AEDM day 3: self-portrait and red sky

I can't say enough good things about participating in Art Every Day Month so far. I've had a great time looking at the work of other participants and being inspired to try new things. Today I worked on a variety of stuff.

I started this self-portrait a long time ago and then forgot about it. I added another layer to it today. Rarely do I use so many colors in one painting.


I also played around in my sketchbook, something I don't do enough these days.



The last painting I completed for my art show last year had a deep red sky; I find myself wanting to make more skies red these days.

And finally, I did a little more to the goldfish painting from yesterday. I like how I caught Barack Obama on the TV in the background. I'm addicted to election news today.

AEDM day 2: goldfish

I usually paint from an image - life, a photograph, something. So in the interest of using Art Every Day Month to try new things, I sat down with some acrylics and just started painting today. It started to look vaguely like goldfish, so I went with that. Not done yet, but wanted to take a photo before my daylight completely disappears...

AEDM day 1: getting started

Ah, the pressure of getting started! I worked myself up into a minor frenzy worrying about creating something good enough to be worthy of being posted for the very first day of Art Every Day Month. In the end I decided to use my husband as a model and do a series of sketches of him sitting on the couch.


Scott furrowing (ebony pencil on paper)

Hooray for Art Every Day Month!

I'm looking forward to participating in Art Every Day Month, starting tomorrow. I wanted to do it last year, but given that we were traveling for pretty much the whole month of November, it just wouldn't have worked out logistically. But this year I'm all ready to go!

In addition to continuing to work on my larger painting projects, I want to use this as an excuse to play around with some new media and subject matter. I'll be posting my creations, however ridiculous, here on this blog every day. I also hope to make it around to the blogs of others who are participating to get to know some more folks from the online creative community.

If anyone is reading this (and I know that's a big "if" - this blog gets hardly any traffic) and also participating in Art Every Day Month, leave me a comment and let me know!

Reviving the art blog

It's been about eleventy billion years since I've posted here, I know. My art production has been similarly stagnant. But these days that trend is reversing, so I thought I'd come back here and start chronicling a bit.

For November, I'm thinking about participating in Art Every Day Month, an event that in turn was inspired by NaNoWriMo, which inspired me to write a novel two years ago. It also taught me to love month-long commitments to creative output. I'm tempted to try the writing version again this year, but either way I'd like to do Art Every Day Month. Making art every day sounds like a fabulous goal to me.

Work in Progress: another Zurich scene

I want to move on to Munich paintings, but I had a couple Zurich ideas left to realize. This one started out unexciting, but I'm starting to get attached to it. I'm looking forward to where it goes next.

Sorting things out

So, some more setbacks in the art career that I don't want to go into here... I've come close to giving up and going a completely different career direction, but now I'm not sure what I'm going to do anymore. Things are up in the air. And until things are decided, I'm just going to keep making art. No good reason not to.

I have a couple of portrait commissions to do to keep me moving, and I'd like to start on a Munich series of cityscapes. Plus I'm hoping to switch this blog over soon to associate it with my artist website rather than with my personal blog (although I guess they might as well all be inter-connected). I've quit my two professional blogs as of the end of May, and I'm really happy about that move. Although they were relatively small time commitments, the ongoing obligation to blog on them kept me from blogging here as much as I would like to. I'm excited to be completely free to pursue what I want. Well, not completely free - I have signed up for a German course that will keep me busy three mornings a week. I figure whatever career path I decide to go with, polishing my German will come in handy. You know, since I live in Germany and all.

OK, enough rambling for today.

Hmmm... so much for that plan

Well, I'd like to blame my failure to come close to meeting my weekly goals on being sick this week, but truth be told I was well behind last week, too, even when I felt fine.

So what's going on? Why am I resisting spending time at the easel? Fear of failure? Too much else to do? Is the goal too big? I don't really know. Maybe I need a more specific long-term goal to go along with my short-term goals. Whatever the reason, this month's goals just aren't working out. I think I'll adjust them for the second half of the month. Haven't decided how, yet.

I have done a good job at getting going on The Vein of Goldat least. More on that later.

February wrap-up and March challenge

My challenge for myself for February was simple: start 2 new canvases per week.

I completed this challenge with flying colors. My studio is now full of work-in-progress, several of which I'm very excited to continue. I started a handful of new cityscapes, a few portraits, and two abstract red paintings. I've never been much of an abstract artist, but I think it's worth playing with.

This challenge was a great way to motivate myself to choose new subjects and get painting. But while I did start all the canvases (as per my self-imposed rules), some of them are just barely started. Some weeks I spent very little time actually painting.

March's challenge attempts to address this issue: I have to spend 20 hours per week on art. At least 10 hours per week has to be actually painting; the other 10 can include activities such as learning Photoshop (a goal for a while now), researching art classes, etc. I'd also like to finally work through The Vein of Gold, which I've been meaning to do for over a year now. Art blogging counts, too.

