Monthly Retrospective: March 2025

I moved again this month – a smaller one, in terms of space, as we moved just 10 miles across town, but large in terms of time and effort since we moved ourselves, and moved from a furnished to an unfurnished apartment so we have to get furniture and lots of household goods. There is … Read more

Photo to painting: the last of the Instagram screenshots

I used to take a lot of Instagram screenshots for inspo. Lately, I’ve been doing it less and less, for several reasons:

  • I like painting my own photos more now, in part to be sure that I have permission, in part because it is more personal!
  • Instagram has been showing me less good stuff.
  • Which leads me to the biggest reason: I am off Instagram now!

But I had a couple more in my camera roll that I wanted to quickly dash off before closing the book on Instagram screenshots!

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Monthly Retrospective: February 2025

I had a light month, art-wise. In part, this is because it has been a busy month for life stuff as I have once again been working on things like getting a new apartment. I expect the life stuff to continue apace through March, when I will actually move and have to furnish said apartment. … Read more

Monthly Retrospective: January 2025

Sky A Day I started the month by attempting a “sky a day” challenge, but I abandoned it by day 4. Random Explorations After that, I felt a lot of freedom to explore completely random things: test paintings of new techniques, redos of old work, limited palette studies. I feel I am in a period … Read more

Redo: Radio Tower 2022

I’ve painted the radio tower that can be seen from Danehy Park many times. The first was among my first-ever paintings in March 2021; the second, almost 2 years later in December 2022, after a particularly inspiring real-life sunset; and the third, just over a year after that, a much more subdued version which I … Read more

December 2024’s Pink Skies: Photo to Painting

I painted two paintings this month from my own photos. Both of them were same-day skyscapes that I took with the idea of painting them. Pink Sky Power Lines What I like about the photo: Complex power lines, pink cloud, crescent moon. What I didn’t like about the photo: It didn’t really capture the overall … Read more

Sky of the Day: January 1-4 2025

Brooke Morales of Life Noticed does an annual project called 365 Skies where she observes and paints the sky every single day. She paints from life, from the window, so she also calls these “windowscapes.” The sky is a great daily subject because it’s always there and it’s always different! I considered joining this year … Read more

Arizona Photo to Painting & Palette Follow-up

Okay, so I didn’t do much painting in Arizona: it was mostly a whirlwind of family activities. I spent much of the time in surburban locales; when I had the opportunity to go out hiking, I was mostly birding and photographing as my secondary activity, not painting, which would have slowed the group down too … Read more

Monthly Retrospective: December 2024

I will also do an annual retrospective, but here’s my month of December! The month was dominated by my Advent Calendar challenge. Advent Calendar Most of the month’s paintings were done specifically to showcase one of my DIY $0 Advent Calendar “gifts”. Some days I did swatches or non-paintings, but for these I had the … Read more