The Daily Painting Project

I started painting in August 2012, so really not very long ago. My friend Sonya, who got me started, told me all I needed to know when she said that if I wanted to get good at painting I should do a lot of paintings. I knew she was right, but stubbornly I began doing larger paintings that would take days, if not weeks, to complete. I did a few pretty good paintings during this time, but my work was not improving as fast as I wanted. I want to get a LOT better. Then I stumbled across an article by Carol Marine on Dailypaintworks about her experience with daily painting. She had taken art courses in college and said she learned very little. She did feel she started to understand painting until she began to paint for a few hours, every day, or most every day. She says to paint small and often, and you will start to improve. I had to set a sculpture project aside for awhile and decided to take the plunge and actually really try to do this. So far I have 8 paintings in the last two weeks. Carol says that you need to do around 500 before you actually know what you are doing, and I think she's right. If I can count what I have done since last August up to now, that leave me with only....470....more before I really know some stuff. Here is my effort from the first day, where I learned, or didn't, not to pick such complicated subjects. I consider this one a fail:

I chose better the next time, this is from a reference photo provided by NadineThome on the Facebook group Equine Artists. I call it "Horse Power":

"Horse Power"

 

The next one, from a photograph provided by Manu Sharma. This is a Marwari called "Redhead":

"Redhead"

SOLD

Both of these I am quite happy with, especially "Redhead". I wish all my paintings came out this fresh and vibrant. Practice makes perfect, though, right? I decided to push myself and go back to landscapes, an area I am definitely weaker in. Here is the first one, a crop from a photo I took while we were horseback riding in Utah on Cedar Mesa. This is looking down into the Grand Gulch from the rim and is called "In the Depths":

"In the Depths"

I posted this on WetCanvas and got some great feedback and guidance. Overall I am quite pleased with it, but it was too complicated of a subject to be done in one day. So what did I do next? Took a crop the the photo I took before this one and tried again, this one is called "Deep Within":

"Deep Within"

I might fuss around with it a bit more, for one thing I didn't leave myself a good place to sign it! I wasn't done with rocks, though, and the next time used this crop from a photo taken in Kane Gulch near Moab, which I felt was simpler and lended itself more to the ideals of daily painting:

"Kane Gulch Red Rock"

I think I made a few leaps forward with this one, but still feel the right hand shadow is too dark. I put it up on Facebook and got some great feedback, even a comment from a well known pastellist. So what do I do next? I thought I'd try water, and picked a crop from a riding photo. It had water and grass, two things I have hardly done, but I thought it would be a good challenge. After the the first session Todd and I both thought my reflection in the right looked off. The next morning I decided it was the rock, but I wasn't sure why. I put it up on WetCanvas and Jackie Simmonds told me the photo was just plain weird, that I did a good job with it but the rock in the photo is just a freak rock.  I call this one "Creekside Rocks" but maybe it should be "The Freak Rock":

At this point I am sick of rocks, but want to keep pursuing water. My next one is a crop from a National Park Service photo. Yes, it has water, and more rocks....I am going to rip my hair out. This one is called "Potholes" but I could probably come up with a better title:

"Canyonlands Potholes"

  I am setting it aside for a few days to decide if it needs more fussing. What am I doing tomorrow? A buffalo!