What I Did On My Summer Vacation or Shaking Things Up A Bit

Thousand Acre Pond 4"x 6"

Path to the Beach 4"x 6"

I spend most of the year working as an aide for special ed kids in a high school.  It's great fun and very challenging at times.  Once I'm done working summer school, I have a few weeks off to do what I really love to do - get outside and paint!

Day at the Beach II  4"x 6"  SOLD

Day at the Beach I  4"x 6"  SOLD

This summer vacation amounted to about 2 weeks in which I painted and did a bunch of the miscellaneous stuff I don't get finished the rest of the year (like cleaning my house).  During that week, I tried to do at least one plein air painting a day.

Field of Wildflowers 5"x 7"  SOLD

Summer Cornfield 4"x 6"  SOLD

They were very small paintings - most were 4"x 6" and I really enjoyed the challenge of working so small.  I popped them into little frames I'd gotten at the dollar
store as a way to protect them
and put them all up on a shelf
in my dining area where I

Distant Blue 5"x 7"  SOLD

could see them all of the time.
Kind of a nice reminder of
my summer.

I enjoy mixing things up periodically as a way to challenge myself and going to such a small size definitely did the trick for me.  Doing something so small means that every mark counts.  It also forces me to be much more accurate than I would be in a larger piece - no room for errors. Once I get tired of doing this, perhaps my next challenge should be to work REALLY big!