WORKS BY JAN CLAIRE
	Turning Inward - the Studio 16 x 20	Oil on canvas Artist's Collection

What artist hasn't done this age old exercise. But generally the artist places his or her brushes in pottery jars, because they're so much easier to paint than see-through glass ones. I avoided painting glass too, until my mentor at the time - Helen Van Wyk - kept telling me to paint glass, paint glass, paint glass, "until it becomes old hat and until one is at ease doing so". One being me. So I went on a spree. The more glassy, the more I wanted to paint it. And Helen was correct: I now have absolutely no fear of painting glass any more...but then it is now 14 years later! Check the painting 15th from the top - the one with the white daisies and grapes. Notice not only a glass bottle, but a cobalt blue one as well? That was a "Helen exercise." One of her strongest rules was "never paint anything in a background which is blue. Blue - because it is only found in nature in the sky and its reflections, tends to 'come forward' in a painting, flattening the overall effect. So being the type person I am, I just had to paint something blue, in the background, and see if I could get away with it.