Final Thoughts.  When I began this journey I started with some questions to guide my process.  My questions began with, "How do you even start creating a painting?"  As Bob Ross said to me over and over... All you have to do is decide, and that will be the right decision.  Pick up your brush and put the paint onto the canvas.  That is how you start.  There is no need to be afraid, anything you do, you can undo.  Just like I tell teachers who are afriad of computers.  We can always fix anything that you could possibly do.
Each painting medium has a technique to make that medium work best.  As I learned from my first Super-Fantastic Failure, to my more evolved paintings, it is best not to use techniques that are for another paint.  The evolution of painting bears this truism out.  When cave men first scratched on the walls of their caves with the only thing available, rocks, and other colorful items they found lying around, they used a rough style to convey quick messages, probably religious ones.  The Egyptians used minerals mixed with a bonding agent such as sap, or insect guts to contain the minerals in their paint.  Their style is very linear with robust colors that really pop out at you.  Their technique is best suited for tomb and temple walls in religious ceremonies.  In the Roman Era art was used to commemorate events, such as the conuering of an enemy city, like Carthage.  The Medieval era is fascinating to me.  They used dye's and cloth to weave huge tapestries for artistic and instructional purposes.  Most medieval art warned against sin.  The reniassance is where we start to get a lot of oil based paint used.  Most probably due to increased travel and trade within Europe with the rise of the merchant class.  The paintings are scientific in nature, trying to understand the world and man's place within it.  They are meant to be pleasing to the eye and hung in homes to beautify their surroundings.  If we take the history of art we can see that it has been used to convey complex ideas to the masses, as well as to just be art for art's sake.
I enjoy painting winter scenes.  I lived in North Carolina for a number of years and I really enjoyed the Winter there.  It would snow and then a couple of days later the snow would be gone.  You get the fun of playing in it, without the mess of living in it for a long period of time.  I think I'll continue to paint winter scenes.  My last two seem to be good enough to sell.  I don't think I am going to sell them, but give them to family members for Christmas presents.  Infact I belive one of my cohort mated made a comment about that on the blog.
All in all this has been a positive journey, and not the end in any way.  I am going to continue to paint.

This project was a lot of fun.  I honestly never thought I'd be able to paint.  I really thought I would, as my sister told me, when I started the project, "suck."  It's true what they say, practice makes perfect.  This last painting was better than the second and third paintings.  The fourth, well, I knocked it out of the park last week.  That painting was awesome.

I wanted to truly judge what I learnd and how much I improved during these 5 weeks, so I repainted painting number 2.  Here is the original number 2:

It's not bad, actually when I did it I was telling everyone how awesome it was.  For my first oil based painting, it's great!  I learned about technique, and how to properly dispose of the paint thinner chemicals.

This week I started with a black canvas.  I used the reccomended paint to turn the white canvas into a black one, Black Gesso.  Last time I used house paint.  There was a bucket of black house paint in the garage when we moved in and I never got rid of it.  One question that just popped into my mind, nothing in this house was painted black when we moved in, why did he need black house paint?  I'm probably not going to get that question answered any time soon.

I added Clouds and Mountains.

I enjoy painting mountains.  They're fun, and good to look at.  I belive that this particular painting is cursed for me.  Look at that range of mountains.  I could have put a tree or something else on the lower right side to frame it a bit and then had some fun with maybe a frozen lake, or valley on the lower left.  That would have been quite a majestic vista of a painting.  My wife summed it up when she looked at the mountains, and then came back later to see what I had done, "you dumb __(biblical term for a donkey)"  I had something set in my mind, and couldn't bring myself to deviate from the plan.  I do plan to continue to paint, and the more I practice I think I will be more comfortable just letting the painting take me where it wants to go, but for now I will stick with my mental picture as a guide.

