This may seem crazy, but in the spirit of quantity over perfection, I am starting four new paintings. I’ve found that I’m pretty good at coming up with designs, waiting for my paint to thaw, mixing the colors I need, and washing brushes. The area where I need practice is paint handling – the myriad ways of applying paint to canvas – from smooth gradients to thick palette knife impasto, to soft edges. The way I figure it, if I work on multiple paintings simultaneously, I can amortize the design, thawing, mixing, and cleanup over more hours of paint application. That’s the theory anyway.

Originally, I was going to try three paintings based on two tableau, but I added in a fourth, 8″ x 8″ painting for the Maple Valley Creative Arts Council’s Ten-Twenty-Forty fundraiser.