Kill Yourself. It's worth it.

What in the world am I saying? Of course, I don’t mean it literally. What I really mean is: “Get involved in an outdoor painting event that lasts a week and a half; paint  in 100 degree heat every day for at least 6 hours, finish a minimum of 6 paintings and drive 100 miles a day to do it.” Such was my challenge, along with my dear friend, Seven Nielsen, and dozens of other amazing artists who painted at the Wasatch Plein Air Paradise event in Midway, Utah, June 30-July 4. We toughed out the hottest weather in record. We were dirty, hot, hungry, thirsty. I don’t know about Seven, but each night when I went home I was totally exhausted. In the end? We sold paintings and made friends and learned a lot about ourselves. Mainly, how really dedicated we could be to finishing a painting no matter what—in spite of stickers and brambles and blowing dirt, ugly heat, collapsing easels, brushes spilled into the sand, ant hills underneath our chairs, and did I say unrelenting heat? But even more, how much fun we could have joking and laughing at all of our bumbling around and how wonderful it was to become hypnotized for hours by the sheer joy of painting. Yes. Sometimes we felt like we were killing ourselves. And, yes, it was worth it!