I spent the first 12 weeks of this year studying weekly with my favorite teacher. I’ve taken several week-long workshops with him over the last 3 years or so, and that format fits really well into my schedule. I take vacation time and immerse myself in art and then get back to reality and farmlet chores. But he also offers a semester class, which meets in San Clemente every Tuesday night for 3 hours. Figuring out the logistics for that is much more difficult. This year I was finally able to make it work.
Anyone who lives in Southern California will understand the ways in which we have to work around traffic. I have Tuesdays off, so I could certainly go down to class and come home on the same day. But driving from Castaic to San Clemente during the day is a fool’s errand. I’m way too busy to waste that much time on the road. So every week I spent Monday night in Oceanside, then did my long bike ride of the week down there on Tuesday, and then headed home after class was over. So I killed all kinds of birds and didn’t waste time on the freeway. Everything about this experience has been incredible. It’s like a little mini road-trip every week, with my two favorite things: cycling and art.
Over the last several years I’ve developed a backlog of paintings that I want to finish but which I can’t quite figure out. In each case I need help with some small thing – how to convey shallow depth in water or the leaves on a tree in the foreground or the light on snow and so on. I need to see how the brushwork is done for certain things, and I need a critical eye to help me spot how my paintings could be improved. John Cosby is brilliant at all of those things. Every time he gives me some helpful revelation I get a little twinge of despair because I just don’t know how I’m going to find those solutions without him.
Over the last 12 weeks we’ve run through the most key paintings in my backlog. Most of them just needed slight adjustments and a bit of advice for what I can do back in the studio, and then I moved on to the next one. I chose those which I would learn the most from, and those which would allow me to transfer whatever lesson I took from it to another painting with similar issues. I wanted to make the most out of my time, since I know I can’t continue on through the summer. I need to plant the garden, and there’s always bee drama all season, so it gets harder and harder to spend a whole weekend day away from the farmlet. As the class wore on, I found myself ready for the end anyway. There are some lovely people in the class and I mean no offense when I say this, but I very quickly tired of the company. This is entirely a personal preference, and just has to do with how I view painting. For me it’s almost always a solo activity, by choice. I like to tuck myself away in some secluded spot and not talk to anyone for hours. And in the studio I’m always alone. So painting with 12 other people every single week wore on my nerves a bit. The logistics got to be a bit much too. I like to drive, I like to stay in little motels, but I started to approach that tipping point that every business traveler feels where it turns from fun into obligation.
Below are some of the paintings I worked on. Most of them still need some work (and some still have small but very apparent Cosby edits, which I usually paint over eventually so as to keep the integrity of my own work). We often touched on very specific things, and then Cosby gave me advice for further development in the studio. I debated showing before and after photos, but it doesn’t really work like that. The before versions of these paintings were my standard plein-air block-ins. And none of them are finished yet. The way to really see how I’ve made progress would be to compare these works once I finish them with others I’ve finished in the past, and those that I will finish in the future. I’m sure little improvements will be evident.
I think I will miss my Tuesday rides most of all. Staying in a motel means no farmlet chores, so I could just get up and go. Having a full day free made it possible to do 50-75 miles each Tuesday. I rode through Camp Pendleton, up to San Clemente, down to La Jolla, out to Fallbrook and Escondido, and everywhere in between. The coastal rides were fun and beautiful as expected but I was pleasantly surprised by the inland areas down there. Nice wide roads with good pavement, wide shoulders for the most part, and stunningly beautiful landscapes, made even better by the deluge of rain. It was as green as could be everywhere I went, with wildflowers bursting into bloom over the course of the semester. Creeks which hadn’t seen water in years were full, and there was one ride in particular where I must have passed about 12 waterfalls. The terrain was more challenging than I expected, especially inland, which made each completed ride that much more satisfying.
Cosby’s semester courses continue throughout the year. Some of his students keep going and going, but then again, most of them don’t live 3 hours away. I’m hoping to repeat this experience next winter quarter, if he’s still offering these classes at that point, and I’m looking forward to building up another backlog of work and questions in the meantime. So now, back to my regular irregularly scheduled painting road-trips…
one sheep hill 
Beautiful Robin!
Thank you Tara! 😀