I complained over lunch that my new year’s resolution was to paint at least one painting per month and it was January 31st and I didn’t have a painting. My friend asked, “what if you painted a single dot? You have time today for that.” I agreed to do that, but then instantly started expanding my scope. “I want to paint fruit, but then I have to arrange the still life.” “What if you painted a single fruit?” “Ok, I can paint a mandarin, because I have some at home. But mandarins are actually hard because the only color difference comes from value changes.” “Ok, what if you painted a flat mandarin with no values?” “So an orange circle?” “Yes, an orange circle.”

Here is my orange circle, which I will put near my desk as a reminder that I don’t need to be ambitious to make art.

The orange circle wasn’t simple. I still had to overcome the hurdle of getting started. If I were painting regularly, this wouldn’t be an issue, but since I haven’t been I have dried paint on my palette and cat fur on everything. There were still decisions to make, such as what size and color the background should be. I freehanded the circle, which took steadiness, and I had to mix an orange that was opaque enough to cover the black. I learned things about building texture and about obscuring texture. I learned not to use washi tape on that mixed media paper or it will rip. There is depth in every project.