Michael Friedland

“I fell in love with watercolor in my first year of art school. In my second year, I put the oil and acrylic paints in the closet and have focused on painting with watercolor ever since. I just love the way that this very unique medium can capture the feeling of light and how it can be made to do things with color that no other medium can. I love how it’s portable and more conducive to painting en plein air. It’s a really wonderful medium to have spent a lifetime with! As an interesting parallel, for years I was drawn to and collected colored glass vases and enjoyed how they looked set against my windows. Looking at them one day recently, I finally realized, ‘OH, it’s the same thing as a watercolor…looking at (enjoying!) color illuminated by light!”

Obviously my area of specialty is painting with watercolor. But teaching over the last eight years, I’ve come to realize that I seem to have somewhat of the ‘teacher gene’…I love to help, talk with and explain to others how this exciting medium works and how to get control of watercolor and move forward with their own paintings.”