About a week ago I decid­ed to start a paint­ing project. To reac­quaint myself with paint. I decid­ed to paint one square (4″ x 4″ ‑ish) a day for a month (30 squares). 

Because part of my work involves facil­i­tat­ing art groups. Peo­ple in the group work on paint­ing projects. I work with them on the paint­ing projects. I encour­age peo­ple to paint (amongst oth­er art things). But I don’t real­ly paint in my own time.

I’m tak­ing a sum­mer course and the prof once said, “don’t ask your clients to do things you would­n’t do yourself.”

I don’t usu­al­ly call the peo­ple I work with “clients”, but that’s not the point.

The point is, I don’t paint. So I feel like a hypocrite. 

So, I was cut­ting can­vas square for a project for the group and I came up with this square-a-day idea.

It’s a bit of dis­ci­pline, but it’s fun so far. I try to paint what­ev­er comes into mind and not give it too much thought. But usu­al­ly I have an idea of what I’m going to paint ahead of time. I try to be spon­ta­neous and accept the final prod­uct for what it is. Ideas that I try to pro­mote in my work.

Some have titles, some don’t.

So this is the set up, on the kitchen counter. Not that I don’t have oth­er spaces, it’s just near the sink. 

 

Day 1, I was glanc­ing at my hat as I was get­ting ready in the morning.

 

Day 2, Red Wing. I was look­ing at a place mat lean­ing upside down on the kitchen counter. Remind­ed me of the res­i­dent red winged black bird in the near­by park.

 

Day 3, Ghosts. Inspired by an Insta­gram pho­to I saw. But kind of got frus­trat­ed by the way the watered down paint blotch­es on raw can­vas. End­ed up rins­ing the paint­ed can­vas under the tap and fin­ished with just a few strokes of dark­er blue because I could­n’t deal with it anymore.

 

Day 4, blend­ing the back­ground was pleasant.

 

Day 5, The Observ­er? Also reminds me of the humans in Moom­in­val­ley. Was just exper­i­ment­ing to see if wax crayon/ink scratch­ing work on canvas.

 

Day 6, ce n’est pas un Å“uf. Thought I would try to paint from some kind of still life. In this case, an egg. 

 

Will keep you post­ed on the project! :D

Have an awe­some weekend!