“If you think it’s too hard, do it anyways.”
That was the overall message Greg Hire shared with students this morning in the Millersburg Elementary Middle School library.
Using painting as a method to teach confidence and adaptation, Hire started his delivery with a blank canvas that slowly worked itself into a water’s edge scene. Adding touches as he went along, Hire offered an approach he admitted came from years of consuming Bob Ross anecdotes, but it worked just the same.
“I have to give credit to watching Bob Ross and how he accomplished teaching a life lesson while making a very simple painting look complex,” Hire said shortly after his painting session ended. He had over a half dozen students waiting to ask questions while he packed up. “The magic lives in the brush, you have to make it come to life on the canvas.”
The finished product had Hire float a few quick flips of the paint brush to create some birds over the water’s edge as the pier was brought to life with just a couple fast lines down the wooden planks. It wasn’t a masterpiece, and Hire didn’t want it to be. In fact, he wanted it to leave a little to be desired. The painting took just over three minutes to complete.
“I once started painting a wheat field and it ended up being an ocean,” Hire said. “You make a lot of changes on the fly. Many times my paintings never end where I was going. They end up somewhere else. That’s the freedom I love with it. It fits me.”
Hire, the older brother of MEMS librarian Jennifer Christian, has been doing painting seminars for years. The opportunity to continue to paint as a teaching tool keeps him coming back. Even if some of the kids guessed that he was 80 years old.
Offered Hire as he wrapped up, “Once I get across the lesson, you hear the kids say, ‘Hey, I think I can do that!’ I’m trying to show that to young people. Especially the younger ones. There is a lot of talent in this room, and they can take it way farther than they realize. Maybe if a few minutes of me painting helps draw that out, then I’ve done my job.”