Painting the Salt Lake Temple is an impressive feat. But painting it 30 times in 30 days is a massive creative challenge—and for artist Tausha Schumann, it required sacrificing sleep, preserving wet paint with a mini fridge, and drying artwork in a food dehydrator.
With the temple’s open house fast approaching, Tausha decided to undertake the project as a structured, time-bound way to portray her feelings about the temple and explore the peace this iconic building evokes.
Ultimately, the 30-day exercise grew into more than just a series of paintings. It became a significant spiritual experience, expanding how Tausha thinks about the temple, her faith, and her life beyond the canvas.
The Faith to “Paint Messy”
While raising her young family, Tausha documented the construction of the Payson Utah Temple in photographs. As her skills improved, so did the demand for her work, and she started taking pictures of different temples.
She converted her prints into handmade temple accessories, crafting pendants, pins, and tie tacks that are now sold at Deseret Book.
Although she enjoyed these projects, she felt pulled to return to another medium. “My heart was always with painting, but just being busy with so many other things, I didn’t put the time in,” she explains.
Tausha started to dabble in oil paints, using her temple photos as references, and even trying her hand at nature landscapes. She says the process of painting with oils taught her how to become more comfortable with embracing imperfection:
“I have found that painting a little messy actually takes courage or faith. You don’t have an exact pattern that you’re going to follow, but you dive in and start somewhere, and then you let the painting kind of unfold and weave together.
“Life requires those messy things, and sometimes it’s not until later when you step back and you see how they all weave together to create something really meaningful.”
Getting the Light Right
This year, Tausha had the realization that if she didn’t make time to paint consistently, it just wouldn’t happen. And when she saw other artists on social media posting videos about 30-day challenges, the idea for her temple art series was born.
“I wanted to do a series of the Salt Lake Temple because it’s special to so many people, and it’s so iconic and classic in our beliefs,” she says. “It was already in my mind, and I had this spark of realizing, ‘Oh, I could do it in 30 days. I’m going to do that.’”
To fit painting time into her schedule, Tausha began waking up several hours earlier than usual. She mapped out general concepts for seasons and color palettes in advance, which allowed her to jump into painting each morning while her mind was fresh.
The individual pieces took at least four to six hours to complete, although Tausha says it’s difficult to provide an accurate estimation given the drying, glazing, and adjustment steps. Even so, she found unique ways to speed up the process:
“I have two techniques that help save my life with this project. One is a mini fridge. If I need the painting to not dry, then I put it in the fridge and can keep reworking it with that freshness before it all dries out.
“But if I need it to dry so I can do a glaze on top, I have a food dehydrator that is just for painting so I don’t cross-contaminate. I can usually dry that first layer mostly overnight, even some thicker layers. Otherwise, I’d be waiting forever for it to dry.”
Working with the limitations of her schedule, Tausha also learned to simplify her focus. “When I’m painting these, the only thing that really matters is that I get the light right,” she says. “I can’t help but notice the parallel with that with our lives, because what really matters is the light, and Christ is the light.”
An Abundance of Awe
To capture the feeling of the Salt Lake Temple, Tausha concentrated more on shaping the landscapes and colors than copying every detail of the architecture or surrounding city.
“I usually take out all the other buildings and just leave the landscape and the temple itself,” she explains. “I find they go hand-in-hand so well because, for a lot of people, myself included, those are two places you can really find peace and calmness and can clear your mind: in nature and in the temple.”
Reflecting on the Salt Lake Temple each day deepened her appreciation for those who sacrificed their time to build it—a grueling process that took 40 years.
“One thing that keeps coming back to my mind as I’m painting is the pioneers and the early Saints who built the temple, and it is just awe-inspiring,” she says. “They did this painstaking, hands-on labor. I try and hope that some of my pieces convey that same awe and reverence.”
As the temple’s 7-year restoration project finishes up, Tausha is eager for people to get back on the grounds and experience the sacred rooms for themselves. Even after finishing her 30 paintings, her desire to share the Salt Lake Temple’s peace has only grown.
“I have been so surprised at how, once I get the ball rolling, how many ideas just start flowing to me.”
Tausha plans to revisit some of the temple images on larger canvases, creating at least five bigger versions from the series.
“I don’t feel any sense of scarcity at all,” she says of painting the temple. “Now with this project, I have an abundance. I feel like I could paint infinite amounts.”
Celebrate sacred moments
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