
Largemouth Bass commission on calfskin vellum
Are you the type of artist who has multiple works-in-progress going on at the same time? Well, don’t despair, you aren’t alone, at least you have me for company.
I am perpetually guilty of having many works-in-progress sitting in my studio at the same time. I used to fight and fight and fight this aspect of my creative nature. Why can’t I just finish one thing before I move on to the next one? Then I would call myself all kinds of bad names – Oh, you procrastinator, you failure at time management, you person of mulitple personalities, you get the picture.
I have finally learned to embrace the multiple works-in-progress me! Maybe it was hitting 50 a few years ago, or maybe the planets just aligned correctly at last. Now I look at all the positives of having so many works-in-progress projects sitting around my studio just waiting for me to get back to them. Let me count them:
- I never get bored
- I get to try different techniques
- I get to walk into my studio each morning and ask myself – who am I today?
- At some point I will have a bunch of new work in my inventory
- I get to let the oil layers dry on my Mische technique paintings while I am still productive on another painting
- I get to enjoy the anticipation of getting back to a particular painting, especially if I have dreamed about a possible solution to a possible problem
And I give myself permission to start on something new, when I still have WORKS-IN-PROGRESS still in progress!
With all of this in mind, I have decided that my blog post on the last Tuesday of the month will be dedicated to pictures of all of my current works-in-progress. So here they are, hopefully by the next Work-in-Progress Tuesday a lot of these will be finished. Enjoy!

Camellia japonica – gouache on Canson Mi-Teintes Touch board

Mallard – Mische Technique

Buffalo – Mische Technique

Emmylou – Mische Technique

Squirrel – Mische Technique