Measure Once, or is it Twice…

I just came home from a two week painting trip to the Rockies with not a single sale, not a single award, and my van filled with wet paintings. Was it productive? Does that sound bitter? Okay, let me try again. Hi honey, I’m home. How was your trip? Well it was wonderful, I painted…

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The New Golf

I heard this at paint camp this year… the Publisher’s Invitational in the Adirondacks, and then heard it again while painting last week with George Van Hook. We tossed it around, and considered some of its possibilities… “Plein air painting is the new golf”. Okay, I think I heard it during one of Eric’s morning announcements. It’s…

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Giving it all Away

I was recently asked “what did it take to get to that next level?” What? Rethink, reconsider, and recalculate that one! I’m here flailing around like a ship in a whirlpool. What “next level” are we talking about? Looking from within, it looks as though I’m just spinning my wheels in the same old spot.…

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Going Green

I do not write advice or tips very often on painting, and probably for good reason. I’m just a beginner! Though not the sole reason, that is a good one. The other is I don’t really like advice, probably something I picked up along the way, but growing up I always knew that I knew…

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What does your T-Shirt say?

Or better yet, what do you say? What do you say to those people who come up to you while you are painting outdoors in a park, or a city sidewalk and they stop to ask you a question? Do you pretend like those headphones you have on, is actually playing music and you can’t…

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Art with Benefits

The first painting I did after trading the bottle for the brush was one for my Mother. In the previous 20 years I had completed maybe 1 painting, and I was totally excited about methodically stretching my canvas, and putting my paints in position around the pallet. There is something about this process that helps…

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Need a Push

It’s been a while since I’ve written here, but it’s not because I’m not thinking about it. When I began writing that first blog I knew there was no way I could do this daily, even trying to commit to weekly was pushing my limits. This is more about pushing yourself out of that little…

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The Old Same Thing

You know, the “Old Same Thing”! Do you have a limit for doing the same old thing, don’t you get tired of it? How long can you keep repeating the same old routine before it becomes just that? I’ve done it before, and still do at times. I could eat PB&J’s for lunch on a daily…

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What’s it going to take?

Do you have something that is so near and dear to you that no matter what the circumstances you are not going to get rid of it? I do, but it is definitely NOT my minivan. So why keep fixing it? What I sometimes refer to as my “Paint-Mobile” is a 2003 Ford Windstar Minivan.…

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4995.6 miles

Does it seem like a lot to you? Before I left I could not really wrap my fuzzy little brain around what I was about to do. Maybe you are the type of artist that travels extensively across the country in search of your holy grail. There are a good number of you out there,…

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