Mimi Torchia Boothby

What would you do if someone told you that they would give you $100 if you’d set up an easel and paint pictures outside just long enough to have it recorded forever? Well, I said yes!
I was told I had to be at 1st Street and Battery Street at 3:00 pm, so I got there at 2:00 pm and set up my easel. I was in a rather industrial section of downtown Seattle, or mostly just streets, with some appealing vistas off into the distance in two directions. So, enjoying the incredibly rare warm sun, I positioned myself looking out over Elliott Bay and started to sketch out a painting. What was I doing? EEEK…
And people walked by. I got many smiles, and a lot of encouragement, even when all I had to show was a couple of blotches of color. It’s the first plein aire I have done in a long time (plein aire means paint outside from life) even though I do a lot of sketching in my travel book, this is not the same, there’s a lot more pressure, because unlike working in a travel sketch book, you are on display for the world to see AND CRITIQUE. And critique they did! But it was all favorable.

And I’m going to do it again!