End of October Check-in
It’s been two months since my last update, so this check-in is long overdue. I’m back home in the Bay Area and trying to settle into a regular schedule after two months of on and off traveling, with the SF Open Studios event thrown in between. I’ll share some highlights from the last two months.
I started out with a slightly longer than a week-long artist residency on Cuttyhunk Island during the first week of September. I was really inspired by my time at the residency by talking to the other residents, the residency staff, and taking in the last days of summer on the island. I created a small number of plein air paintings with water-soluble oil paints, a new medium for me. I also took hundreds of photos of the island, beaches, oyster ponds, and sunsets, so I have a couple of paintings that I want to start working on once I get back into the studio.
Right after my residency, I traveled to Olympic National Park for a 10 day trip with friends. We did a lot of hiking and catching up. We hiked through forests, up on mountain ridges, and to beaches. Even though we did a lot of physical activity on this trip, the trip felt very restful.
The weekend after my return from Olympic National Park, I participated in Weekend 2 of San Francisco’s Open Studios. Honestly, I felt pretty tired before the weekend even started from all of my traveling, so I didn’t feel very enthusiastic about driving up to the city and participating in the event. I think I made the most of the energy levels that I had, but I think this may be my last year participating in the San Francisco Open Studio event. Now that I have a studio space in San Jose, I think it makes more sense to conserve my energy by keeping my studio visits local to my studio space.
Shortly after Open Studios, I traveled to Sedona, AZ with some family for a little less than a week. It was a big contrast weather wise, coming from cool, fall weather in Olympic National Park in Washington to a desert with a heat wave with 90-100 degree weather in Arizona. We visited both the Petrified Forest National Park and the Grand Canyon during our trip. All of the landscapes we saw from Phoenix to Sedona to each of the National Parks were so unique, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to take another trip back to Sedona in the future.
And then to wrap up all my travel, less than a week after my trip to Sedona, I traveled to the east coast for a wedding and to see family. It was good to spend time with family and enjoy a week of unseasonably warm weather for fall on the east coast.
I don’t have any other travel plans for the rest of the year, and I’m looking forward to spending quality time in the studio to work on a bunch of ideas I got over the last two months. Since I’ve been gone for a while, I also have to reorient myself on what I was working on before I left, because I know that I’m in the middle of a couple of projects.
What I’m working on:
I was awarded a commission from the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation to paint a Heart Sculpture for their 2024 Hearts in San Francisco Project. I was able to start painting the sculpture after my Sedona trip, but I need to wrap it up in the next few weeks. I’ve been sharing a few updates on my Instagram stories, and it’s coming along well.
I’m still not finished with my close-up seashell paintings, so I want to wrap up this collection before the end of the year. I’ll get back to working on these paintings once I finish painting my Heart Sculpture, and then hopefully I’ll be able to share all the paintings before the end of the year.
Now that we’ve entered fall, I want to get out to do some more plein air painting with the cloudy weather on the coast. I’ve prepared a number of panels for plein air painting, so now I just need to find the time to get out there and paint.
I also have a specific scene of Cuttyhunk Island that I want to paint in the studio. I was able to paint a small plein air version of the painting, and I want to see it on a larger scale. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to start that painting, but it’s on the back of my mind. Hopefully, by writing it here, it’ll encourage me to find time to work on it.
I think that’s it for my long overdue update. Today’s my first day back home, so I’ve been trying to organize myself and get myself into the right mindset to get back into the studio. I haven’t been able to paint much over the past month, so it feels a bit daunting to get back into the studio, but the deadline for the Hearts of San Francisco project is a good motivator. I’ll be back in the studio tomorrow and will hopefully have a lot of good quiet time in there to work. I hope you all are staying safe and doing well. Thanks for following along and reading through until the end!
