If you followed my paintings in 2025, you likely noticed “what” I painted varied quite a bit throughout the year. Some of my paintings were deliberate and planned, sometimes months in advance, while others were spur of the moment paintings that were a direct result of something I observed that I just had to paint as soon as I possible could. This resulted in a set of paintings for 2025 that portrayed everything from flowers to mountains, trains and trucks, the sun in various stages of the day (and various locations) and a variety of seasons. It turned into an interesting mix to say the least.
One of my goals for 2025 was to explore larger formats. Most of my paintings prior to 2025 were not larger than 9×12 inches and I wanted to move beyond that size. I wanted to see how the detail work I love to include in my paintings would translate to larger formats, and I also wanted to see how gouache paint would perform on a larger scale.
As I reflect on what I ended up painting, I think it’s fair to say that I mostly met these goals. Although I only ended up painting a couple of larger paintings, both turned out great and I found that the detail work I love really makes larger paintings shine. Of course, a side effect of exploring larger formats is that painting them to the level that I like takes a lot more effort and time. When you combine size with a focus on intricate details, the reality is that it just takes longer to paint each painting. In the end, I ended up with about a dozen new paintings in various sizes, and a variety of smaller sketches and other fun projects.
A Special Thank You
Before we get into a brief overview of the paintings themselves, I want to touch on the paintings from 2025 and prior years that found new homes. Five of the twelve paintings I completed this year have found new homes. That’s almost half! Some sold within days of sharing about them online, one before(!) it was even finished. An additional two paintings from prior years also sold. I’m grateful to these collectors that connected with something in these paintings and felt it was worth their time and money to provide a new home for them. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!
Reviewing the Paintings
Let’s start with a brief look at the paintings of 2025. The first two paintings of 2025 focused on the sun. “Sunny Winter Trails” captures the sun as seen from a local ski trail during the middle of the day, barely above the local mountains, while “Twilight at the Fairgrounds” portrays the setting sun with the fairgrounds in the foreground.
“Silent Solitude” features East Twin Peak and was my first larger painting of the year at 11×17 inches. The reason I picked this particular scene for this painting was partially because I love the silent majesty of this peak when seen by itself, but I had a feeling that the details could really shine on a larger size. I think they do.
“Knik River Crossing” features an Alaska Railroad train crossing a partially frozen Knik River with the Chugach Mountains in the background. It was followed by “Wings of Deliverance” that features the Super Scoopers that often make their way to Alaska during the summer wildfire seasons. They’re often stationed at the Palmer airport and I’ve always been fascinated by the machines themselves and the men that operate them.
During the summer months, I switched gears to more of a floral theme. “Old Flower Truck” features an old truck that now serves as a sign post for a local flower farm. This painting in particular was very heavy on details and textures, but I love how it turned out. Then, “Delightful Dahlia” features one of the flowers found on this same farm, followed by “Himalayan Poppy” and “Sunflower Blooms” from our own yard.
“First Snow” kicked off the fall and winter painting season. It features our first snowfall as captured on an early Monday morning.
After this one, I started working on a Christmas-themed painting. For 2025, it features the “Glenn Highway Christmas Tree”, seen every holiday season by the Old Glenn Highway exit by the Knik River bridges. It was an attempt to capture a well-known scene from a different angle while still keeping it recognizable.
“Texas Twilight” was the last painting of 2025 and also the only painting featuring scenery from outside of Alaska. During our travels to Texas over the last few, I’ve had the opportunity to witness some amazing sunsets. I’ve been wanting to paint these since I saw them the first time.
Some other projects were also started in 2025 but due to time, they had to be put on hold until 2026. Expect to see them in the next month or so.
Then There Was Small Art
When traveling, especially for longer periods, it’s always a bit more challenging to paint. During our Christmas travels this year, I brought a new travel kit with me and a set of square watercolor tiles perfect for traveling on the go. During the weeks of Christmas, I ended up painting several smaller Christmas-themed watercolor paintings. I have some ideas for how to use these next Christmas that I’ll share more about as we get closer. Expect to see more of these smaller-format paintings in 2026, likely capturing moments from throughout the year.
And Christmas Ornaments
Although I didn’t have time to paint many new ornaments this year, a returning customer had an idea of a Christmas ornament featuring the Palmer water tower with Matanuska Peak and Northern Lights in the background. After painting a couple of sketches, I ended up painting a limited edition of six of these ornaments for 2025. More of these to come in 2026! And, for those looking for your own, I do have a few of these left in the store.
Product News
On the product side, original art, art prints, cards and other paper products continue to be my main focus, as I can produce these myself as needed. In late 2025, I experimented with note cards (slightly smaller than greeting cards) and I found that producing these smaller cards is more practical for me and also a more efficient use of my resources. Both will continue to be available going forward but I think I’ll primarily shift to note cards for new paintings in 2026.
I’ve also explored post cards based on my paintings and although I haven’t had these for sale on my website at the moment, the Palmer Museum of History & Art sells a selection of these in their store. I plan on offering these hereon my website and Etsy in the future as well.
Stickers is another area that I started exploring in 2025. It turns out my paintings, or parts of paintings (such as flowers, the water tower), work really well as stickers, so I expect to explore these further in 2025.
Some plans didn’t quite work out as expected. I had hoped to be able to produce ceramic Christmas ornaments on demand for the Christmas shopping season, but the print-on-demand providers I looked at failed miserably at reproducing my artwork in that format. I’ll have to see if I can produce them in a different format for next year.
Plans for 2026
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m never short on ideas for paintings, nor reference photos. I have a variety of ideas I’ll be evaluating over the next few weeks as I finish up my current work in progress. There will be more landscape paintings (naturally), and there’s one in particular that I intend to return to for a third time. Then, there are several flowers I’d like to paint and together with flower paintings from prior years, these will form a good foundation for a floral note card pack.
I’m also actively exploring how to get my art onto more products without having to stock them all. As I mentioned above, my experiment with ceramic Christmas ornaments was a bit of a bust, but there are a variety of other products my art would look great on. Canvas prints is one of my priorities, as well as prints in sizes larger than I can print on my own. It’s all a matter of finding a quality solution that can also be easily integrated with my website and with Etsy.
I also hope to make it back to the Palmer Museum this summer (assuming they do their summer artist showcase) and at least one other location is already set for the month of May.
Which brings me to commissions: I’m starting 2026 with a commissioned project that I expect will keep my busy on and off for a couple of months. If you’re interested in getting your favorite landscape scene painted just for you, don’t hesitate to reach out through the Commissions page right here on this website.
With that said, I’m excited for 2026 and can’t wait to see what happens this year!
