The Dirty Palette

Stories from an art educators studio.

It may seem silly

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
30 November, 2020
It may seem silly, but I can not express how happy I am that I have finally found and purchased my first plaster casts! I started instructing students in 2010 and have wanted to purchase plaster casts to use in my drawing and painting instruction since then. I have only bought my first three...

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See through the curtain of details.

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
30 November, 2020
I took a break from teaching classes for the week of Thanksgiving, but I didn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs; I recorded two new sketching courses. The two new courses finish my introductory sketching courses focusing on simple subject matter with relatively no textures. The first one in this...

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Pretty Exciting Stuff!

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
31 October, 2020
It has taken me six months to get to this point, the point where I can now successfully create an instructional video that looks good and communicates the instruction in the manner that I wish it to. If you had told me back in March of this year that by the end of the year, I would be able to...

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So many Pumpkins!

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
30 September, 2020
It is almost October, and I am getting ready to start my next round of instructional courses, and I thought pumpkin still lifes would make the perfect subject. While taking the reference photos, I got a bit carried away with setting up the still lifes and took more images than I could need for...

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Back to reading my stack of books.

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
28 September, 2020
As I am getting back into my daily and weekly routine, albeit a different routine from a few months ago, I find time to get back into my stack of books that I want to read. Over the past week, I picked up my copy of “Traditional Oil Painting; Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the...

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The Basic Perspective course is now available.

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
07 September, 2020
I believe I have honed my videoing editing skills a bit more with the release of my recorded online course for Basic Perspective. In this foundational course, I walk students through the basic concepts of perspective, discussing the importance of the horizon line, vanishing points, and...

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Enjoy the process!

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
07 September, 2020
Find your own voice but build it on a strong foundation of understanding value, color, and design. I thought I would share three new paintings created by different students to highlight their approach, application, and level of details each created in their finished works. First and foremost,...

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​Introducing the new Student Gallery page

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
07 September, 2020
I have always thought it very important to share my students’ hard work, and now having gone online with my instruction I felt that it was time to create the new Student Gallery page on my new website. I plan to post new albums as the students finish their original drawings and paintings either...

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​I know Kung Fu!

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
02 August, 2020
So, my grand idea moving forward is to offer several new instructional classes a month, short classes that are only a few hours, and multi-day classes. Both of which I want to prerecord so I can offer them immediately to the students who took the live online class. I didn’t realize the tremendous...

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​End of one road and the beginning of the new one.

author
Robert Louis Caldwell
31 July, 2020
End of era, the Midlothian Art Academy sign in the county dump Well, I guess the first post on this blog should be on why we are here. It was not my intension to build an online art school platform; well, maybe that isn’t the complete truth. In 2016 I had initially thought about creating some...

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ABOUT

Welcome!



I am Robert Louis Caldwell, a professional artist and educator who has been instructing students in drawing and painting classes since 2010. I love what I do and love sharing that with my students. Over the years, I have gone from teaching a few students in a small classroom to a large two-room teaching studio with multiple instructors. In 2016, I opened the doors to my own art studio, which grew into Midlothian Art Academy. Unfortunately, the academy fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic and closed in July.


Not one to stand around and wait, I pushed forward and found a way to instruct online from my own studio to my students in theirs. As I built this new online platform, I thought it would be nice to have a place to share the stories of my art, classroom instruction, techniques notes and funny anecdotes from some of my wonderful students.


I hope you follow along as this new journey unveils itself.