I just spent a week glamping by the Yuba River near Nevada City. The water was lower than last year, but no less refreshing. For me, the most satisfying way to drink in the beauty is to paint it.

In the hour spent painting, I am lost in the moment. I have no sense of time passing. It's as if I blink and I have a painting in front of me. And yet, while I'm working, I'm seeing deeply. I study the colors and how they're made up of so many layers; I think about composition; I notice lichen, pebbles, dragonflies, bark patterns, rock striations, the reflections on water. I get lost in the details of Creation.

I'm not the best plein aire painter. I only paint outdoors once a year, so I'm rusty. Still, I hold my own, and the paintings look pretty decent—because I use the same principles of drawing and painting no matter what the subject.

The day after I got home, I did a painting demo at a local art store—a portrait study. Very different from an outdoor river! Even if it's not a perfect likeness, it looks dimensional and convincing because I utilize the rules of rendering.

Once you learn those rules, you can bend them toward your will. Kind of like The Force! I constantly study and practice so I can get better at rendering. Yes, it helps me impress my clients. But most importantly, it allows me to push the boundaries of realism to the edge of abstraction, in the service of expressing my inner world.

This is why I teach fundamentals! I want to help others get to their goals faster. I've gathered the things I learned from decades of experience, and I distilled them into simple, elegant lessons. It's nothing new—these teachings have been around for centuries—but I present them in a way that's easy to absorb and put into practice immediately. Even in my demos, students walk away saying they learned more in two hours than they did in weeks of workshops.

Why strive for speed? To me, time is money. I've made a living as an artist for 37 years—so I've learned how to express myself quickly and effectively with the least amount of effort.

Does that restrict my freedom? Not at all. It increases it.

When I go "off the clock" to meander with my Muse, painting butterflies or mandalas or dangerous angels from my imagination, I can get to where I want to go faster. My honed skills are like a sleek kayak moving me through the creative rapids.

And now I share these skills with others. It doesn't have to take years of study and tens of thousands of dollars. I can help kick start your journey in just a few weeks.

This month and next, I'm teaching oil painting, drawing fundamentals, and a new online course titled "Take a Piece from Start to Finish." If you're interested in joining me, click here to see the lineup. If you just want a one-off consultation, click here. I'm always happy to help other artists do their best work.

In the meantime, happy creating!

With love and light,

Maggie

Art Heals

At 92, Sheila Hicks is still going strong, creating her fiber pieces to please herself, not the museums and collectors who pursue her work. I find her pieces to be challenging, interesting, and poetic. I discovered her through one of my favorite newsletters, "The Marginalian" by Maria Popova. Check out the article about her work here.