This blog began as a daily painting blog but as life changes, so does a blog. It has become a journal of a writer who paints and enthusiastically works outdoors to maintain fitness.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

The first blank "canvas"



New Year's Eve and I'm ready to paint. The first primed hardboard is on the easel.

You can see in the photo that I'll be painting in a room that already has a mural; one I painted about ten years ago. Thankfully, the snake is only a product of acrylic paint and my craft.

Here's to 2010!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Count down to day 1


One more day to the beginning. Enough pressed hardboard is cut to last the first couple of weeks. The paints are ready. The easel is poised to accept the first "canvas." The blog is set and I have my first follower. Yay! Ideas run rampant in my right brain and I'm eager to start. I actually will apply the first paint today; prepping the hardboard with a first coat of white. Some artists are happy with that; white on white. Having painted very colorful whimsical scenes for the last decade and marketed them at Whimsy Home Designs, I'm not inclined to abandon color. But for today, white on white.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The resolution

It's the end of one year and very soon will be the beginning of another. Not long ago, as I was interviewing a man for a feature story about his home, we walked from one area of his home to another. What struck me was the display of bold original art throughout the rooms. It hit me that I had waited through the years of raising my children for the time when I could devote long hours to my art. And here I am, at that point in life, and in the last year I've only painted when someone has commissioned a work. Time to change that. And that calls for a resolution. In the calendar year of 2010, I will paint a new painting each day. Yes, 365 paintings in one year. Can I do it? Of course I can. In all those years when I painted outside at 15 to 20 degrees, I learned to paint fast. There's no luxury of standing back and pondering whether each brush stroke is properly placed when the paint is crystallizing with frost and the painter's fingers are freezing. Nor can the painter frequently back up to analyze the work from a distance while on a scaffolding or within a wind shelter with a propane heater at backside level. Outdoor painting calls for decisive moves as does a resolution like this.
In addition to painting daily, I'm going to post each day's painting here and invite comments from viewers. Let it be my daily art show. As is true with most art displayed in galleries everywhere, these pieces will be available for purchase with a unique pricing system. Day one's painting will be $10. Day 2, $20 and all the way up to day 365 which will be $3,650. Shipping and tax will be extra. Paintings will be acrylic on pressed hardboard. All paintings will be in standard sizes and unframed. If you purchase a painting it will be easy for you to find a frame. Can you buy on reserve? Sure. If you want the painting produced on July 10, just e-mail to reserve it and send a check for, let's see, $1,910 plus tax and shipping. If you want the one on January 3, reserve it and send a check for $30 plus tax and shipping.