My father was a great painter, able to improvise something on the spur of the moment, under pressure, say prompted to do a demonstration in front of 50 people with no preparation, fetch a still life or whatever subject from his imagination and complete it under public scrutiny within 45 minutes. This is something I will never do in this incarnation, I don't think. But you know, he taught me very little about painting. I can recall virtually all he ever taught me in this summary: *Never use pure black; it will only look like a hole in your canvas, and *No one can teach you anything about color. You have to feel it for yourself. And finally, *Don't use all warm colors for your skin tones; neutralize your reds and yellows with an addition of a small amount of blue or green. And that's it.
I don't know how right he was. I still think I can talk about color, specific colors in regard to the material to be represented, and so forth, and be helpful and I plan that for this site as it develops. But I'm not unhappy I've had to experiment for myself over the years. I think that was his real intent. And that was actually pretty great for me as I think I learned better in that way. But not everyone has decades to play when there is no knowledgeable feedback. Because I did have that always. His feedback. Maybe one day you'll want to ask for mine. I'm here and my comments are free.