It’s the 13th day of the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge! Today was certainly a challenge, too. I painted a greenish yellow orchid for today’s tropical and it gave me a fit. I fussed and fussed… too much fussing. You know things are going downhill when you find yourself fussing too much.
The good, bad and the ugly.
Anyone who paints knows that all paintings go through an ugly phase. Sometimes they never come out of that phase! This orchid was definitely heading that way but I pulled it out of the ugly zone, after much fussing. Every painting is a learning experience, and sometimes an exercise in humility. Today felt a little like the latter.
I’ve titled this beautiful orchid “Cattleya Bliss”.
In the end, the orchid finally became satisfactory to me. If you are interested in purchasing it, use the button below the painting. I’ll be putting all my efforts in the shop after I’m done with the challenge. I’m a little short on time at the moment. Speaking of time, your time… If you use Instagram consider following me to see my paintings quickly. I’d love for you to follow me, let me know you found me through my blog and I’ll follow you back.
3/4/18 UPDATE: Painting has sold, I’ll have prints available in my shop soon and will add a link from here as soon as I have them made.
“Cattleya Bliss”
What’s the point of the 30 Paintings in 30 days challenge?
I want to be a better painter. To be a better painter, I must paint more and more.
The whole point of the challenge is to get yourself back in the habit of painting everyday. Now I haven’t stopped painting, but I certainly haven’t painted as much as I wanted in the last few months. So I’m joining in with the challenge to give myself a goal and to help me to feel held accountable, too. Not that the Painting Police will come and pick me up if I don’t paint everyday, it’s more of a self motivation thing. I’ve signed up on Leslie’s website and I’m hoping to be able to accomplish a lot of painting.
I’m not expecting to get gallery worthy paintings each day, I may not even paint a whole new painting each day. I’ve been there done that and that was stressful. I put the stress on myself, but nonetheless, it was stressful. I do hope to foster the act of going into my studio each and every day to get more painting accomplished. You know what they say about habits, it takes 21 days to form one. It will help me get better by practicing more and more.
See the paintings I’ve painted during this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by.
About Me
some of my paintings
Learn more about me on the ‘About’ page in the menu at the top. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts and have started creating more and more of them. My most favorite thing to try to achieve in my painting is mystery.
If you would like to keep up with what I’m doing, join my email list. About once a month I send out a letter that gives you invitations for shows, birthday greeting, sneak peeks at new work and more. I’d love for you to add your email to my Friends and Collectors list!
I don’t know anything about painting so I’m intrigued by your comments on the yellow orchid. What wasn’t working? What did you have to change? What did you do to pull it out of its ugly zone? And what does fussing look like with a painter? (I’m imagining paint getting layered and layered and layered until the canvas is a foot thick). With writing you can simply erase/delete a word, phrase, paragraph, chapter. But how do you do that in paint? Sorry for all the questions, but I do love a good story!
Oh wow Lisa, where do I start? I’m not sure I have the correct words to explain a lot of it but I’ll try. I’m so happy you’re interested enough to ask 🙂
What wasn’t working… well the layout was fine but I was having a hard time getting the petals to look the way I wanted them to look. To pull it out of the ugly zone, you just have to keep working. Painting requires thinking ahead and making underneath layers called underpainting. This is like someone setting you up with the volleyball. It makes the end result look good. (I’m not entirely sure if that is a good analogy, but it’s the first that comes to mind)
It’s been cold, so the heater is running a lot and that dries out the air so the paint dries faster. I’m constantly spritzing my palette with water to stop the paint from drying out but spritzing the canvas can cause problems – it makes spots appear where the droplets land, by taking away paint when you run your brush through them (sometimes a technique I use intentionally).
So the paint dries on my canvas and since I use acrylics, they dry really fast. I don’t typically use a medium additive for the paint because I’ve found it produces too much transparency, which is great for glazing but not so much for painting fast and needing paint to cover itself up. So as the paint dried it gets sticky and gummy and as I try to blend with my brush on the canvas it starts to look yucky. This is where I don’t know how to explain what is happening. It’s not smooth, it looks rough and not the look I desired. Once the paint is bumpy, so to say, there is no smoothing it flat again. It just looks amateurish to me but I guess I am just not experienced enough to know what to do to stop it before it happens. Pay attention more closely is probably one answer and not be in such a hurry is probably another.
Paint laying on a foot thick… well yes that is what it feels like to me when I’m encountering the problem I explained above. Impasto is a technique a lot of artists use, myself included. (it means paint applied thickly) but I wasn’t wanting that effect where it was happening and it stopped me from being able to add detail nicely.
How do you delete paint: You don’t, you start over. With acrylics you can just paint over it, the whole painting or just a section. With oils you can scrape it off the canvas, quite literally with a palette knife. With watercolors you’re just screwed. haha that’s why I don’t do watercolors.
Well that was quite a story. I hope I was able to sort of demystify it. If you ever decide to pick up a paint brush, you’ll know immediately what I’ve been talking about. You’ll be like “oh yeah… now I see what she means!” LOL
Thank you for taking the time to explain. I think because I don’t paint I’m fascinated by the process. After reading this it’s almost a blog post by itself. Would you ever be interested in answering questions for something like an interview on my blog?
Yes, I’d be honored to Lisa 🙂 Just contact me whenever you’re ready, it sounds like fun. Jaime@JaimeHaney .com