"It didn’t look much like a television station."

One evening, about a month after that first taping Don phoned Bill.

"Mr. Alexander,” Sid introduced himself on the telephone.

People were always phoning or writing Don and Bill with requests for more specific instruction

In 1979 Bill filmed his first series with Carrol Ellerbe. Bill was not only on television, one of the top professionals in the industry was his director. This was also the first series with which KOCE issued a companion guide. In it were pictures of all the paintings from the series with step-by-step instructions.

"In the Spring of 1982, he was in a small room in the Woodfield Shopping Center in Chicago waiting to do a demonstration. He was nervous, his hands were sweating, and he didn’t know what to expect."

Bill realized that, at some point in his life, he became a teacher more than a painter. From that point on, it became important to him to share the techniques he learned throughout his career with others.

Bill’s packed a lot of information into today’s video clip. Most folks might miss most of what he is doing so we’ll try to unpack it a bit for you.

Your paintings are the windows to your soul.

My daughter-in-law Nicole texted us this morning with a video she secretly recorded of our granddaughter Sloane.

We had a session today with Tom Anderson. Tom teaches our Master Class art course. He is a professional artist. He and his wife Lynda ran a studio and art gallery in Northern California for over twenty-five years. They retired to Texas to be near his grandchildren a couple of years ago.

Do you ever notice this about Hollywood celebrities? The ones who play, say, doctors, start giving medical advice? Often a company will use them in an advertisement. Like when an insurance company used doctors from a popular T.V. show to pitch us getting regular checkups.

Laurie and I were talking the other day about our love of model trains. I shared some stories of the train set my dad bought me for Christmas when I was six or seven. On reflection, he, most likely, bought the train set for himself. I happened to be a handy excuse at the time.

Last time we mentioned that Bill lost his home. We’ll get to that in a minute. First, though let’s answer this question.

The Alexander Wet-on-Wet Technique revolutionized the art of oil painting. Bill Alexander spent years developing and refining this special technique to make it possible for anyone to create a painting with a minimum of instruction. With traditional oil painting, it often takes weeks, or even longer, to finish one painting. With the Alexander Method™, you can complete your painting in an afternoon.

Today’s video clip is a bit longer than usual. The point of the video is to show you how you can stay cool in a tight spot. It also shows how forgiving the oil painting medium is. The most important thing is how Bill solves problems “in the moment.”