This is similar to the original attempt at this, but I learned to watch the horizon, and perspective within the work.  I let the viewer see the peaks in the back by moving the trees to the sides, and I didn't over blend the snow on the bottom.  I had to let this sit overnight because we went to the Dodger Game last night (I will refer you to the images posted on instagram for the instagram project).  I awoke at about 3 this morning (currently dealing with a bout of insomnia, it happens sometimes) and picked the brush up.  Some of the paint had dried enough to be a pain to work with, but after giving it some paint thinner, it was good to go.... and drip onto the floor.  I got to redo the snow effect.  I also wanted to make this a Christmas scene and give the painting as a present, most probably to my dad.  He has a colelction of things from my two sisters and I on his wall, and might want to add this one.

My brother in law came over to buff out some scratches I put into the front fender of my car when I attempted to knock over my house by misjudging the entrance to our garage.  He liked the painting but then asked me, "so the lone rural church out in the snowy mountains gets it's electricity for the Christmas lights from where?"  To answer anyone else who may have had the same question... on the left side of the church it is a little dark, that's where the power generator is.  It is on right now as we look at the church.

The mountains remind me, again, of images I've seen of Austria.  I've been looking up various Christmas traditions in Austria.  They are not very dissimilar than Germany.  Yule logs, Christmas Carols, the song Silent Night (one of my favorite) was first sung in 1818 at St. Nicholas church in Oberdorf, Austria.  Instead of stockings Santa fills childrens shoes, they don't decorate the Christmas Tree until Christmas Eve, among many other traditions.  I always feel more connected to my family, ones here, and those who have already gone, at Christmas.  It was when we were all together, Christmas Eve my mom would throw a huge party for family and friends.  My Great Aunt and Jon's family would both come.

I didn't expect to find a connection to my Greau Aunt in this project.  Originally my mind was on my friend Jon, but he was only an afterthought in my mind once she entered the thought processes.  I liked the freedom of exploration this project offered.  You start with an outline of what you want to explore and learn and then you let the knowledge just take you to new horizons.

After moving towards the family connection that I discovered and emerged with my previous painting, I started doing a lot of research about my Great Aunt.  As I discussed in my previous posting, she taught at Manzanar during the war, and then worked for the Military as a teacher in the occupied zones of Europe in the years directly following WWII.  She was stationed in Salzburg, Austria when she fell in love with Austria.  Her entire life she considered Austria to be her home.  In fact, her esate still owns the cemetary plot she originally wanted to use when she passed, but then she changed her mind.  I think that another (perhaps future) 20 Time project could be to write a book about her life.  It was fascinating, always on the move to teach in exotic locations for the children of military families.

Back to this painting.  I wanted to paint the mountains of Salzburg, Austria.  Having never been to Salzburg, the closest I've been is to spent the night in the train station in Vienna, I only know what the mountains look like from pictures and the movie, "The Sound of Music."  I turned to Google to look at Austrian mountains.  I decided to try and paint some mountains similar to what I saw when I looked up the Austrian Mountains.

The first thing that I did is to create the background because like building a house, the foundation is everything.  It is also where I can practice what I learned in week 2 of the project, make sure you plan ahead and see the whole canvas.  I wanted to have some snowy mountains and, since the Von Trapp (Sound of Music reference above) family lived on a lake, I wanted water.  I painted the mountains, added snow and shadow, then decided to put another range in the foreground to add depth and the illusion of high peaks.  From the images I've seen the Alps are massive, and I think that adding a range in the forground helps to add to that perslective of size.

In the other two oil paintings, I did ok up until this point.  I am good at getting the foundation and central background together.  This is where it usually falls apart.  The last time was because I tried to make the paint stretch a bit further than it should have.  I was not about to make that same mistake again.  I purchased way more paint than I needed.  I also ordered some really expensive canvas coating paint to help my colors blend and move along the canvas more easily.
I wonder what the ancient Egyptian artists did when they made a mistake?  They didn't have oil paint, or any pre-treatments (that I have been able to find) for the tomb walls.  They made their paint by grinding up minerals, and then mixing it with something like egg yolk or tree gum.  Occasionally they would grind up the insides of insects to bind the powder together for their paint.
If I need to use a treatment for the canvas, am I "cheating" on the painting?  Is cheating on a painting even possible?  What would be considered "cheating" on a work of art?  I think I worry about "doing it right" so much is because for most of my life I never thought I had any artistic talent, and as it turns out, I have a hidden natural talent.  I sent a friend of mine who is a profesisonal painter and illustrator the finished version of this painting.  She said that she could feel that I was more relaxed with this one.  I am finding my own "swing" on the canvas.

