Paint What You Paint Well

High and Windy Hill
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
16 x 20 in/40.6 x 50.8 cm 

If the headline of today's blog sounds confusing, sorry, I don't mean it to be. What I am simply trying to say is to paint what you're good at painting.

I'm all for art education and continuing education and learning new skills and trying out new ways to paint and new materials to use.

That said, here's what I'm talking about. In my humble and somewhat limited experience, I have found that I paint best what I paint well. That is, I find I am much happier with my painting, my painting experience, and myself in general, when the painting I am working on looks good to me.

If I think, or know, I have painted a good painting, then I am happy and a happy painter.

I have found after painting hundreds of different paintings in watercolor, acrylic, and some oil, that I paint much better paintings when I paint what I paint well, which is land- and seascapes in acrylic. That doesn't mean I'll never, ever paint a cityscape in oil or a still life in watercolor, but it may mean I won't think I painted them as well as one of my acrylic land/seascapes.

(And don't hold your breath for a portrait in pastel from me either.)