Katie Broussard

And that’s the end of January! Here are the last paintings of the month…

#15: Hardwood swamp forest in January

Painting along the boardwalk in one of my favorite parks– the cypress trees are starting to get new leaves, and there’s even some red foliage.

#16: Lettuce Lake reflections

Lettuce “Lake” is actually part of the Hillsborough River. The boardwalk is so great for birdwatching, and the water was so calm the other day– you could see a clear reflection of the bottom of the boardwalk.

#17: peach double hibiscus blossoms

My mom got me a beautiful double hibiscus bush last week, and the blossoms and foliage are so beautiful! It’s full of flower buds, so I predict there will be a lot more blooms in the coming weeks… I’ve been watering the hibiscus most days, which gave me the idea to incorporate the hose into the painting.

As my January painting challenge draws to a close, I’m glad that I made the time to paint almost every day! I didn’t expect to spend multiple days on one painting, but some of them worked out that way. The more I painted, the more ideas I had, and almost every painting has an element that I’d like to come back to and develop further. I’m going to submit a few paintings to the Tampa Regional Artists show, and I think the paintings from my challenge will be the seeds of the ideas that I develop into paintings to submit for the show. I’d love to try a larger citrus still life, come back to the boardwalk reflections at Lettuce Lake, and paint more of those delicious hibiscus flowers– I’m hoping to work on all three of those ideas during February. I’ll keep you posted on my progress!