Every Summer my family and Jon's would go to a lake and camp for a week.  It was a YMCA family camp lake at Lake Sequoia.  The lake has some distinctive features, including a foothill that creates an inlet into the lake.  I'm sure many lakes have an inlet similar, but to me this one looks just like the one at Sequoia Lake.  I wanted to re-create that part of the lake to make sure I put him into this painting.

I think that if my Great Aunt were still alive, she would enjoy my painting.  I think it would remind her of her younger years in Austria.  My next 20Time project is definately going to be to write a book about her life.  I can illustrate it myself now!

I have learned that I am great at backgrounds, mountains, clouds, sky; but not so much at the front scenery.

Being a teacher on a budget, I tried my best to conserve paint.  This was not a smart decision.  When you try to extend oil paint, it doesn't stick to the canvas right.  This created a problem for the technique to make the leaves on trees.  A thin paint will stick to a thick paint.
For the darker background I put a small amount of paint thinner into the paint to help it stick to the canvas.  It turned what should have been a dark red-maroonish paint into pink.  The pink tint of the trees reminded me of some paintings I saw when I visited Manzanar Japanese War Relocation Center.
My Great-Aunt Martha taught 4th grade at Manzanar.  She taught for a total of 42 years before the State of California told her that she wasn't allowed to teach anymore.  So she ran for school board.  She never let anyone she met forget that there was a time in our nations history when we decided to ignore the 4th, 5th, and 6th ammendments, and lock people in prisons because they looked like the enemy.
Like our book 20Time says, "Successful Projects evolve along the way."  I never thought learning to paint would bring a connection with my Great Aunt.  She had less artistic skill than me.  I have spoken with some of her former students from Manzanar throughout the years, they would come for a visit and I would come over to listen.  I met many more at her funeral.  All of her students had a positive impression of her.  Some told me stories, like the one hot day in June when she checked out the camp car, stuck some of her students in the trunk, drove about a mile away from camp, had the kids get into the back seat, and she took them for Ice Cream.  I asked if she was afraid to get caught.  She looked at me and said, "Ms. Shoaf said to act like we are doing what we are supposed to be, and nobody will question us."  She was right, if you think about it.  This is the 1940s, WWII is booming in the Pacific, there is a War Relocation Center 10 miles down the road, and a white school teacher has a marked War Department car and in the back seat are a bunch of Japanese students going into the Ice Cream Parlor.  Nobody would think anything is out of place.
Back to my painting.

My notes for next time:
-Look at balance.  The waterfall seems lopsided, if I adjust the placing of the lower shore it will look more natural.
-The trees on either side of the painting look less than Super-Fantastic.
-I also need to work on paint mixing.  The colors are off.  I also accidentally mixed some tree paint into the water on the bottom corners.
-I purchased some actual oil background paint.  Perhaps this will help the next painting.

Anthony enjoyed his painting as well.  His first day care taught him both Spanish and Mandarin.  I didn't know he remembered any.  You can barely see it, but on the easel he is painting Mandarin characters.  He remembered that one of them is for "fire".  He is opening my eyes to the learning process.  His memory and recall of processed information is incredible.  My experience with him makes me think that perhaps we are selling out students short and that they are capable of much more than we educators ask of them.

I have chosen to use Pinterest to collect my research for the 20Time project.  I fought getting a pinterest account for a while.  I don't know why, it just seemed like a wierd website.  However, now that I have been using Pinterest and have visited some boards dedicated to education, I can see that it is really useful and has some awesome ideas.

