Floral No 269
Before revising
I liked this painting, but I wanted to like it more, so I revised it.
After
finished painting by © Katherine Jeanne Wood
Available for purchase here
Daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 216
Linking to PPF
Revised floral painting No 113 – Daily Painting day 191
BEFORE
This one didn’t need a lot of revising, imo, but it did need some. I like it much better now that the flower doesn’t blend so much into the background.
AFTER
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 191
Available here
Prints are available here
And just like that..another month has ended, and a new one has begun. January was my favorite month of daily painting by far. I was able to record a bunch of videos, and get my youtube channel going again. Really happy about that because it’s been sitting there neglected for six months.
I also was able to find a nice groove doing the 365 day project, finally. I didn’t realize how much I was struggling with it until I wasn’t anymore. I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders when I started going with the natural organic flow of the day, every day, rather than having a rigid theme to follow. I’m so much happier now.
Your life is the manifestation of your dream;
it is an art.
You can change your life anytime if
you aren’t enjoying the dream.
– don Miguel Ruiz
So, no theme, no pressure to finish a painting daily, and no daily blogging are my new “rules” for the remainder of the 365 day project. I work best when I don’t box myself in like that.
So, here’s to month 7 of painting daily, which is magically spread out before me. This month I hope to get some more paintings revised, and perhaps give my art journal some attention. Nothing crazy. I’m pacing myself because I have 5 more months to go before I get a day off.
What do you hope to accomplish during this short winter month in your studio? Let me know in the comments below.
Linking to PPF.
Nonlinear fashion – Day 169 of painting daily
Side note: If you could see the rest of my house, you would know what a clean freak, germaphobic (Did you wash your hands???!!), minimalist I am, but there’s no way you’d get that impression looking at my studio work tables. lol
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that I normally (when I’m not doing the 365 daily painting project) work in a nonlinear fashion, and I work on several paintings at the same time. By “several” I mean I have anywhere from 5 to 30+ paintings in various stages of completion that I’m working on. I know that probably sounds extreme to some of you, but I love the chaos of it all. If I’m painting only one painting I’m bored to tears. Might as well not bother even showing up because there’s nothing worse than sitting around watching paint dry. lol
Unless I’m working with a client/company, and/or there’s a deadline looming, whatever strikes my fancy the most is what I’ll work on. I go with my gut, and it’s a split second decision. Sometimes nothing appeals to me, so I’ll go dig out my art journal and work on a blank page instead. I go with the flow..whatever that might be for that moment. I’m telling you all this because I can’t guarantee when you’ll see the revised painting I started yesterday again. Might be tomorrow or sometime next month. I have no idea. I will finish it eventually, trust.
So, pictured above is another painting I’ve been working on revising. I thought I had it finished, and had stuck it behind my studio door. I found it this morning, and looking at it with fresh eyes, I immediately thought NOPE!! Most definitely NOT finished. Back to the work table it landed with a big thud.
I like to make my own collage paper, and since I’m into stripes right now (and always, you’ll see stripes in many of my paintings if you look hard enough), that’s what I did here.
It looked good on paper, but I wasn’t feeling the teal as much when I got it down on the canvas. So, I had to layer over it..
Work in progress
Floral No 149
20×16 on canvas
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 169
And here’s where it ended for today. Time to let this dry, and move on. I’ll let you know when I pick back up again with this painting.
Letting go – Daily Painting day 168
If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.
Ajahn Chah
New theme started on January 1st, and I’m happy to finally tell you the details. Instead of picking a specific subject to paint, forcing myself to complete a painting a day or painting for x amount of minutes, I’ve decided to set myself free, and not have a theme at all.
I’ve been doing monthly themes now since I started the 365 day project back in July. I’m ready for a break. It’s possible that I might want or need that kind of structure/discipline again sometime down the road, and if I do, I’ll reconsider. For now, it’s overwhelming enough knowing that I’ve locked myself into painting every day for 365 days, I don’t need more rules, restrictions, regulations, and/or challenges on top of that.
I’m ready to go a bit easier on myself, and just start winging it without any preconceived expectations. Whatever’s going on in my studio will be blog fodder for that day. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t show you the custom or contractual work I do, but I can show you lots of other things. Sooo, let’s get started.
Since it’s a new year, I’ve been going through my inventory, and pulling paintings I don’t like to revise them. I started with the blue floral painting you see above – Floral No 279. It’s a 12×9 inch panel. I liked the flowers, sorta, but the problems I saw: it was too dark, the vase was too thin and set back too far. It had to go. This is what I did to revise it..
Meh. Still didn’t like it, but I wasn’t sure what I could do to make it better. It’s been kicking around on my work table now for a week or more. Today I looked at it, and something finally clicked. I thought, the flowers have to go. No wonder I don’t like it, this painting wasn’t meant to be a floral. So, I turned it into this abstract…
Work in progress
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 168
I’m starting to warm up to it, in a small way. It’s not finished yet, so I’ll keep working on. The real fun part? I’m recording the process on my iPhone, and I’ll be uploading it to my poor, neglected youtube channel. It’s been 6 months since I uploaded a video. I plan on changing that this month.
