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they were going to be out there for a whole week. So every day after school, I would run to the park and I would watch how they mixed the paints and how they mixed the colors, an what they used the linseed oil for and what they used the turpentine for, and I would go home each day and try to do what I had seen. So this, in a sense, was my first art lesson.
...Yow, they became aware that I was out there, but I was a child. But they sensed I was interested, so a couple of them gave me hints about things.
...That's how I found out about the canvas too. Not that we could afford it, so I still couldn't use canvas. But I did know what it was.
...No it wasn't that at all. It was just that my mother didn't appreciate it.
...Well, yes. I knew about the art students, but the art studios in Chicago and the main branch of the public library were then not close enough or anything. But my mother had developed a habit of reading very early in life, and my mother when she went shopping would leave me at the public library. At this time I was six or seven years old. And so I would wonder through the galleries looking at all kinds of paintings, pictures, and all kinds of things. I remember Winslow Homer became one of my favorite painters and George Innes... And so between the reading and the artists I got a pretty good art education long before I could ever afford to study. But also at the same time as I was in grade