After my Super-Fantastic failure and decision to try my hand at oil paints, I did some quick Google research.  Bob Ross came up over and over during my searches.  I decided to watch a few of his episodes on Youtube to see if it was something that I thought could help.  My son liked watching Bob and the "Happy Little Trees" that he painted.  We decided to give Bob's method a try.  We chose to paint the picture called, 'Christmas Eve Snow."  Thanks to my friend from the previous weeks post, I had all the necessary colors, plus some extra ones incase I felt creative.  My thought process was, if Bob can paint a picture in half an hour, I should be able to do it in two.

Since this is a night picture, I needed to paint my canvas black.  This was my first experience with using oil paints.  Not at all like other types of paint I've worked with.  My wife and I painted the inside of our house in South Carolina twice, the inside of our current house once, plus halping others paint houses, and various art projects I've done for school and fun.  If you have never painted with oil paint, it is more like messy putty than paint.  No wonder Bob Ross was able to do an entire pinting with just the putty knife.  It was a pain to cover the canvas with a "thin layer" of the stuff.  However, I acomplished my goal and covered the canvas with black.

The paint had to dry for two days.  That is something new to me.  I had no idea that oil paint took that long to dry.  No wonder it took the Italian masters like Leonardo da Vinci months to complete any of their works.  I didn't know that the Mona Lisa is an oil painting, however, now that I've taken a second look at it, the background of the painting looks similar to what I attempted to do with the paint.  I guess I learned some tools to help me spot an oil painting.

We began by putting clouds in the sky.  Tiny circles to make them, then just blend the bottoms of the clouds, don't over do it.  Well, I blended the whole cloud, and over did the blending on top of that.  Making mountains is fun.  You take some really dark color on the putty knife and trace the outline of mountain peaks onto the canvas.  I then had to make a big decision.  Decide where the moon is, and then put white paint onto that side of the mountains with the putty knife.  Put a thin line of paint onto the tip of the knife and lightly spread the paint cascading down the mountain.  I then took the white paint, added some black and blue to it to make a greyish color and did the same technique on the shadowy side.  My mountains looked awesome!

So lets talk a little about perspective and all that blank black space below the mountains.  I wanted to add some trees, especially since the "happy little trees" is why my son wanted to paint this way in the first place.  So, being an inexperienced painter, I put the trees right in the middle covering my awesome mountaint.  I did learn that you can take your putty knife and trace a line up the middle of the tree, while subtle, it can help create the illusion of the trunk.

The next task was to create the snowy field.  Again, I over blended everything and it looks like a blue-grey blob.  Lastly I added a church and some more trees in the foreground to give the illusion of perspective.  Personal notes: I need to work on my straight lines, perspective, and looking at the whole canvas before I cover my really good mountains with trees.  While I was painting with the oils, Anthony chose to paint one tree with the sky around it using his washable paint.  He wore an old work shirt of mine as a smock, which looked pretty funny, considering I am 6 foot 4 and he is 43 inches tall.

One thing I need to plan for next time is how to clean the brushes and dispose of the paint thinner without violating any laws or killing myself.  The warning lable is pretty specific about how you can do both.  I think I am going to get a bucket for the brushes to soak in, and then a funnel to move the thinner back into its storage container.  Paint thinner fumes are flamable, so leaving it in the bucket for storage is not an option.  I plan to go back to Michael's to see if they have any tips, or equipment to help me safely handle the thinner.

So what did I learn?  I learned that I like to use oil paints.  It works pretty well with how I think and what I want to make.  The history of oil painting is fascinating.  Oil based paints emerged as early as the 12th century in Northern Europe, somewhere around 200 years before the Italian Renaissance.  It is almost as fascinating as the history of painting.  Just about every culture in history has some kind of painting or visual art.  Anthropologists belive that the first paintings served a religious or ritualistic purpose of some sort.  There is also evidence it was used to communicate complex ideas in pre-literate societies.  The Greeks and Romans used art to educate and commemorate important events.  During the Medieval Era it was used to warn against sin.  The renaissance moved art to a more decorative role.  It is also one of the most versitile paints.  I also learned that I need to learn more about brush cleaning and how to properly handle the chemicals involved in oil painting.  I am going to let my son decide again what we paint next.  He has two different scenes in mind, so we'll see what happens next week!

