Painter Deb Anderson describes how a landscape painting workshop sent her in a new and challenging direction.

The landscape painting workshop with Nina Weiss was so good. It was a change of direction for me, a challenge – very informative. After Nina explained her approach to composition and color we headed right out to sketch on the grounds of the Evanston Art Center. The Lake Michigan beach was just steps away... but the trees offered more interesting shapes. After I wiped my first start, Nina suggested using a red ground, to give later color layers something to react to. I drew out basic shapes with ultramarine blue. Then I started an underpainting focused on color temperature and atmospheric perspective – thin washes of warm, pure color in the foreground, with cooler colors receding into the distance. Once this underpainting was complete, we started pushing shadows and lights, and finding edges. And then my time was up. See more of Nina’s beautiful work here and here.