Meeting my art mentor, in India of all places

As I noted earlier, I've painted all my life.  I began with pastels and when I went to India as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1965 I took a huge set of pastels. There were two other Volunteers already in my assigned city, Indore in the state of Madhya Pradesh. They introduced me to some of their friends, one of whom was Narendra Kumar Singh. Naren and I became fast friends over the next two years.

Naren was a dedicated artist. He painted  in both oils and watercolors,  When I showed him my pastel set he got very excited; "I've always wanted to try pastels," he said. "You just can't buy them here, at least not a huge set like that." On the spot he made me an offer I couldn't refuse: "You really need to learn to paint in oils. There's so much more depth. I'll provide all your painting materials while your here...paints, brushes, and canvases, if you'll give me your pastel set." 

Naren had slides of photos he had taken of some villagers recently. I saw one I really liked, an older man in a yellow turban whcih became my first oil painting; I used just two colors, yellow and blue. I've never sold that painting...