I started the painting a day thing on March 21st last year as a thing to do for the COVID lock down. It was something to do to keep me busy and give me a bit of something to focus on.
I wondered how long I could keep at it, considering I really only started painting a few months before.
There were a number of days I didn’t get one done. For example, there was a day when I started one, and gave up on it. At that point of the day, with an abscessed tooth and a bit of codeine, I wasn’t getting anything done.
I did put some effort into making up the days I missed, particularly in the last few days. And, this morning, I did the 365th painting to mark one year of a painting a day.
Given it is a bit of a milestone, I wondered what to paint. I decided this morning to consider how this started. My first painting of the day was three of the poplars in my yard. I figured I’d go with the theme and paint some of the other poplars. So here is the one year anniversary painting of the day.
Strangely, I feel a little bit sad about a year of this. It isn’t the end, since I am not going to quit painting, or even painting every day as it comes to it. And, we all knew this was going to last some time.
I do think I’m going to expand my repertoire a bit, since I was looking at an album of Cape Breton pictures. So, be prepared for a little different scenery (not like the Yukon has a shortage of scenery). I’m already planning a few painting trips for the summer.
So, on to year 2…
Doug Rutherford 
Hey Doug, that’s a awesome accomplishment. I’ve done a couple 365 projects built on a photograph a day, but I think doing a painting a day is far more ambitious. Even keeping up with the photography was difficult so I know doing all those paintings would require some real self discipline. Anyway, congrats on getting there. Do you have plans to create an online gallery of the series? I think that I for one would enjoy seeing them.
I have thought about it.
I have started posting some on this site, as well as those I’ve posted on social media.