A Few More Paintings

At the end of last week’s blog post, I said, “Two down, thirty-eight to go.” It sounded impossible when I said it, but I was still determined to meet my blog goal of creating fifty plein air paintings before my third blogiversary, which is also my sixty-second birthday. That’s February eighth. Once I did the math, I knew I needed two paintings per day, plus an extra two somewhere along the line, to meet my goal.

Today, that goal feels slightly less impossible. These may be tiny, but there are fourteen of them, and I painted them since my last blog post.

Six Tiny Pictures

Eight Tiny Pictures

I know I can do three in one day because I had to do it a couple of days this week to make up for the fact that I did not paint on Saturday. That was the day we had snow flurries. I’m sure there are intrepid painters in places other than Florida who would think nothing of painting in such weather, but I stayed inside that day, covered in fleece blankets and drinking hot beverages. I have no regrets.

I hope to move further afield eventually, but all of these itty bitty paintings were done from my back yard or front yard. I wanted to paint and I wanted to make it as easy as possible, so I would enjoy it and keep doing it. I didn’t pressure myself with expectations about quality; I just painted. I told myself that nothing mattered except the process. I’m learning from my mistakes, so I might as well make a lot of them.

I like these little paintings. I had fun painting them. When I line them up and look at them, I can see improvement from day to day. I’m getting better at painting trees. I’m getting better at painting sky. I’m even getting better at painting plastic pink flamingos.