Bill focused on teaching at the end of his career. He wanted his students to learn to paint…not just to paint pleasing pictures. It was important to him that his students could create images from their own imagination.
To do that required skill in brush and color mixing techniques, for sure. But it also required skill in perspective, composition and the elements that make a painting interesting and, therefore, marketable. The payoff for us would be not just another beautiful painting we could hang on our living room wall or give as a gift to friends. The real payoff would be the richer, fuller life we would experience through the process of creation and the joy of giving.
I loved when Bill talked about St. Peter at the pearly gates. And Bill said that he would bribe his way into heaven, bribe St. Peter with his paintings.