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ok so i took my little travel kit down to the park today, first time painting outdoors in years, i've been such a coward about it honestly. and i forgot, i mean i FULLY forgot how brutal plein air is?? like you're fighting the light changing every ten minutes, wind keeps flipping your paper, bugs land in your wet paint, and some kid's mom is standing behind you going "oh how nice" while you're internally screaming because your shadows are already wrong. BUT. i got something. one little study where the light actually worked and i caught the way the jacaranda was dropping purple all over the bench. and i felt like myself again? the version of me that used to sit on the sidewalk outside the studio building and paint whatever. it's messy and the proportions are off but i don't even care. anyway if you've been scared to paint outside just go do it it's terrible and wonderful 👍

I finally did it. I packed up my little travel easel and drove out to the lake this morning before the kids woke up, and painted the same view I've been chickening out on since June. The light on the water kept changing every fifteen minutes and I nearly gave up twice, but I just kept blocking in and repainting until something stuck. It's not my best work. But it's the first plein air thing I've actually seen through to the end instead of coming home with a muddy mess and a headache. I've been doing that since my workshop in April and I thought maybe outdoor painting just wasn't for me. Anyway. It's propped up in the kitchen drying and I keep walking past it feeling weirdly proud. If you've been avoiding trying something new for months, just pack the bag and go. The worst case is you come home with a muddy mess and a headache, which is where you already are.

For years I thought I was supposed to want fresh air. The romantic studio image, non? Open window, breeze, plein air feeling. I forced myself. This week I closed it. Put on the shitty little air conditioner I bought in secret. The light is exactly the same. The paint stayed wet longer because it wasn't drying out in a draft. I was calmer. I worked an hour past when I usually stop because I wasn't getting cold and annoyed. All that performative suffering for nothing. I could have been comfortable this whole time.

Tried plein air for the first time last Sunday. Picked a little spot by the creek, got all set up, and the wind just wrecked me. My easel tipped over twice, a leaf landed wet side down right in the middle of my sky, and I packed it up after about forty minutes with maybe ten minutes of actual painting done. But here's the thing. I got more done in those ten minutes than I do in a whole afternoon of painting from photos. The light on the water was doing something I've never been able to fake in the studio. I've been chasing that same look for weeks from reference photos and it's always flat. Now I'm looking at those little wind-proof clamps for the canvas and a heavier easel, and I keep checking the forecast for a calm day. I think this is my new thing. Just wish I'd tried it before I turned forty.

I've talked for months about wanting to do a series of rooms in my house, just as a personal project, and I kept putting off the kitchen. Too familiar, I told myself. Too boring. Nothing to say about a place I stand in three times a day. Finally sat down with it last week and I think I get now why I avoided it. It's the hardest subject I've ever painted and I've done a whole summer of plein air. Familiar means you know every wrong angle, every shadow that doesn't sit right. You can't fudge it because you can feel when it's off. The mug tree was the thing that nearly broke me. Those little wooden branches crisscrossing. I must have repainted it four times. Eventually I stopped trying to paint each branch and just painted the light falling through them and you know what, the branches showed up on their own. I haven't been this nervous to show a piece to my husband since I first started painting again. He looked at it for a long time and just said "that's our kitchen." That was it. That was the whole review. Now I'm scared to do the kids' bathroom.