Day 30. If it Were Last Year, I’d Be Done…

“Lakeside Stroll” 10×10, oil on 1.5in canvas $125 [creativ_button url=”http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/denise-hopkins/lakeside-stroll/371879″ icon=”” label=”Buy Now” colour=”red” colour_custom=”#2e7bd3″ size=”medium” edge=”rounded” target=”_self”]

I decided to give “Mandeville lady with bike” another attempt on a slightly larger surface– a canvas this time instead of a gessoboard. I didn’t use the exact same photo as a reference. In the photo I used today, she’s actually walking away from the lake but it wasn’t working for me, so I put in the lake from photo number one.

If I was doing one of my 30 in 30s today would be the last day, a thought I can’t seem to shake. But given that I’m not even 1/3 of the way there yet, I wasn’t worried about doing something so similar to an earlier painting. My whole purpose in these challenges is to grow and discover. To get better, find/develop a style, a subject, a direction. Painting the same thing teaches you a lot. I still feel all over the place– figurative to animals, palette knife to brush, smooth to bumpy. I’m even currently working on a few abstracts that I might be brave enough to share by the end of all this. But I like the lack of constraints. I like leaving one style behind in favor of another only to come back to the first. I don’t know if all my work looks like it was done by the same person, but a year into my art business, and I’m not really sure I care.

The gessoboard seems to keep the shine of the paint more, which I like. It’s like the oil just sits on top of the surface rather than bleeds in to it. I find my images on the gessoboard a bit crisper. But the panels are so thin, and I’ve found it difficult to frame them. I’ve heard a few people recommend Franken Frames for the panels, but I’ve yet to try them. Hoping to soon and will report back.

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