The first time I ever used oil paint was like scratching an impossible itch, completely satisfying. I was thirteen years old. I'd spent my childhood struggling with little oval watercolor cakes and runny tempera trying to approximate what I imagined to be the qualities of that fascinating substance I saw magically transformed into mountains and trees on Sunday afternoon television. I didn't watch Bob Ross. I watched that other guy, the German, Bill Alexander. Bill had more passion than Bob. He didn't paint "happy little trees." He "fired it in!" I spent hours "firing in" as best I could with my soupy, insubstantial watercolors. Then came junior high art class. Mr. Premore passed out what was, in retrospect, a fairly impressive palette of oil colors to each student. I ripped from a magazine a picture of a small white stucco buliding against a deep blue night sky and copied it onto my first canvas board. The paint had the exact weight and resistance I'd imagined it would. It felt right. Since then I've been in love with oil paint -- the way it smells, feels and behaves.