 Ainsworth, M. (n.d.). Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved June 30, 2015. 
 Ross, B. (n.d.). Bob Ross. Retrieved June 30, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/user/BobRossInc 

This is my first blog post about my experinment with painting.  I completely failed to create anything resembling what was in my head, which is exciting, because I learned something by not succeeding.  To begin I put paper onto my 4 year old sons easel, but since I am six foot four inches tall, I had to put it onto my daughters art and crafts table.  I took a trip to the local Michael's Arts and Crafts Store to purchase paints and brushes.  I picked acrylic paints, mainly because they were the cheapest option.  I wanted to paint something from recent memory, so I chose to paint the beach and ocean, my family went there last weekend, and it was a fun memory.

I've worked as a cook in a kitchen before and I love to layer things.  I put down a base coat of paint hoping to add layers above it to bring the day at the beach to the foreground.  Apparently, with acrylic paints, you can't really do that.  What I was left with was an oversaturated piece of paper, and some wierd looking brush strokes.  In the picture it appears that there are white spaces, but those are supposed to be yellow or light blue.  Since one lady at Michaels was helpful I took a picture of the painting, described what I wanted to do and asked how to fix it.  She suggested trying some glitter paint to give the ocean some shimmer.  Adding more paint to the paper, just made it wrinkle more.  I've never been a fan of glitter, but the effect seemed to make it slightly better.  Still I'm not satisfied.  You can see the glitter shining off of my camera's flash in the picture below.

I returned to Michael's to discuss my next piece with the people working in the paint section.  I met a young lady who had recently graduated with a degree in art.  I showed her the picture above and she told me that for what I wanted to do, using acrylic paints as a medium, it wasn't actually bad.  This is an exaple of what happens when you use a painting style for one type of paint with the wrong type of paint.  She said that for the style of painitng that I seem to be naturally drawn to, I need to use oil based paints.  She turned out to be extremely chatty and helpful.  We talked about a number of things, including ideas for my next painting.  I decided to paint a winter scene.  The art graduate and Michael's salesperson helped me pick out my paints, tools, and a couple of canvases.  Next, we'll see how I do with oil based painting.

So what have I learned?  I learned that various paints have styles that are specific to that type of paint.  I learned that if you are using acrylic paints, you can't just paint for a couple of hours straight, or the paper will become overloaded and wrinkle.  I learned that I should probably paint with a canvas, not paper.  I learned that I seem to be naturally drawn to the style for oil based paints.  I learned that you should model your technique to the type of paint, and as such, using a variety of paint on one canvas won't work well.  I haven't learned yet, but perhaps my next door neighbor is right when he says that anyone can be an artist, perhaps I really can make a nice painting, if I use the correct type of paint.  I'll update next week, hopefully with something that looks a little more exciting!

I have made my decision for my 20Time project, along with some assistance from nature.  Those who commented on my original posting thought that I should make wine as a cultural and family historically driven inquiry.  I did some research and visited the local wine making store here in Simi Valley.  The store proprietor told me that Summer is the wrong time to start a batch of wine in Southern California.  He asked me if I wanted to make beer instead.  I don't have any connection to beer so I respectfully declined.  I still want to make wine now, especially with the connection I have to the process.  The wine expert told me to come back in late September or Early October because that is when the wineries sell their extra grape juice from the pressing process.

So I am going to go with my second option, learning to paint.  I am going to try to see if I can just pick up the craft.  If I can't, there are free classes through the Parks and Rec department available that I can attend to get some pointers.  However, I do want to see if I can improve my own talents through successful failures and self anaylasis.

