To avoid not being creative again, I decided that I should paint every day. And it doesn't have to be long. But with about an hour every day, you get somewhere. Why did I come up with this?
For the simple reason that if it doesn't work at all, and I'm making something that doesn't make me feel good, I tend to leave it alone. And not going any further, I lose all feeling to continue with it. Which can turn out to be weeks of not painting, and throwing a block for myself. Thinking in terms of problems, and the piece of 'perfectionism' in me, sometimes makes it difficult to get over this. I don't want that anymore. I just want to loosen up, be less critical of myself and create a more 'go with the flow' attitude. Therefore, a Daily Painting Challenge for myself. As soon as this is somewhat integrated in my system, I will also start such a Daily Photography Challenge. Anyways, yesterday I started my painting challenge.
While my partner was sleeping on the couch yesterday afternoon with Skipper and Myla with him to watch over him, and to keep him warm, I was doing some chores in the kitchen. Unexpectedly, I finished that a bit faster than I expected, and after walking all the dogs through the rain, I thought it was time to use the time I made for myself.
It had been a while since I had worked on a painting. And the painting I had started then had been on the kitchen table for about 3 weeks. Unfinished, and the more I walked past it, the more I lost the courage to continue with it. After such a long time of not doing anything about that painting, I had seriously lost all feeling with that subject. It didn't feel right to spend any more time on that.
Sometimes you just have to rigorously say, “This isn't it”. And so that was what I did. I decided not to spend any more time on it either. But instead, I decided to create something completely different on that same canvas. When I took up paint and brushes again not so long ago after more than 15 years, I was mainly busy with colorful paintings. Where a clearly recognizable subject was on my paintings. Now I decided on a whim to make a painting with few colors. A painting in a way I had seen before, which I have always found beautiful, and wanted to make. But for some unknown reason had never made it myself.
So after painting my canvas a nice white again, I decided to paint the background a very dark red, almost black. Yes, afterwards, I could have skipped the step of painting the canvas white. But hey, sometimes you don't think of something until later. Oh well, luckily painting a white canvas dark is not too difficult either.
I didn't have much time, food had to be cooked on time. The dogs also had to be walked again before dinner and in between I also expected that my partner would ask me again if I would like to make him some tea. But my hands were itching, and I just had to get the feel of dipping a brush in the paint and get a mess on canvas again.
Mixing my dark background color and painting it on my white canvas was a breeze, and a simple blow-dryer works wonders to get your background dry quickly. I work with acrylic paint, so it's a matter of a few minutes, and you can continue on a dry background. Now it was a matter of only 3 suits, white, gold and black!
And even though I didn't have much time, I managed to achieve this result before it was time to start walking the dogs again. Before I had to start cooking again, and even before my partner was awake again.
I am never completely 100% satisfied. Afterwards I often see things that I did not see at the time how I could do better. But that's why I wanted to try this on a canvas that I would otherwise have rejected and no longer use. These are the canvases to test new techniques and ideas on, so that you know better HOW to do something the second time you make something like this. For a first time, I don't think the result is that bad… and it's definitely an idea that I want to develop further. Certainly in the coming days. This what you see here, I painted in less than an hour. And that should certainly be even better, which makes it a great project for myself, and for my “Daily Painting Challenge” that I came up with for myself.
I'm already looking forward to tomorrow, but I will have to buy some new canvases. Amazingly, I've had a large stock of canvases for years. They remained untouched! And now since the past half year or so, I have already started buying new canvases 2x. This week I'll have to go out again! I have 1 canvas left, and then it's gone!
