Blog

For the past 10 years (excluding last year), I have been on a bit of an oil painting hiatus. I blame moving into my house, but it was a general life shift that happened that threw me off. The new house did bring out options for new creative outlets with gardening, landscaping, decorating, remodeling, and even music. At one point, I hosted practice sessions for my bandmates which included having a drum kit in my living room. Yes, I was a bachelor for the most part.

While I would document various travel locations in my sketchbook, the sketches were usually in pencil, ink or watercolor. I never worked on an oil painting during that time. If someone would ask if I was still painting, my general reply would be “not yet, but it’s coming”. Some of the reason was the workspace, for sure, as there needs to be a reasonable level of physical comfort and good lighting when undertaking an oil painting. Or that’s what I told myself. Really it was a lack of motivation. I knew of things that I could paint, but nothing that I really wanted to paint on a large canvas.

Thankfully, I broke the seal last year when I made the Strawberry painting by working over my last partial attempt at another subject. This felt balanced. The reason it happened last year is another story, but I can summarize by saying that I was seeking purpose and I had more time on my hands. As it happens, I have more time on my hands again.

How we choose to spend our time defines our life. It’s as simple as “we are what we do”, not what we eat, or what others think we are, although that’s a fun philosophical debate for another time.

I tell you all this so that you’ll understand the state of mind that I was in when I chose to start this mini-project: I needed to up my numbers. In business terms, I needed the metrics for started and finished paintings to be higher. I needed to iterate. I needed to complete, and most importantly, I needed to start.

Starting a painting is a process in itself, and encompasses many small decisions. Obviously, you have to decide on the subject that you will paint. You then need to decide the size, on what kind of backing, what the lighting should be, do you need to make more sketches to understand it, what color paints will you use, what size brushes, what amounts of colors you’ll mix to get to the desired paint and lastly, where exactly do you make those brush strokes? It takes up a good portion of the painting process and sometimes it can be broken up into multiple sessions if you have to find alternatives for any of those decision.

So I set a goal: I wanted to try and make 20 paintings in 30 days. I started with 30 paintings in 30 days and then realized that I’d need to probably keep my weekends to myself. At the end of the month, I can confidently say that I met my goal. I acknowledge that I am counting some marker drawings as paintings, but these are sketches for future paintings.

With that said, I present to you “Exploration”

With this project, I wanted to quickly iterate through multiple paintings at a fairly quick clip by creating roughly one painting per work day. Early on, I noticed that there was an interesting magic happening when I started to repeat a subject. My perception of the object had changed by the third time that I was painting a similar subject. I had become more informed, and as a result the painting was as well. I was able to do more with less paint and a more relaxed effort. This motivated me to stay on a subject for a bit as well as switch to a different subject so I could see if it translated to something new. This process kept the starting and stopping of the creative engine moving along.

The end result? I felt limber, like after you’ve stretched your muscles. I felt more in-tune to the world around me. I started to see more, and I started to get antsy if I wasn’t making something. There’s going to be some really fun stuff coming up next, but for now I’d like to celebrate this milestone of 21 paintings in 30 days (ish). Thanks for reading.

Flowers

5x7, 5x7 & 6x9 Oil on canvas

Tomatoes

Shoe strap

4x6 Oil on Paper

Houses (more than 3)

4x6 Oil on Paper

Neighborhood

4x6 Oil on Paper

Homestead

5x8, 5x5, 5x5 Gouache on paper

Trains

8x10 Alcohol Marker