that you need. How important is having a space to work when you're getting started? I think that's very important, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a full-blown studio. As long as you have a space that you can dedicate, it could be your kitchen table. And as long as you have a space, and a place to put some materials, but you don't have to have a lot of materials, but just a place that's nearby, so that doesn't become an excuse not to work. All of us are always filled with, I always have this with exercise. I'll be like, "Oh, I can't do it. It's too hot today. I just can't." We all make up excuses for things that are hard, or just sometimes we just don't feel like showing up, but those are the things I think the more you do show up for yourself, and keep a steady practice going, you will get so far, so quickly. So I think it's just important to make things easy for yourself. Have some materials nearby so that it's not going to be this thing like, "Oh, I've got to go downstairs and get that," or, "Oh, this is in one place, and that's in another place." And I mean, those are simple things, but those are the kinds of things that get in the way. And also, buy all your materials at the same time. It might be a splurge the first time, but once you have them, you have them, and they'll last for quite a while. When someone's coming into painting, it can feel really intimidating because you see all these people around you who you assume know more. At least I always assume that everyone knows more than I do. How important is it to learn to ask the question that you actually have in your mind to your teachers? Oh, that's essential, really. And it's something that I always ask students to do. And I think that's one of the biggest things that happens. People will start out, and inevitably, someone will say, "I know this is a really basic question, but I just feel like why take a class?" The reason you take a class is because you're each contributing all of these questions that you have, and all of these ways that you're approaching things. And that helps people to learn more, more quickly in a way, because you just have all of this around you. And so any question, like the one that's in your mind, you're thinking, "Oh, my goodness, how could I dare ask this?" That's the most important question, because I'm sure I could almost guarantee there are some other people there that are just afraid to ask it. And by you asking, you're doing a huge favor for everybody. And also, some of the simplest questions, everybody has a different answer. So my answer is going to be different than an answer they got in another class, probably. So it's important, I think, to also ask those questions again and again, like in different situations, in different workshops, you attend, and wherever you go, because that's how you gather all that information, and then that's how you choose what works for you. I'm also always amazed that I can hear someone ask a question, and I might not be ready to receive the answer or comprehend the answer, even if it's something like, quote unquote, as simple as paper, like what paper to use? And then I'll have spent six months being really frustrated about my watercolor paper, even though people have been asking about it, and then suddenly someone will ask about it, and it's like the right moment in time for me. And it's, oh, I'm so glad you asked that because I just, I wasn't ready for it before, but now I am, and now I'm ready to make the change, because someone asked the question. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And I've had people take classes that I've taught several times, and that's the thing that they always say, like, oh, I missed that last time when you said that, or, oh, I did the exercise that we did last time, and it made so much more sense to me this time, because you're ready for it. And I've had that experience where I might have heard things many times, but I could only take in what I can take in. I can't take in everything. So hearing it or having other people ask it is super, super important. I always encourage that. Well, if someone came to you and said, I want to get really good at painting, what advice do you give them? Always taking a class is helpful if you're just getting started, but I also think it really comes down to you in the long run, and it's important, even if you take a class to just keep going and painting, like, if you can paint every day, that's the ideal. If you can paint as much as you can, because that is going to take you from where you are to another place, way ahead, much more quickly. And I think that another thing that's very, very helpful, and this is something that I am very lucky to have, it's great to have to find some people that you really trust that you can paint with. I paint outside a lot. I love painting alone, but I also love painting with other people. And if you heard us together, it might sound funny, because it's like, oh, I got a new brush. Oh, what kind of brush is that? And how did you get that color? How did you mix that color? Or, oh, I just discovered this new paint. So we're all in a class together also. We're all just teaching each other a lot of different things. And it also is just very supportive. It helps to keep you going. So I think that's one of the things that I would suggest is just find a community of people that you can paint with, or even just talk about painting, or people that you trust enough so that you can show each other your work and talk about it. The other thing that I would suggest is go and look at as many other artists work as you can. I think that has been something that has helped me so much. Now that we have social media, I have so many artists that I follow on Instagram. And I'll look at different paintings, and I'm always asking myself, what is it that's drawing me to this painting? And that will teach me so much. And it might be something like, wow, I never really tried that before. Let me give that a shot in my next painting, or I might see things that I'm not so happy about, or things that I don't quite understand, or I don't connect to. But those are great things to look at because you ask yourself questions, well, why is it that I'm not connecting to that? Or what is it that's confusing me, or making me feel uncomfortable by looking at that? And all of those things are things that teach you about yourself, just as much as the things that you really respond to. You can learn more about Susan Greenstein, including her workshops at suzengreenstein.com and on Instagram and Facebook. And we'll link to everything in the show notes. Thank you so much for being with us today, Susan. Thank you so much. It was really, it was great talking to you, Kelly. And I'm really happy we had this time to talk about art. That's it for today's show, but there's more great conversation with Susan Greenstein's extended cut bonus. In it, we talk dealing with frustration and how to set up the most important parts of your painting so that they stay the most important parts. That's available in the podcast art club along with over 50 additional bonus conversations with guests. Find links to it and everything else at learndepaintpodcast.com/podcast/episode99. Speaking of the podcast art club, thank you to all of you inside the club supporting the show. You make this all possible. Extra shiny thank yous to high gloss supporters, Andrew Ataberry, Debbie and Brian Miller, Rihanna DeRoll, Janet Wheeler, Nancy Bryant, Pam Lyle and Slow River Studio. Happy painting.