I told my son that we are going to be learning to paint together he was excited.  Then he looked confused and let me know that he already knows how to paint, "Daddy, you put paint onto the paintbrush, then you put the paint onto the paper."  I am going to have him accompany me on this journey.  Who knows?  We might discover that he has some artistic talent.

Questions:
1. How do you even start creating a painting?
2. Is there a large difference in technique between different types of paint?
3. How did the craft of painting evolve?
4. Is there a culture on earth that doesn't have some form of painting, or visual art?
5. Can you blend various types of paint in one painting, or will that look riddiculous?
6. Is there any coorelation between the raw materials a culture has available and the style of paintings it produces?
7. What should I paint?
8. Will my paintings be any good?
9. Could I potentially sell my paintings, like the people on the beach walk in Santa Barbara every Sunday?
10. Is art as powerful and informative a method of communicating complex ideas as writing?

Option 1.
My grandmother never drank wine.  That statement on its own isn't necessarily odd.  If you put it into context of our large, loud, happy Italian family, it starts to seem out of place.  My Italian family, with the exception of my immediate family (and Grandma), all lived in Napa, CA.  Most of them still do.  For many people Napa means wine tasting, for me it will always bring back memories of getting my cheek pinched by older relatives as I hear about how big I am getting.  I remember going to Napa every Christmas to see my family.  We cousins would run around and play tag or hide and seek in the vineyards while the grown ups did boring things, like sit and talk.

I once asked my Grandma why she didn't drink wine.  Her two younger sisters drank wine, but she never did.  She said that the smell of wine reminded her of her childhood.  When my Great Grandfather immigrated from Italy he brought his wine making talents with him. Talents he put to good use during the Great Depression by bartering his wine for food and other supplies the family needed.  My grandmother would help him make the wine, since she was the oldest, and the smell of fermenting grapes made her sick.  She told me that she couldn't even smell wine, or she would become nauseated.

I think that it would be fun to learn the art of wine making, the knowledge has skipped a few generations, but if I learn how to do it properly, then I can teach my son and daughter, and we may be able to resurrect a family tradition and embrace our cultural heritage.  I know that the wine wouldn't be finished by the time our project ends, but after some preliminary research, I should be well into the bottling phase by the time our project presentations are due.

Questions:
1. How does a person make wine?  Is there more to it than putting some yeast in grape juice and letting it sit for a very long time?
2. How much Chemistry is involved in the wine making process?
3. What region of Italy is my family from?
4. What kind of wine is produced in that region?
5. Was there a "push" factor occuring in Italy that served as a catalyst for my Great Grandfather to immigrate to the United States?
6. How do I get the cork into the bottle so it stays?  Does s special machine squeeze it and then it expands when it is in the bottle?
7. How do I design a lable?
8. Can I sell the wine I make legaly?
9. Do I need to get a special license to make wine?
10. How many other Italian Americans survived the Great Depression by using their wine making traditions?

Option 2:
I have never been an artist.  I don't have the patience for it.  I don't understand how painters can stop working for periods of time and then come back to it later.  My best friend Jon was an artist.  He could draw or paint anything he saw.  I don't know if he ever "learned" to draw and paint, or if he just did it.  As you can guess from my use of past tense to describe his talent, my friend died long ago. I would like to learn how to paint, and be an artist like he was.  I don't have any natural talent, so I am not sure how successful I will be, but I want to try.

Questions:
1. How do you even start creating a painting?
2. Is there a large difference in technique between different types of paint?
3. How did the craft of painting evolve?
4. Is there a culture on earth that doesn't have some form of painting, or visual art?
5. Did Jon have a particular style of painting that he specialized in?
6. Is there any coorelation between the raw materials a culture has available and the style of paintings it produces?
7. What should I paint?
8. Will my paintings be any good?
9. Could I potentially sell my paintings, like the people on the beach walk in Santa Barbara every Sunday?
10. Is art as powerful and informative a method of communicating complex ideas as writing?