Mary Baumgartner

The greatest joy of my life has been my experience in teaching watercolor to beginners, helping intermediates, and polishing advanced students' artwork.

It is of utmost importance that I now pass on to teachers, students, and art aficionados the joy and intricacies of watercolor, along with the pleasure and pain of this complex subject through my book, Wonderful World of Watercolor, and through my website, www.wonderfulworldofwatercolor.net. There you'll find a monthly newsletter with pictures of my art and my students' art along with helpful comments.

Many years ago before I decided to teach, I too was a struggling artist, taking workshops across the country, crying over my lack of success, and always listening for words and phrases that might help me grow. If there was a new book on the market, I had to own it, good or bad.

Unfortunately, many of the workshops I attended just gave me a new reason for failure. I'll never forget one teacher saying in front of the class: "If you paint every day, five days a week, for five years, you may turn out one or two paintings that are good enough to show." This is when I decided that one day I would teach. This was the most discouraging sentence I heard during all the years I studied art before becoming a teacher.

Another comment I overheard was a painter/teacher stating to another painter, "Well, I just have to go back to teaching because I can't make it in the exhibiting world." The greatest joy I have is in teaching. Here I encounter the wonderment a student expressed when a completed painting was finished by him or her. The way my students communicate with me by words and facial expressions is enough to keep me going for the entire time I teach. I see such joy, (and such despair), and one student always remarked when she came to class: "Another day in Paradise."

Why was this? She said it was because I not only gave her the questions, but I also gave her the answers. Why couldn't all art classes be that way? Is there a rule someplace that every artist has to suffer a certain number of hours and months and years before they can exhibit their work or feel a satisfaction about what they have done?

Most artists have heard the story about the successful artist who was found crying over his completed painting. Someone asked him if he was crying because he felt it was so bad, and his reply, "No, I'm crying because it is so good." This can be interpreted in many ways, but I'd like to think the emotion of completing a successful painting would bring tears. And the teacher of this student could cry as well, because he or she gave his student self-esteem, self-worth, and the ability to have the work that originated in the brain flow out of his fingers. That is success. The book mentioned above contains all the elements for success as well. That's why I wrote it!