3/29/2026 - All the paintings that never got made

Hello friends,

Since my last update, I have learned more about how Apple Photos is set up and how to use it, and I decided it would be a great solution for me. So I have begun the task of importing all of my photos and grouping them into albums and folders. It is a large project and will probably take me several months of working on it little by little. One thing that I really like is the ability to add a photo into more than one album. This will be very useful when organizing my botanical references, especially when I am torn between two categories.

As I have been reviewing my photos, I realized that there were many subjects that I felt very inspired to paint at the time, but held off on because I didn’t feel capable of capturing them the way I wanted to. In some cases, I even remember thinking that I would have to revisit them once my skills improved. The end result of this was that many of the things I wanted to capture the most, never got painted, unfortunately. This same concept also applies to other aspects of my creative life, from unused art supplies or sewing projects that I thought about but never actually started.

Now that I have realized this error in thinking, I will be addressing it by working from new material as I gather it. I was reminded of this article describing how crucial it is to act quickly and not lose momentum. Reserving these images for later just ended up allowing me to forget about them all together and lose whatever inspiration I had at the time.

Above is a new painting I made on Procreate of a pink waterlily that I photographed at a local plant nursery. I made it in a similar way to how I would have painted it on paper, by painting each individual petal on its own layer until the flower was complete.

“Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.” - Zeno

Some links for you:

I love watching “How it’s made” style videos, especially when it is a product that I like myself. This video of some special Japanese notebooks is very asmr.

A book I’d like to read (How to Live an Artful Life).

Until next time,