These are the latest paintings from my self imposed challenge of a painting a day for a month. Actually, I owe the month one painting.

I only managed one and didn’t even finish that. It needs work on the eyes and the background. Once again, I had some volunteer work to do before getting started painting.

I finished the two from yesterday. They almost kicked my butt. Before I did that I did a little commission for a friend. Next up something simpler than the last two Xmas cards. Naturally as I’m loading these I see little tweaks that need to be made. Good thing I have until Christmas to do them.

I didn’t finish my painting today. But I started two! I’m posting Phase 1 and 2 of each. I took license with a friend of mine’s photo from Rockefeller Square for the first. The other is from a photo of mine.

I wish I’d remembered that I planned to paint individual Xmas cards for friends and family this year when I started my 30 in 30 challenge. I’d be almost done with the cards by now. So here’s the first of many. It’s actually based on a digital Xmas card I made years ago. I’ve been making my own cards for 45 years. oops! I just noticed I forgot the carrot. When I send it out, it will be there, along with some real shells.

Phew. I had a busy day. I can’t stand it when I can’t find something in the studio. Today it was a painting I recently took off the wall because it was accepted into a show. I wanted to make sure it was properly framed. I looked for it all over the house! It was only a day or two ago. How could it go missing? Well I finally found it exactly where it should have been. Just tucked so far up the behind of another framed piece I didn’t see it. My studio looks a mess, but it’s actually very organized. After the mystery was solved I sat down to paint. And here’s 21:

These two pieces are like night and day. Mostly they show you what happens when you set aside a sufficient amount of time and what happens when you don’t. Also, I was just more inclined to paint yesterday than today, because of all the domestic stuff I had to do today. Certainly the second one leaves some thing to be desired. I actually plan on redoing this one in a more mature manner. I have to, because I love the title I came up for it : “My Inner Kitten”.

Since I didn’t actually paint yesterday, I did two today. Two very different pieces. The Window Sill is a painting from a photo I took in my 20s. I’ve wanted to paint it for 40 years! For some reason I went into an Urban Sketching mode and did do very good at it. I’m hoping to participate in our local Sketcher group in the months to come and perhaps I will improve. The other is from one of my favorite places on the planet. There are perhaps 3 people who would know instantly where. Well 3 people that know me who would know where. There might be others that I don’t personally know, that would recognize the place.

I painted a large piece on Thursday. This one may end up getting cropped a lot. There’s a tiny bit that still needs to be done (there are dew beads that need detailing). I actually erased a lot on this one (good thing it was on really good paper). The paper is not one I care for much. Fabriano Artistico has some wonderful qualities. Erasing is actually very difficult because the paper sucks the pigment in and keeps it. There is no such thing as staining pigments – EVERY pigment is staining. I like some of the accidents that happened in this one and will purposely use them in future paintings.

Fridays work was a bit unusual for me. I rarely include any figures or humans in my watercolors. I do like the perspective the figure gives to this piece. The Caribbean waters are one of my favorite things to paint.

One of those days I also made my 4th attempt at a mono print. This time I used the Createx printing inks. They are water based like the other inks I’ve been using. I didn’t enjoy working with them and they didn’t seem to cover the plate as well. Then again, I’ve had them sitting in a drawer for several years. Next time I’m going to try my oil based inks.

I rarely make long posts. I’ve been a busy bee. I was out of town for a couple of days but still kept up with the challenge except for one day. To make up for it I did two pieces on one day. Today I actually did about 4 pieces. I’m going to break this down bit by bit.

Last Thursday I did two pieces that weren’t paintings. Other mediums can definitely influence your painting both in quality and style. You can learn from any creative endeavors. My semi-e group contracted Kimonos instead of painting them.

The next day I did got back to painting. I took a photo of the Grand Canyon many many moons ago. I’ve always wanted to paint it. I started off with the tree a dark green, because that was what was in the photo. But given the limited palette of the rest of the photo, it just didn’t look right. So I made it more of a silhouette and used a dark blue. It makes for a much more cohesive painting.

I went away for a long weekend but took my paints and brushes with me so I could keep up with my “Painting” a day challenge. The left was kinda of an urban sketch with watercolor. The right is a landscape that I already painted once but in water soluble oils. I like the water color better.

Yesterday I must have been in an odd state of mind. The two paintings once again illustrate that just because you have a photograph in front of you doesn’t mean you have to follow it to the T. I love the title I decided on for the pears. “Leaning Toward Love”.

Sadly my latest efforts were awful. Failure teaches us though, in many ways. Today I was attempting to revisit a technique that I loved back in my college days. What I learned was that I need to do some research to refresh my memory. I was attempting to do some landscape mono prints. At first I tried using acrylics on my plate, because I don’t have the etching inks I used in college. Then I tried using water soluble oils. They are closer to the inks. In the meantime I remembered that I would wet printing paper before pulling the print. Those two changes helped a bit, but it still didn’t work.

Even though I’d done the above, I decided to go back to a piece I started in January. I just wasn’t happy with it. Even though I feel it’s a better painting, I’m still not happy with it. So more work some day.