[Tom Edgerton]

Richard--

Hope I didn't sound dismissive... I was trying to affirm your suspicion that the act of painting teaches itself through experimentation.

I appreciate your struggle, though I have always been a value painter rather than a colorist, and wrestle with the other problem--I've always used a lot of gray and am trying to boost the chroma up a little now. A (slight) word of warning, though--I used John Sanden's grays a lot for a while, and still find them useful when I need a certain value warm gray (they have a lot of green in them, to my eye). But again, they kept me from learning about the richer approach of mixing complements, and in some passages just letting the chroma sing a little more. So I'm trying to wean off. Marvin Mattleson's palette also helped some with this.

But it's a worthy exercise you're conducting. I sat in on a talk by Laura Clark, PSOA's 2004 Grand Prize winner, and something she quoted made me feel better (paraphrasing here): "Great painting isn't always a matter of using brilliant color, but using color brilliantly."

Best--TE