Looking back on 2023

As I look back on my paintings over the course of 2023, I see some progress. Compared to this time last year, I feel my paintings are more confident and more accomplished, and other people have remarked on the progress. The big watershed for me was a four-day workshop I took with my teacher, Eric Wiegardt, near his home in Long Beach, Washington. Eric uses lots of paint and lots of water, and he paints with confidence. When I do that, my paintings are more lively and more powerful.

Here’s a painting I did in January that’s fussy and disconnected. Things just don’t flow.

Here’s a painting I did near the end of the year, where you can see the brush strokes blending together in a harmonious way.

I made a determined effort last year to learn to paint trees, using a splayed out mop brush like Eric taught us. I think my trees are much better now.

I also worked hard to connect my shapes and washes so that the painting doesn’t look like a bunch of disconnected shapes. I think I improved here, too.

I traveled to different areas in Western Washington on six occasions to paint outdoors, often with other painters, and I learned a lot from these trips. Not that the paintings were always successful, but the experience of painting outside helped me when I got back to the studio.

I’ve tried to choose a wide variety of subjects — beaches, tide flats, buildings, boats, farms and forests — although I can see I have a preference for subjects around the water. It just feels more dramatic to me.

Often it feels that I am fighting a painting. My brush strokes are dry and scratchy, my shapes are disconnected and awkward, and the painting just doesn’t come together. Other times the paint flows, the shapes magically seem to blend into each other, and the painting takes on a life of its own. Let’s hope for more of the latter in the coming year!