Chee has extensive experience as a teacher of students of all ages.  Once or twice annually, she leads a workshop in the central Virginia area.    Chee has led workshops for the Shenandoah Valley Art Center in Waynesboro, VA and The Arts Center in Orange, and the Central Virginia Watercolor Guild in Charlottesville, VA during 2010 and 2011. 

What do Chee's students say about her classes?

Learning with Chee Kludt Ricketts

I recently took a workshop with Chee and left smiling! In fact, I’m still warm with the afterglow of being in what could only be called the “Gracious Safe Space” she created for us. Yes, I know she grew up in the South, where magnolias bloom and last letters drop from words like “car, far, and here,” but Chee has translated “Southern Charm” into her trademark as a teacher of art!

It’s SCARY to be in a room with other people you don’t know with white paper in front of you! Who are these people? Will I mess up? What about that lady over there? She looks like an expert. I bet she’s not a beginner! Thoughts race through my mind and I even question the decision to even be here. I’m a bit intimidated.

But as a teacher of teachers myself, I know the value of building relationships and establishing a sense of community in the classroom. Chee knows that too and quickly put us all at ease. She begins, with the warmest smile, direct eye contact to all of us and immediately comforts us the reminder that we are “all beginners of something.” And she goes around the room, letting us introduce ourselves, each time, making a gracious comment about something we’ve said.

I’m beginning to relax.

Her teaching skills are evident immediately. She is organized and knows the power of a well-executed demonstration. Her handouts are clear, specific and detailed. As she begins her first demo for us, she has a student actually read the handout out loud, step by step as she proceeded. This immediately anchored what she was doing with words and they were words on a handout we could keep and take home. Not only did Chee walk us through some warm-up washes (“Even athletes warm up,” she cajoled.), she did something very unusual. She showed us her own paintings that had those washes in them. We immediately could see this was not just an unrelated warm-up activity, but rather the beginning of a painting.

And as we each set out to timidly or boldly practice our washes, Chee was right beside us, encouraging, explaining, and praising us for what we were doing or if we weren’t successful, immediately explaining what we needed to change. “Hold your brush upright,” she told me when I tried to follow the bead to make the water ‘behave.” And instantly, I had the success I longed for. I felt safe, safe to try new things as well as safe to be “wrong.” She was the ultimate coach, with us every step, watching and teaching us one-on-one, the ultimate way to learn. As I glanced around the room, I could see quickly how individual her comments must have been. There was lots of variety among the students in the exercises we were doing. But for each of us, Chee knew where we were and what would be our next steps.

However, going from practice washes to a painting is a leap, and once again, our gracious watercolor hostess, demonstrated as she began her own painting for us, even admitting sometimes things don’t turn out like she wants. She really IS learning with us. Those where not just insincere platitudes to make us feel better! She is authentic and genuine. Like magic, but explained, her early strokes on the paper begin to reveal a painting I feel like I could do. Again, as we returned to our own work stations with another handout chock full of tips and points she has just demonstrated, each of us seem to sink into our own process and the room was quiet as a mouse.

At one point someone, down the way, threw her painting in the trashcan! But Chee found it, and cheerfully brought it back to her, pointing out all that was good and worth saving! The next time I glanced up, a renewed effort was yielding a delightful painting, despite the spilt paint in one corner. Chee had helped her move on and find a successful way to recover. Later, like me, she left smiling, holding her painting gingerly, hoping it would dry safely before she would put it in the car to drive home.

Workshops often end different ways. Some folks creep away, as if embarrassed at what they could not get accomplished, but not this one. This time there was laughter, hugs and lots of praise for our gracious hostess who had helped us all have a successful afternoon. I know it was because she established the quintessential classroom climate students need in order to learn and she is a master at teaching adults, possibly from the years of teaching teenager years ago.  It felt more like I had been visiting a dear friend than taking a lesson from someone whose skills are far superior to anything I’ll ever be able to do. I was safe to make mistakes and safe to learn. After all, she started art when she could first hold a pencil; I have started much later in life. As participants in this workshop, we had all had the ultimate art experience. We had been in the presence of the “Southern Lady of Watercolor” who made us all feel we’d been successful learners. I suspect we’ll see each other again in Chee’s next workshop. I know I’ll be there.