Yesterday, Laura and I were trying to figure out when to schedule a six-week Zoom session of Figure in the Landscape.
“You have room for only two more sessions this calendar year,” she told me.
That stopped me cold. My calendar is crowded with workshops, travel, shows and other obligations. But it seems like 2026 is racing by.
A quick note on classes before we get into it
Claim your spot in Painting clouds, which starts Monday evening. There are just two seats left.
It’s just a dream until you give it a plan, deadline and action
When you’re young, time feels infinite. Someday I’ll learn to paint. Someday I’ll take that workshop. Someday I’ll get serious about doing art.
Around the time you feel your first twinges of arthritis, you realize that someday is a fantasy.
This is one of the liberating truths of aging. The older we get, the more precious time becomes. I’m not afraid of running out of it, but I do understand its true value.
Age is just a number, pffft.
One of my few regrets in life is not learning to say ‘no’ to things I really don’t care about at a much younger age. I’m 67 and I’m still not great at it.
One of my doctors has a device that calculates metabolic age. I thought it was cool until it told me my metabolic age is 69 and some change.
Yes, painters have done remarkable work well into their nineties. See Wayne Thiebaud, David Hockney, Lois Dodd, Claude Monet and more. However, a few weeks ago, my younger cousin—a paragon of healthy living—died suddenly. It was an acute reminder that healthy habits are great, but none of us gets a guarantee. I could fall off my twig tomorrow or live to 100. None of us knows what next year will bring.
I’ve been meaning to take one of your classes for years…
I hear variations on, “I’ve been meaning to take one of your classes for years” all the time. Some people said that so many times about my schooner workshop that they literally missed the boat. They were genuinely shocked when I told them it was finished.
Procrastination
We wait until we’re less busy. We wait until we have the right equipment, the right studio, the right amount of confidence.
Meanwhile, it’s summer again, the leaves turn again, the snow blows again, the cherries blossom again. Another year has slipped past, and then another.
I’ve noticed that when they’re purely in my imagination, every painting I think up is brilliant. Procrastination means we don’t have to wrestle with our mere adequacy. But art doesn’t exist in our imagination; it’s a tangible object that exists only when you make it. Although it might be different from what you imagined, it is often actually better.
New growth, old growth
This week two workshop students sent me pictures of new plein air paintings. They are much more mature and self-assured than they were a year ago. That’s because they’re doing the work to improve. I’m still teaching because I enjoy watching those transformations.
Urgency
If you’ve thought about studying with me, whether online or in person, I encourage you to consider doing it sooner rather than later. I’m not trying to create a false sense of urgency here; I don’t need to.
Urgency is built into life. Every person is their own universe of thoughts, feelings, relationships and potential. When we pass on, the world we created and lived in and all the possibilities we entertained are gone forever.
Time may be infinite, but our human time is finite and therefore valuable. What we do with it is up to us. Paintings can, of course, wait forever, but the opportunity to paint them cannot.
Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:
- Advanced Plein Air Painting | Rockport, ME, July 13-17, 2026
- Sea & Sky | Acadia National Park, ME, August 2–7, 2026
- Find your Authentic Voice in Plein Air | Berkshires, MA, August 10-14, 2026
- New! Color Clinic 2026 | Rockport, ME, October 3-4, 2026
- New! Composition Week 2026 | Rockport, ME, October 5-9, 2026
Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:
This is so true, what you’ve written here. I’ll just add that it’s never too late to start something that’s meaningful & purposeful to you, no matter one’s age.
Would love a blog post on how you choose what to paint on when working with oil….. canvas or linen or board, and the degree of smoothness?
I love all your blog posts, and I am so looking forward to working with you this summer.
Thank you so much!
“Milky Way, 12X16, oil on archival canvasboard”
this is gorgeous and helpful to me for night lighting. I’m way to dark!
(BTW: It’s not clickable. Still for sale?)
Whoops! Should be fixed now.
Try making up some different values of paint before you start laying them in, to see where you want to land, instead of letting the painting drive your mixing. Having said that, I have a campfire painting by Chrissy Pahucki that’s almost all black, but there’s a bit of middle value sky and the fire itself, and just the hint of her daughter roasting a hot dog.