Why did I decide to do another 30 paintings in 30 days challenge? I asked myself that same question each day of this month.
So ok, I want to be more accountable, push myself to the studio, paint and process, and maybe get some good work out of it. Can’t say for sure that will happen (the good work part) but maybe, just maybe the Muse will stay and Mr. Resistance will stay away.
Day 1 7×10 watercolor on Arches 140b cold press paperDay 2 7×10 watercolor, Arches 300 lb hot press paperDay 3 7×10 watercolor, Arches 140b cold press paperDay 4 7×10 Watercolor, Arches 140b cold press paperDay 5 7×10 Watercolor, Arches 300b hot press paper
Five works in 10 days is an ok showing. Working small in 20 minute segments and pushing the process, maybe I can double up and meet the quota this time around.
Fingers crossed Mr. Resistance keeps his distance.
With the following mantra in my head “It’s the process. It’s the process” miraculously I beat back Mr. Resistance and pulled off this latest watercolor painting.
It wasn’t easy either.
Quite a while back I visited Clark Botanical Garden in nearby Albertson, NY and snapped a few pictures of some of the landscape gardens. A couple of those photos ended up as paintings. When I went through those a couple months ago I decided to push myself out of my artist’s block and throw some paint around.
That was it, then we left for Greece. On our return I really wasn’t interested in continuing on deep, fall colors. Geez, we just came back from the bright whites and blues of the Greek islands!
I almost ripped this off the watercolor block to toss it when my head said to just try to finish it. If I hate it afterwards, by all means, throw it out.
Process first and foremost, I pushed through. It’s a finished work at the very least.
Gathering my thoughts to best describe this special moment during our Greece visit has been difficult, the beauty in this morning alone time being one of the most beautiful in its simplicity, calm, and quietness.
Coffee in the early morning, sweet koulourakia, my book, the shady, quiet balcony, and the view. Heaven.
The words we might use to describe a place, an emotion, or a sense of being maybe comes easier to some people than others.
Writers and poets are, obviously, best at the written word. Painters and photographers are in the visual realm of these arts. And so, as the artist I had to take this photograph of my favorite place at our Greek island home.
The one word that keeps popping up in my head is, dazzling.
I know, it’s a word with sparkle, but I’m using this word to explain how the light in Greece makes everything sharp and clear, still and energetic at the same time.
The more I get involved in this blogging thing, the more it makes me bang my head against the nearest wall.
It’s so tiring when things don’t work the way things are supposed to work. These people say it’s so easy, it’s so straightforward, cut/paste/link, Ta-Da!
They lie.
I promised a fellow twitter user I’d write up a blog post about some commerce we fell into online, and wouldn’t you know, I can’t figure out how to post our posts. Twitter embed something or other, and it was not working. At least I couldn’t figure out how it could look anything like what I saw on our twitter feed.
Just copy the block and paste it in the field. Yeah. No way.
So anyway..I’ll tell you my story now that I’ve ranted.
A while ago I signed up for an About Me page and a twitter user found me through it, told me he liked my paintings, and if I had some notecards he’d buy them in a snap.
Notecards of some of my floral watercolor paintingsNotecards of my watercolor paintings with Greek inspired themes
These are some of the notecards I had available at that moment and my twitter “friend” was thrilled!
Ed Milligan of @justasked on twitter purchased 6 of my notecards. We had a really lovely exchange and he was very nice about sending me payment including shipping costs.
Now, if I could figure out how to show you the photo of the cards he bought I’d be a genius. All I can do is copy the links to our tweets, so go ahead and click to see it.
On March 25, 1821, Greece began its war of independence, to free the people from 400 years of oppression under the rule of the Ottoman Turkish government. The Turks tried to erase the people’s language, culture, history, artifacts, and Christian religion.
Sound familiar? Any relevance to present day problems? I’d say yes.
This photo of my garden has been seeing a lot of action lately. I really like the jumble of colors and shapes in this mess of flowers, leaves, stems, petals and the structure of the urn.
Latest watercolor floral painting on the desk
Already I’ve painted this scene in a quick and small watercolor in my sketchbook, as an acrylic work on a small stretched canvas, and now this one much larger at 14×20 watercolor on Arches cold press paper.
There’s just so much going on around here that painting has had to take a back seat, but in twenty minutes at a time work can get done. Looking at a colorful floral of summertime helps, too.
The Muse and Mr. Resistance had their way with me and I hope they’re done arguing about it.
Updates to the unfinished watercolor painting were completed in a timely manner, thanks to the Muse. As for Mr. Resistance, he stayed out of my way while the work went ahead, and big thanks to him for keeping his big mouth shut.
I delivered the painting to the book author, who seemed to be pleased with the work, with fingers crossed that her idea of this as the cover of her new book would work out well. However, it doesn’t look like it will, self-publishing templates being what they are I guess.
Positioning the artwork wasn’t fitting into the suggested space for the cover and is probably going to be scratched for something that works better.
Too bad it isn’t going to happen the way we had liked. When the book does finally come out I’ll let you know.
In an effort to keep the Muse nearby, and to avoid Mr. Resistance, I worked up another view of the rocky crags and sky scene of the photo from my author friend. Just a smaller version of the larger work to keep things fresh and moving ahead.
Believe me when I say that if I don’t keep at it, even for twenty lousy minutes a day, I’ll be toast.
Another version of the rocky crags photograph
It’s smaller than the other view because I was experimenting with keeping the colors, shapes and brushstrokes to a minimum. I wanted to see if I could get away with doing less by using the small size paper and a larger brush.
Never the type to paint so small it was a good exercise in discipline. I usually paint a large painting in a small space, cramming too much detail which would have been better served by a large surface.
My professors in school would say Go bigger! So going smaller is a tough one for me.
It’s a process, and I’m all about the process. In twenty minutes a day, if I’m smart about my time.
Which, if I let Mr. Resistance have his way, I’m not.
