On Painting (Almost) Every Day.

“In Search” 6×6, oil on canvas [button link=”http://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/282187″ type=”big”] Bid Now[/button] SOLD

My pre-ordered copy of Carol Marine’s book came in yesterday, and last night I started pouring through it.

It inspired me to get back to daily painting. I’ve been painting (almost) every day for a while now, but lately I’ve not created single (small) paintings in one sitting. In other words, I’ve been painting every day but not creating a painting a day. Without the pressure of a 30 in 30 challenge, I’ve gotten into the awful practice of starting a painting, getting quite close to finishing it and then abandoning it in favor of taking a hot bath. I’m not a closer.

The book re-inspired me to get back to just painting– to make the daily paintings a priority even over the commissioned pieces because, in the end, it’s “painting small and often” that makes me a painter capable of successfully accomplishing the commissions I receive.

Last year, I was racking my brain for ways to make a living from my art– lessons, crafts, art and prayer workshops, etc. I spent countless hours on my computer looking around for other artists, ideas. I had a one failed Etsy store and a FB page with 300+ fans that I posted to once in a blue moon. It wasn’t long before I discovered the painting a day movement and Carol Marine whose paintings I immediately fell in love with (she started doing her daily paintings at nap time when her son was a year and half– sound familiar?). That’s when it occurred to me that perhaps I didn’t have to figure out something terribly niche, I could simply paint and sell my paintings, ie, be an artist.

I still have a million projects I’d like to do and the frontrunner is an ebook on using art to pray.  But for now, I just make paintings. Sometimes I write about them.

Today, I put aside the almost-finished portrait I was working on in favor of a tiny 6×6 canvas. I used a big brush on a small surface– one of the things I’ve learned to do (relatively well) in the last six months. When I look back at the paintings I created in April, I’m a little shocked. I don’t know if others see it, but I’ve learned more (about painting and perhaps myself) in the past six months than I had in the previous six years. And it’s because of daily painting.  And I’m ready to do it.  Or almost do it.