Thoughts on Six Weeks Completed

What a relief, six weeks of daily painting completed.  It is a great feeling to set a goal and then achieve it.  I am going to enjoy that feeling for a moment.  Ahhh.

Daily painting has been an amazingly positive experience.  It has been an exercise in discipline; it forced me to make making art a priority in my routine.  It developed my thinking as a painter; now I see things differently, like in brushstrokes or shades of light and dark.  Also, I learned how to paint without the freedom to make and leave a big mess,  to share the creative process with people who felt like picking up a paintbrush with me and to tackle subject matter which I had avoided out of fear of failure.

Now I can look forward to painting without the artificial constraints I placed on myself through this project but with all that I gained from my summer of daily painting.

Week6 Day7

Week6 Day6

Tonight in oil

Last week in pastel

Week6 Day5

 

                  

     

Playing with faces - a new experience for me.

Week6 Day4

Painting Helpers

Aaliyah working

Aaliyah and Matt's work

Matt working

My niece Aaliyah (age 8) and nephew Matthius (age 6) worked at the table with me this morning while I painted  today's piece.

Week6 Day3

Week6 Day2

Week6 Day1

Thoughts after five weeks

Still amazed at my production, I am getting a little bored with my narrow parameters and looking forward to taking more time and approaching more complex subject matter and composition when I am done with this project.  For a change and after asking permission, I sketched some children at play on the beach in anticipation of painting a few.  That will test my feel for figure painting.    Daily painting is still an effective exercise, allowing me to try new things with a sense of playing with less emphasis on the outcome. Confession time:  I haven't totally let go of outcome - I have painted over a few rejects and thrown away a few too.

Week5 Day7

Week5 Day6

Week5 Day5

Third attempt; still trying to capture the wetlands lining the bay.

Week5 Day4

Week5 Day3

I have been playing with watercolors without much success-
until now.  This is my first watercolor post.  By the way, if you decide to paint a landmark, it better be accurate.  I hope I did "Ole Barney"  justice.

Week5 Day2

Week5 Day1

Four Weeks Complete

I am amazed at my productivity.  Stacked up next to my dresser are 28 paintings.  That is quite a pile.  Working in acrylic has been interesting.  It dries so much faster, I had to get into it.  (There isn't much room here to have oils sitting around taking a week or more to dry.)  But the acrylic paint doesn't always do what I want it to do.  The ocean comes out much better when I am working in oil.  Speaking of ocean; I had been afraid of painting ocean. Last summer, I made many unsuccessful attempts.  This daily work has gotten me past this fear to some fairly satisfying results.  

Truly, some days it feel like a chore, but overall, the exersize of daily painting is advancing my work.

Week4 Day7

Week4 Day6

                                 This is the second in a series of beach entrances along Long Beach Township, NJ.  I may do a few as there are may variations.

Week4 Day5

Week4 Day4

Week4 Day3

Week4 Day2

Week4 Day1

Three Weeks Complete - Half way there

Matt's watercolor

Michael's pastel

By working as an artist I feel more like an artist.  Daily painting is immersion; I think about art and painting everyday, I look at things with more of an artist's eye and then I work.   I met two artists this week who both happen to live one block over; Jim is an abstract painter from Brooklyn who spends the summer here painting in a shed studio in his back yard.  His children are younger but still old enough that he can spend hours at a time painting compared to the 20 minutes here and there he could squeeze in when they needed him more.  Barb paints still life in oil but paints less in NJ and more while wintering in FL.  She actually goes to the Pine Shores Art Association for open studio and classes, something I have considered but haven't done yet.  Take a look at http://pineshoresartassociation.org.  We may paint together before the summer ends.  I also made art with Michael and Matt around the dining room table last night.  It was a lovely, calm way to be together creating and passing the time.  Matt works in collage so picking up a paintbrush was a pleasant diversion.  Maybe you will see bits of his painting in his next collage.

Week3 Day7

Week3 Day6

I was out riding my bike around 8:30 pm along Beach Avenue.  When I happened to look west I saw the most glorious sunset.  I immediately headed for the bay to see, but had to pedal to get an unobstructed view.  As it got darker I turned back east just in time to see the moon rise out of a cloud bank over the ocean.  This is what you get on an island.

Week3 Day5

Week3 Day4

Week3 Day3

Week3 Day2

Week3 Day1

Thoughts after two weeks

This week has been very emotional as I battle with dissatisfaction and even embarrassment.  Painting has become an essential part of my day and I am staying faithful to posting but the limitations of daily painting are getting to me.  At home in my studio, I will paint something then look at it for days in order to problem solve and find a way to finish.  Here I do not have that luxury.  So I finish before I am really finished just to meet my goal.  This may not be the same way I would finish if I took an entire week or longer to complete a work.  But finish I must.

Thank you to those keeping up with my posts and those who have commented.  I really appreciate your encouragement.

Week2 Day7

                                                                  ... and once again.

Week2 Day6

Tried it again.

Week2 Day5

Week 2 Day 4

Day3

Day2

WeekTwo/Day1

Thoughts after one week

This project is harder than I thought but not the painting part.  Except for the constant mess, it has been fun to work everyday.   The problem is that this project is both less and more than I expected.  Less because I am restricting myself to smaller work in order to get a finished product to post.  Small feels a bit limiting. More because I am coming up against my insecurities having to post what I did each day.  I have found myself wrangling for an out if I don't like my results.  What if I paint 2 of the same thing and post the better.  What if I keep several works in progress to post as needed if I don't like my daily?  Is this cheating?  I set the goal without making rules and now I wonder what are the rules.  Do I need rules?

After one week I have 7 posts as per goal.  I also have 2 works in progress, a gift and several trading cards which I am stockpiling for a September event.  I am painting more than ever and I am still looking forward to it each day.  If my goal is to produce, I am producing.  But after such a cavalier start, I am thinking of rethinking my goal.

Day7

Day6

Day5

Day4

Day3

This is similar to yesterday's painting but larger in size.

Week one/day two

Week one/day one