A sneak peek of my work table before I started recording
🙂
If you’re into YT, subscribe to my channel, so you don’t miss any of the new videos I’ll be posting. I’ll be posting willy nilly because I don’t want to be tied down to any strict schedule. All I can say is I’ve already filmed a bunch of stuff that I’ll be uploading as soon as I get it edited.
I’m looking forward to a hodgepodge of writing, photos, and videos. I’m not sure if I’ll be blogging daily or not..my guess at this time is no. If I have something large to post, I’ll post daily. If not, I’ll cobble several days together into one post.
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To be continued – 5 minute painting day 31
Work in progress
5 minute painting
day 31
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 167
Painted and written on Dec 31st, 2017
I’m thisclose to calling this painting finished, but I need some time to play with the layers a bit without being interrupted by the timer. I want to get it to the stage where I love it, and I’m at the “really really like it” level at the moment. I don’t want to rush through it just because I’m starting a new theme tomorrow, and end up having to revise it down the road. This will be continued next month.
So, this concludes 31 days of 5 minute timed painting experiment. I’m sighing a sigh of relief because even tho I learned so much from doing the experiment, I’m ready for it to be over. The past week hasn’t been all rainbows and lollipops, as you can probably guess from my struggle with the center line of this painting. It felt like things came to a standstill for several days in a row. No progress was made, and I was getting increasingly frustrated with the timer, and having only 5 minutes a day to work on this rather large painting.
My hands are UP in the air for one final time, as if surrendering to the great timer gods up in the sky. Time is up, timer. Adios! It’s been quite an interesting month, but I can’t say I will miss you, and all of your restrictions.
New theme starts tomorrow. I can’t wait to share with you what I’ve picked for January. Eeeeeeeee!!
To recap quickly, here are my progress shots from December..
And here are the two paintings I completed:
Summer at the Cottage
Available here
Prints are available here
Land of Opportunities
11×14 acrylic abstract on canvas
Prints are available here
I love how the sides turned out. 🙂 It gives the painting a finished look, so it doesn’t have to be framed.
Crooked – 5 minute painting day 21
5 minute painting
day 21
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 157
Painted and written on Dec 21st, 2017
I used an L square to draw some lines, but the one near the bottom still ended up a bit crooked. I didn’t notice it until after the timer had sounded, and I stood back. Oops. A t-square would have worked better in this situation, but I broke mine years ago, and never bought a replacement.
Listened to: Of Monsters And Men – Yellow Light as I painted.
*****
ps: I spent all day working on a new layout for my website. Let me know what you think of it in the comments or drop me a line. I especially want to know if there are any issues. I won’t be around much tomorrow, but I’ll be working on it some more on Sunday. Hope everything holds up well until then.
After staring at code all day, I should sleep well. zzzz Night!
New canvas – 5 minute painting day 17
New canvas!
5 minute painting
Work in progress
day 17
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 153
Painted on Dec 17th, 2017
I decided to call my last painting done, and I started a new canvas today. This time I’m going even larger – 24×18 inches. Because I refuse to go through what I did with the first painting, all I had time to do today was get the modeling paste down. I’m not concerned about showing a white canvas as my progress today. It is what it is. I decided to do things the way I would normally do it. Otherwise, it throws me off. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole again.
**********
Okay, so here are the progress shots from my last painting.
daily work in progress shots
The painting started out being 14×11 inches, but I decided to turn the canvas about half way through. It ended up being 11×14 inches, instead.
daily progress shots from the last painting
11×14 inch
acrylic mixed media collage
Finished painting
Available for purchase here
Today I listened to Ray LaMontagne – Empty while painting.
It’s a mystery to me – day 12 of 5 minute painting
5 minute painting
day 12
Work in progress
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 148
Painted on Dec 12, 2017
I have no idea where this painting is going. Is it an abstract? Is it a floral? Maybe a bird painting? Landscape? I’m not seeing anything clearly in my mind’s eye right now, except that it’s not a portrait..or so I think, anyway. The only thing I’m feeling strongly about are those lines I drew across the painting. I don’t like it, so that will have to change. Other than that, it’s a mystery to me.
This painting is 14×11 inches or 11×14 inches, depending on which way this ends up going.
Listened to The Great Lake Swimmers: Gonna Make it Through This Year, and had time for a little bit of Sparklehorse: Sunshine today while painting.
*****
Newly revised black & white portrait painting
Waited Outside in the Cold
Available here
Prints are available here
I’ve been revising paintings again behind the scenes. I didn’t do much to the girl on the right, but the girl on the left got a whole new face.
Here’s the old one, which I painted 3 years ago..
I almost painted over this painting completely, but decided it had good bones. It just needed some tweaking and adjustments. I like it now.
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