Teaching Is Learning

Can you really fully explain anything that you think you do well?

How much are you subconsciously doing and not realizing?

Do you actually know why you are doing a process or is it something that you have just always done?

These are the questions that will start to make sense when you attempt to teach anyone something that you know.

I can’t count how many times someone has asked me a question that I couldn’t honestly formulate a good answer.

This subject has come up again in my life when my 12 year old step son asked me to teach him to paint! First off, I got excited! He wants to do something creative and learn something new. Never mind that it’s something that is very important to me.

I decided to use watercolors and an impressionistic scene painting to get this first painting done.

Why this selection? Well, watercolors are one of the easiest to work with considering the natural tendency to use excessive amounts of paint. Using acrylics will definitely catch their eye, but piles of paint and sometimes mud (Paint Mixed of the Canvas or Paper). Watercolors can be blotted up and started again without too much of a problem.

Another reason… Painting technique. Beginners try to paint everything like they are holding a pencil trying to get too much detail and frustrating themselves.

First question-Why are we putting so much water on the paper?

Sean is a pretty sharp 12 year old, but I still have to be careful not to over-complicate my response. Just the facts as they relate to the exercise.

Answer- This will make the paint flow better and the colors blend.

Second question- the use of the fan brush–Why do I have to stand up and hold this brush at the end?

Answer- When you sit down, you can’t taper off your brush stroke because it’s awkward and you naturally tend to grip the brush towards the ferrule when you sit down.

Third question-How do you know which directions to go with the fan brush when you are painting a tree?

Answer-Huh?

Now for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how exactly to explain my decisions and technique in any understandable terms. I ended up resorting to painting him multiple examples and having him do them along with me.

We both got a lot of practice at painting impressionistic trees, but I still can’t verbalize the process to go through.

The results- Sean has created a very nice impressionistic scene painting and I’m left to analyze and ask the WHYS.