I'm not sure how I'll do with this challenge. It's different. I'm not used to working just for the sake of putting in hours; usually I'm most effective when working towards a goal, instead. In this situation, the 'working' is the goal itself.

I am not off to a great start with this challenge. It's already Wednesday afternoon, and I've only logged 1.5 hours in front of the easel. This is not going to be easy, but hey, sometimes challenges should be challenging. :)

Yet another reason to love winter

When it's 0 degrees out, it's perfectly acceptable for me to throw my long winter coat over my studio clothes and go shopping. Never mind that those studio clothes are really paint-stained sweats with holes in them. A nice long coat makes it all ok. Yay winter!

The February Plan

I'm still experimenting with my work patterns and habits to see how I can do my best, most prolific painting. To that end, I've decided to start giving myself various art-oriented goals each month to get me to try new things.

For February I just wanted to get going again - the long, drawn-out move got me very out of practice with my daily art habit. To that end, I gave myself a simple task: start at least two canvases a week. They can be any size, any subject, any medium.

Since I already had a couple canvases in progress from January, that means I'll finish February with at least 10 in-progress canvases (at the rate I'm going, I probably won't end up finishing many of them this month, but that's fine). I like this challenge because it's making me get past that fear of the blank canvas and just get painting. And on days when I just don't feel like dealing with a blank page, I have plenty of in-progress works to choose to work on.

I think March's plan will be to require a certain number of painting hours per week, plus some other aspect which is yet to be decided.

I needed something to decorate the walls in our new apartment

While I am in Zurich right now, I swear I had nothing to do with the big art heist that went down Sunday.

I am, however, kicking myself that in two years of living in Zurich I never once made it to the Buehrle Collection. What was I thinking? I hereby promise to not be so negligent in my examination of Munich's art.

White board walls

How much fun would it be to paint the walls of my studio with this stuff and just make them giant dry-erase boards?

I am an artist.

Wanted to put that out there today. Thanks, Linda.

Too Old

I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with myself when we decided to move to Munich. I had a hunch I wanted to more aggressively pursue my career as an artist, and so I investigated going back to art school as an option. I found the website of the Akademie der bildenden Künste München and eagerly read through the information presented for those hoping to be admitted for an art degree course. I got so excited thinking about life as a full-time art student - how much I would enjoy the various challenges in each course, how much I could grow as an artist with all that new knowledge.

And then I started reading through the admissions requirements. And then I came to this bit: (Section 6.1.a.)

Minimum Age: Eighteen years at last birthday
Age Limit: Thirtieth birthday

Fabulous. My over-30-year-old-brain just isn't worth their time. Too shriveled and useless to benefit from art school!

Studio!

The single most exciting thing about our new apartment is that it contains a room which I get to use as my studio. A whole room just for my art! I've never had that before. It's thrilling. I love this room. It is big and bright and has a big window with a lovely view.

Except for my easel and art supplies, my studio is still pretty empty - I want to get to know the room a little bit before I decide what additional items I want to acquire for it. Plus I love how much floor space is available for me to spread out in.

Speaking of the floor, it is brand new - the landlord had it re-done right before we moved in. While it looks fabulous, the pristine surface has me terrified. What if I stain it? Get paint on it? Ruin it? For now I'm using a couple rolls of the fabric floor covering the movers left here (at my request) to keep myself sane, but I'd like to come up with a better (and more attractive) long-term solution.

The walls create a similar stress point: they are newly painted and hole-free. But the good news is that here in Germany we are required to re-paint them when we move out anyway, so in theory I can go ahead and mess them up as much as I want. Still, it's hard to make that first mark...

Getting back into things

I spent the last month and a half of 2007 traveling without a single art supply; so far 2008 has mostly been occupied with settling in in our new apartment in our new city (Munich). One of the most exciting things about this new apartment is that I have a studio in it. I'm still figuring out how I want everything arranged (and what additional furniture I'd like for the room), but I have managed to get the easel set up and have started a new painting. I'm very excited to get back into the rhythm of painting daily. I also plan to start updating this blog more regularly.

I have a few commissions that I need to get to work on. I also need to find a good local source of art supplies. I went to check out a couple shops in my new neighborhood, but their offerings are limited. So much to do...

It's up!

We put up my show this morning. It was crazy seeing all my paintings somewhere besides in a pile in the corner of my bedroom.



I'm very excited and nervous for the opening tomorrow. Wish me luck...

New subject

I'm still working on a few portraits, but I decided it was high time to start on a new body of work, as well. So I've started on a series of cityscape paintings. The first ones were inspired by the canals of Milan's Navigli neighborhood. Here's one of the works in progress.

I will be painting furiously for the next month, as I have an exhibit opening in Zurich in November. So much to do!

I want an art allowance!

Small Collectors - wealthy kids buy fancy art