These are phase 4 and 5. I wonder if non-artists think we sit down and produce a whole painting in a day. That does happen; in fact I did one of my favorite pieces in 2 hours at 2am. I suppose someone would say I was “in the zone’. You can see the picture under Portfolio/Watercolors. It of a lighthouse. I don’t want to detract from this current project. I suspect this will be finished tomorrow.

Well actually since I started this one a few weeks ago, it’s actually 3 days worth of painting. You’ll have to look back at my other post to see what Phase 1 looke se I love watching how a piece evolves. Sometimes it’s predictable and sometimes a painting will take a turn I didn’t expect.

Well that really says it all. I’m done with this one. I will look at it about a month from now and see If I think I can improve it by tweaking it. I just shouldn’t have used such cheap paper. Tomorrow it will be back to some easy things to finish out the monthly challenge. I have one or two or three pieces I have to work on for holiday presents. The original photo is below the painting.

Okay so I took a few days off from my daily painting challenge. Since there were a couple of days where I did 3 paintings a day I decided I was allowed. After painting every day for two weeks I actually missed it when I didn’t.

However, this was a hard one! I only worked on the water and the pads again. There are certain things that were particularly difficult to capture. On the right side the middle pad has a puddle of water in its center and I couldn’t quite get it. I’m afraid I’ve now lost the “freshness” that I had at the start. I will continue. I believe I shall be able to finish it tomorrow by finalizing the star, the Lily itself.

I was pretty tired when I got home from one of my favorite art events : CoRK Open Studios. It’s always very inspiring and I love finding excellent art – especially by younger artists that I hadn’t met yet. I also invariably get into some very very interesting conversations. After a day full of high energy, I wasn’t sure I could manage much painting. Once I got started, though I enjoyed myself and stuck with it for a couple of hours

Layer by layer it’s coming along. I expect this one will take about 2 more days maybe 3. I’m liking it, so I definitely don’t want to rush it. I worked on the greens mostly. A lot of people think it is one of the hardest color to work with. I feel comfortable with it, myself. I just make sure not to use any of them straight out of the tube. I always add some for of red, yellow or blue.

Layer by layer it’s coming along. Some art takes more time than others. Actually, I guess I should say more immediate time than others, because it all takes the time it takes for you to have learned all the skills, elements, principles, tips and tricks involved. I’ve been learning since I was a child of 6 or so. Some of the abstracts I’ve done recently have taken me between and 45 minutes to hour and a half. This first one has taken me 3 days, so far. The next one, the Bird of Paradise will probably take me as long.

Yes, I said the challenge was to do a painting a day. However, the real goal is just to paint every day. I’ve decided to take my time with this one. It’s from a photo that I wanted to paint as soon as I took it several years ago. So it will be one step at a time. Tomorrow will be the greens. After that looking at it closely and making sure the values are right and that the other elements are woking well together.

Today I decided I wanted to actually draw the subject I was going to paint. Sadly, I am very very bad about drawing on a regular basis. Next month that will be my challenge to myself. It took me hours to draw this and it still isn’t exactly like the photo I took, but it’s close enough that I don’t think my mistakes will haunt me as I paint it. That can be the case, though if you don’t get it right. It bites you in the butt when you try to paint it.

So it was a mostly good day, though one piece did not turn out as well as I had hoped. I use to be really good at feet. I’ve lost my touch. Just another reminder that I should draw more. The other piece unexpectedly WOWed! me. It’s not the least like my reference which you will see. I like the flow of it. As I talked about yesterday it’s been exciting me being very aware of how many decisions I make as an artists. This particular painting had a decision to be made with every brush stroke. Especially since I started the piece changing where the center of interest was. Well actually, I started by taking a picture of my backyard at night, then manipulated it with the “cut out” filter Photo Shop Elements.

Sometimes you can feel good just because you’re productive. And you should. As an artist, so long as you’re working you are learning and improving. I learned different ways to hold my brushes today. The thing that I kept thinking about was how wonderful it was to be an artist. I could make all sorts of creative decisions from start to finish. Now in this case I may have made some bad decisions. The trick will be figuring out what, where and when. That’s actually often the case if you have a less than successful piece. The first question to ask though, is “Why”. Why doesn’t the piece work? Is it only because you had different expectations? Is it one or several of the elements and principles that isn’t working? Then you can track down where and when. Today I completed two and got half way done with a third. I suspect the third will turn out better than the others. Maybe I’m just tired of abstracts. You might notice the composition in the last two is similar. I’ll go into more depth about that later. There will also be more in depth on the first one and it’s “mates”.