Barbara Nuss is master of composition and composition is the essential ingredient of good painting. The first time I saw her work I found that I could not take my eyes off the painting.

It seemed to cast a spell from which my eyes could not escape. When I saw it I said "I want to make paintings like that!"

In her plein air workshops, Barbara gives students the recipe for this magic spell. Her years of experience painting and teaching enable her to lead the student easily through each step of her process of plein air landscape painting. As she goes she adds the tools needed to portray landscape at its best: value, perspective, what to include, what to leave out. She actually gives her students the physical as well as the informational tools they need to create paintings that "work."

On top of communicating simply and clearly the fundamentals, she imparts the freedom of creativity; to create what you want rather than only what you see. She took me to a whole new level when she showed me how to take something which might be considered ugly and make it beautiful, how to move mountains, create rivers from roadways and entrances from blockades.

The years Barbara studied and copied master classic landscape paintings in national museums yielded a harvest rich in every aspect of landscape and she makes all of this available to her students. I am certain that the "Best in Show" prize I recently won was the direct result of her instruction and influence.