You can practically feel that a thunderstorm is brewing. Great.

The choice to use your wife as the model for your first independent piece says something about how you work. No hired model, no demo setup from the League carrying over, just figuring it out with someone who'd stand there while you solved the problems. That steel gray ground for a train platform scene makes sense once you say it, but I never would have thought to reach for it first. Most of us grab white or a warm mid-tone and fight our way back to neutrals.

Your first outside-the-classroom piece and you went straight to a composed scene with a figure at a train station. That's brave. I spent my first year after any structured learning just painting objects on tables because I was terrified of failing at anything with narrative weight. The Metro North light has this specific industrial flatness that either works or kills a piece, no middle ground.

Suki, no bravery required. I would say to everyone including myself, don't be afraid to fail. I mean, really, what's the worst that can happen? Are they going to put you in jail for bad painting?

Bree, the first best choice I learned at the League about surfaces is to use a mid-tone, preferably gray color. There are exceptions, of course. A painting with a subject that needs a lot of bright white throughtout is difficult to paint on a gray background, which I learned the hard way.