Sunday, September 10, 2017

Daily Painting

I had the pleasure of Carol Marine's attendance at my workshop in Bend, Oregon, the other week at Art in the Mountains.  Carol is the person behind the Daily Paintworks web site and the author of "Daily Painting".  Though she is primarily a representational painter, and works in oils, I found we had much in common as artists.
In addition to inspiring daily painting, with loads of examples, Carol has a great section on composition. Though her process is different from mine, her essential message is exactly the same: trust your instincts; if a piece feels/looks "right", don't question it.  If it does not feel right, that is the time to refer to some basic rules and guidelines.  Don't start with the rules; start with your gut feeling, your visual intuition.

In her book Carol advocates completing one small painting per day, or as frequently as possible.  I am inspired to give it a try! My usual approach is to start a whole bunch of paintings, and work on them all over the course of whatever-time-I-have-available between workshops.  I never, NEVER, put pressure on myself to finish anything, but allow paintings to come to maturity in their own time. And they do, if I am paying attention.  I've started working on 6"x6" panels, and have completed several in the last several days.  Of course I've made many beginnings, but the practice is to finish one per day, and this makes a greats counterpoint to my usual practice.

Daily Painting #1, 6"x6"

Daily Painting #4, 6"x6"
See these and other on my Daily Paintworks Gallery.

8 comments:

  1. I'm glad you had the opportunity to take Carol's class. I've always admired her work.

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  2. Um I think Carol took HER class. But I am an admirer of both and love the takeaway here.

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    1. Yes, you are right, Carol took MY class. I would love to take a class with her - our skills are so complementary - but it does not look like she is teaching a lot.

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  3. A lot of people are participating in the September 30in30 challenge on Instagram but are struggling. Any suggestions? You mentioned small format; anything else?

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    1. Oh, that is interesting. I haven't been active on Instagram in a while. The way I work is that I begin a lot of paintings in one sitting. For this Daily Painting my rule is to finish one per day. So I always have a bunch in the works (which is my usual mode of working). This new rule - finish one per day - gets me out to the studio more often, even if it is for a shorter time. I'm just trying it out, so I'll post about how it's going as I get deeper into it.

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  4. I'll join you. I like the idea of finishing one per day. My starts are piling up on me.

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  5. great, i love your art, painting - much diversity in it

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