30 Paintings in 30 Days

As evident from my last post 1 1/2 years ago it is official I am not a blogger. I had a great year. I took some great workshops with Mark Boedges, Tim Horn and Jon Redmond. They were all really great generous instructors, and I took away a  little something from all three that I still think about to this day when I paint. 

I was also accepted into several juried shows and made some sales form these, and have taken part in a couple Plein Air events.

I am currently in an online 6 month mentorship with Lori Putnam. I will be taking a workshop with her in Rockland, ME next week so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to work with her in person. 

I am currently participating in a 30 paintings in 30 day challenge that Leslie Saeta hosts. I had begun last year and made it to day 8. I just completed day 6 and so far so good. The only goal I made for myself in addition to painting everyday is that I paint from life. I am usually painting form a photo either on my phone or computer, sometimes a printed piece, but I really find it limiting. It is very convenient and sometimes the only way I am able to paint when I have other commitments but I am really trying to make the effort to make it happen for the month of september. I still care for my mother part time so it is difficult to go out and paint landscapes so I will probably do more still lives which I have really enjoyed doing again. I'll post what I paint here so some will be failures, some will be unfinished, but each will be my commitment to finding the time to paint, to challenge myself, to try some new things and to have fun with it. Most if not all will be small 6" x 6" panels.

Here are the first five paintings. I discovered still lives again and had fun with a palette knife! I like being able to put more paint on the panel and make different marks, but it is easy to get carried away with all the paint and start making a mess. this happened more than once!

Day 1
​Stowe, VT
​From my mothers deck overlooking the Green Mountains

Day 2
Zinnias

Day 3
​Zinnia Detail

DAY 4
​Sunflowers

DAY 5
Farmer's Market Bouquet

Of these five paintings, the one I am happiest with is the detail of the Zinnias. I love the colors and I felt like I had success working with the palette knife and working in layers to create some depth. Jon Redmond does a lot of constructing and deconstructing. using transparent darks and more opaque lights, scraping, applying paint, scraping...... This has always been really uncomfortable for me to scrape away something that may be working to create another layer and some happy surprises. When it works it is magical, When it doesn't it's frustrating, but then you scrape again!

I was most proud of myself for the sunflower painting. I was driving home from VT and my plan had been to stop along the way and paint a plain air painting. My car had different plans. It died on the side of I-93 in Concord NH. I did get it going again and my mechanic thought it might make it home, at least I may make it the 11 miles to be within the AAA 100 mile distance! I made it driving backroads the entire way. But it was getting late and I didn't want to risk stopping to paint and then having car issues in the dark. So I got home,exhausted and managed to paint the sunflowers!