This undergraduate painting workshop is designed to introduce mid-level students to the strategies that painters use in the studio to enhance their capacities for creativity, critical thinking, and productivity. The course will focus on ways of working and thinking as an artist that emphasize productivity, exploration, focused play, and even failure as pathways toward success. Students will be encouraged to work with a variety of media and a range of working techniques and styles as they pursue their own ideas and imagery. Development of a regular working practice, high productivity, and playful innovation will be emphasized. Although most of the course time will be devoted to studio work, there will be also be regular group discussions and lectures, and occasional field trips to museums, studios, and galleries.