They tell us if you want to learn a foreign language, try immersion in the culture with people who speak the language 24 x 7. I attended my third 6-day painting workshop. This July class was six days at SMU in Taos, NM with a plein air painting group led by Suzanne Kelly Clark. We spent the mornings in the field and afternoons in the studio. Mountainous Taos weather in July is monsoon season with extreme dryness and heat in the flat lands to afternoon rains in the mountains and city with burgeoning clouds, lightning and thunder. We headed to the studio from the field in early afternoons when the skies threatened to dump their rain on us or the desert heat overcame us in the Rio Grande Gorge.

The immersion learning experience is much the same; eat, sleep and paint all day surrounded by people speaking the language of painting. What a great experience! Typically a breakthrough occurs a few days into the intense daily painting workshop. After sequential long days of painting the same genre, such as figures or plein air landscapes, you get over some of your fears and blocking beliefs. You loosen up your brush strokes. You experiment a bit more, or become more expressive.

The thrill of seeing a small group of painters illustrate the same image in so many individual and creative ways is one of the the best take-aways. You see before you all the possibilities to express a given image. The second major lesson learned is the value of drawing as preparation for painting, focusing on composition, relative scale of objects and value (lights and darks).

Also there are the group dynamic benefits. Talking over dinner about your shared expereinces, discussing master artists who have influenced you or more informal beneficial remarks from your instructor over a glass of wine makes the experience special.

Try a painting workshop experience and like a destination vacation, you’ll remember the richness of it the rest of your life.