I taught a workshop this past weekend in the stunningly beautiful arts centre called Visual Arts Mississauga. It's a very contemporary building set on the forested grounds of Riverwood, a 150 acre park in the centre of Mississauga. Our classroom studio had floor to ceiling windows looking onto a long expanse of snowy forest. Ours was a small class of only 5 students which allowed a lot of time for individual attention. I continue to be amazed at how each person's work is so different from the next. Always our goal in art is to find our own voice. I like to remind artists that it's already there, you can see that when you look around the room, even on the first day of a workshop, when people are just beginning to learn about cold wax and oil. As we continue to grow and work and develop more technical and compositional skills our voices grow stronger and clearer. There were many breakthroughs in this workshop as ...