I enjoyed drawing and painting throughout my childhood, but I began painting seriously in 1967 at the Art Students League in Manhattan, where I took a course in oil painting with Hughie Lee-Smith. I was influenced by his approach of teaching us the Venetian mode, of first brushing a thin dark wash of raw umber, then building layers of thick opaque lights on canvases.

In the 1970’s I took other courses at the Art Students’ League, such as a drawing class in artistic anatomy with the expert teacher Robert Beverly Hale, and a sculpture class with the then-elderly but eminent sculptor Jose’ de Creeft, who taught direct carving in the tradition of William Zorach and John Flanagan. I’ve done a few sculptures over the years but have not focused on this medium.

In the early 1980’s I took a course in woodblock printing at Columbia University School of the Arts with Ansei Uchima. He taught us traditional Japanese methods, such as helping us make our own bamboo ‘barens’, and how to make a careful registration of our plates for color woodblock prints.

In the 1990s I moved to Saugerties N.Y., where I started taking courses at the nearby Woodstock School of Art. I began oil painting courses with HongNian Zhang, in figure studies, landscape painting, and still life painting. HongNian taught us about palettes in complementary hues of red/green, blue/orange, and yellow/purple; about contrasts of value, intensity, and other principles that he outlined in the book, THE YIN/YANG of PAINTING, which he wrote with his wife, the artist Lois Woolley. I consult this book often about the practice of painting; I’ve greatly enjoyed and been immensely influenced by HongNian’s teaching over the years.

In 2000 I took a figure drawing class at Woodstock School of Art with Deane Keller, whose dynamic, gestural approach I found very helpful.

Other courses I’ve taken at Woodstock School of Art have been printmaking with Kate McGloughlin, pastel painting with Elizabeth Mowry, oil painting with Karen O’Neil.

In about 2017 I began taking Encaustics classes at R& F Studios with Cynthia Winika, and I’m indebted to her for her excellent teaching

I’m now taking an online portrait painting class with Lois Woolley: “Painting the Faces of the Children You Love”.