starting a new practice
I started making daily paintings on August 14, 2023.
The first one was ambitious. I painted this 11 x 14” oil on canvas:
It took most of my day and felt decidedly unsustainable as a daily painting, so the next day I tried something else. I painted some poison, weed berries from my yard on a 6.5 x 6.5” square on Arches oil paper. It is a much smaller scale than I am comfortable with in oil painting. The subject and size made the piece much easier to execute. And while I was wildly uncomfortable as I painted and not even very satisfied with the finished product, I felt like I found a format I could experiment with.
I have been painting simple paintings each day on 6.5 x 6.5” squares of paper for a month.
My practice is underway, just barely, but it is.
This is art practice: practice in making faster decisions, working on a very new scale (big is my comfort zone), and in making consistently. I want to improve in my craft steadily. I want to update my mindset around the set up and clean up and honor the necessary parts of creating.
This is business practice: practice in making a product that you can expect week after week, making originals that more of my patrons can afford, practice in sharing more and taking notes on what you respond to.
The Daily Painting movement
A highly talented group of dedicated artists created the daily paint works movement. It has been underway for many years and I discovered it through Carol Marine an artist that I admire both for her making and for her business acumen. (Get her book, Daily Painting, which has been a longtime companion of mine in the studio, here. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your example, Carol). And if you’re a creative person interested in this practice, please message me so that we can make alongside one another.
A different kind of goal
Right now, these paintings require a very intense focus and half of a workday. I am making them in hopes that I will get faster and more precise after 100 and then maybe 200. I do not have an end goal in mind, I just want a new rhythm of making.
When I do 10 or 20 day challenges, I quit. When I think, “I want to be a professional painter, and professional painters paint every day” I get out my brushes.
After I build up some confidence or when I find myself desperate for something fresh, I am sure I will replace this project with a series of big paintings, or my sketchbook practice. But I know that this practice will help me block off half of my day for creating my own work every day. And if I do pause, I know the door will be open and I can to return to it again some day.
A picture of my studio wall today. (Chair painting in the upper right by Adrian Johnston)