What is Possible?

Friday, May 1, 2026

Dear Art Audience,

I write to you today from Seattle, Washington, my home city, on a gorgeous atmospheric warm spring Friday afternoon. I’ve just worked out, and am about to bike next to Gasworks Park, likely to draw Canada geese, some of my favorite plein air subjects / models. Don’t begrudge the geese for their mean reputation (well-earned). If you’re calm, they’ll take your lead, even with their goslings about, and they will approach you without fear or meanness, nibbling grass, pooping, moving on.

Lately, my lived reality has taken on a dreamlike quality, and my dreams at night have grown so plausible, I wonder if I can really fly. Metaphorically, sure! While awake, I still need the airplane around me to do so.

This Sunday I’ll fly (back!) to the UK for the opening of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Open Exhibition. The invitation to show work there, at the Mall Galleries in London, has shaped the trajectory of the last 8 months in unfathomable ways, but primarily - it was the push I needed to challenge myself to dream of what I could make that would be worthy of the venue - as when the invite generously arrived, I felt that I had no single piece to show that was an adequate reflection of what I believed was possible in portrait painting. Something large, in watercolor, came to mind. I looked at the size limit in the exhibition prospectus - 2.5 meters by 2.5 meters, at most, in frame. This was even larger than the 40 x 100 inch diptych I’d created at Plein Air Easton 2025, winning “Best Use of Light”.

I’d made studio watercolor portrait pieces, full figure, both nude and clothed, with no drawing and no gouache (the white is the white of the paper) but only up to 30 x 42”.

I have found no precedent for life-size, full-figure watercolor portraiture from life (but would love to see some - feel free to share such work with me), but I had a feeling, if 30 x 42” portrait work is possible, and 40 x 100” plein air landscape watercolor is possible, why not 52 x 72” full-length portrait watercolor from life? Just because you’re not aware of something being done before, and you, personally, haven’t done it before doesn’t mean it’s “impossible”. It might be, instead, possible. Find out. So, with 4 months of planning and setup, 2 weeks with the model, 3 days of painting on the final piece (3, 6, and 6 hours each day for a total of 15 hours), Tessa posed and I painted and at the intersection of those activities, into the world, “Tessa, Reading”.

“Tessa, Reading” is one of 6 watercolor pieces of 208 total works in the RP Exhibition, the largest piece in the show, and my best work to date. It is my third attempt at the piece, as the first two tries were failures due to mistakes. It’s watercolor - all marks made are seen, like a sumi ink painting, but in full color.

I am so grateful to Tessa for modeling (and believing I could do it even after the challenge of the first two attempts failing!), to Anthony for the invitation to be part of the exhibit, and for the belief in me and my work that the invitation demonstrates. A special thanks to Tessa’s family for providing the farm retreat house as studio, and to friend and artist Maxwell Forrest Roath for saying “treat it like a plein air landscape, but the figure”. I’d go into detail about the process of making it - another time. Feel free to ask me, though.

What else might be possible? I am not naturally a very creative, big-dreaming, optimistic and grateful person. My regressed state is moody… so I train myself to gratitude, to creativity, to big dreams. I expect nothing and welcome everything. Among other fantastic, phenomenal resources brought to my attention by my friend, musician, health-world podcaster (long before everyone had a pod - a true OG on Mt. Podmore!) Abel James of the Abel James Show is the work and book of Jim Murphy. His book, “Inner Excellence”, has been a gem, a faithful spiritual road map to health and gratitude this year and last. I’ve just bought another copy today, having left mine on a flight a few months ago with only a chapter or two remaining. I am so happy and curious to dig into the last few pages. Abel’s most recent guest was Dr. Srini Pillay,

whose interview I listened to on the brink of this week’s plein air event, the Maryhill Museum of Art’s Pacific Northwest Plein Air. On the episode, among many brilliant and magical ideas was a question - what are three new possibilities for you, this week? I’ll admit, even coming up with three was a challenge. The most paintings I’d ever made in a single day was 31. So, I thought, is 40 possible? Why not try? On Tuesday of this week, with Wednesday being my final painting day for the PNW Plein Air Event, I taped down 40 pieces of paper of various (mostly small, 3 x 4”) sizes and set out up the slopes of Mt. Hood from Timberline Lodge. I got to complete 18 before sub-freezing weather turned the color on my palette to frozen slush, the pigment in ice crystal form skipping off the watercolor paper. I had mixed in vodka to the water, but it was’t enough to act as antifreeze, and I was all out.

As I packed up, I reflected on the failure. The 18 works I had completed were good. I would try again Wednesday, this time trying for 33 small works first, saving the larger (13 x 19”) works for the final 7 pieces. A bluebird day meant warmer temperatures, and I successfully completed 40 works from 2pm to 7:45pm.

Painting isn’t all about numbers, dimensions, prices. I spent $9,200.16 just to frame ‘Tessa, Reading”, and I did so gladly, taking the woefully insufficient insurance payout from my car accident (in which I, luckily, somehow, did not die!) and reinvesting it into my art. You can read about that accident, here:

After the RP show ends on the 21st, I still have no idea what to do with the 52 x 72” framed work if it does not sell. And yet, sometime this week, painting away on the mountainside, or eating shepherds pie from the Ram’s Head Bar at Timberline Lodge so good I almost cried, all and any of my concern about the show melted away. I have total trust and faith that a solution will deliver itself, at exactly the right time. Nothing about my life is different now that I know 40 paintings in an afternoon is possible. It’s exciting to try new things, to challenge myself, to run the experiment, to find out what is possible by trying. If 40 is assured, what about 100? It was truly enjoyable, 33 small works down, to let the final 7 works flow from almost beyond myself, most of the barriers between me and perception of the light on the mountain discarded, just as the light at the end of the day began to turn stunningly chromatic. Of the 6 works I was allowed to enter in the Maryhill show, opening tomorrow, (today, Saturday) 4 of those pieces were from numbers 34 to 40. Working like this isn’t a stunt - it is an experiment based on my observation that some of my absolute best plein air work comes at the end of big days of painting, my vision maximally warmed up, my subject saturating my consciousness, my reservations gone. Simply put - I don’t give a shit - what’s one (or seven) more painting(s)?

For fun, here is a video made about the Maryhill event by Monique Trevett - Monique - thank you for this! You can learn more about her work on her site, here.

The 6 works at Maryhill will be up until May 25, available for sale. I’ll list whatever doesn’t sell as well as the other 59 works after I’m back from Europe at the end of May. I’m off to enjoy the day and meet a friend to paint outside!

Thank you for your interest in and attention to my art.

David Orrin Smith

Saturday Addendum: Rather than venture to Gasworks, I met with friend and painter Paul Rosiak on the Lake Union roof deck of my family’s place to paint together as the sun went down. We surprised ourselves and painted all afternoon, evening, into the night, almost till 10pm! Paul worked on many small oils and I grappled with 8 small to medium size strips of paper, both of us transfixed by the glowing peachy violet hues from a very glamorous sunset, complete with a scattering of rain (that hit me but spared Paul who was 12 feet away). I’ll list that work soon too, but as many of my clients know, you never have to “wait” for a piece to be listed to buy it - you can just reach out directly to me, david@DavidOSmithArtist.com or +1 (206) 992 - 1230 and we’ll go from there.