I went in to the atelier this morning to paint a color study for my first still life assignment, but ended up spending a bunch of time preparing for my first brush stroke. When I joined the Classical Atelier last year, I put painting on the back burner while I focused on charcoal drawing and then printmaking. Now as I turn my focus back to oil painting, I am facing a seemingly endless amount of preparation, from cleaning palette boxes to finding matching light bulbs to excavating my shadow box from the closet to sorting paint. I know it will all be worth it and I will really enjoy my space and my tools, but still I want to be painting . . .

I really should have cleaned my palette when I finished my last painting, but I didn’t know back then that I was done . . .