Un-button Up
A 30-Day JUST PAINT Challenge
After the failed 30-Day Bird challenge, I polled for a new subject so that I could try again. I got a lovely suggestion to try fall foliage. It would give me a lot of variety - landscapes, individual leaves, lots of color options, etc.
For this idea I just wanted to get started without over-deliberating, so I didn’t make any sort of plan and encouraged myself to just sit down get started. That often meant not having a reference image or even sketching first. I was successful for a few days before fizzling out on the idea (again). Here are the sketches I produced, most of which are rough and ugly on purpose (ish).
“Just Paint” Experiment - Fall Foliage
Of the set, these were my favorite:
All images from this series are on 5“ x 5” sheets.
In the end, I decided to give myself permission to let this go also. I realized that it was no longer fun, and I wasn’t enjoying the process. I would still like to paint or draw something every day, but it doesn’t have to be the SAME thing every day. And if I miss a day, oh well. No need to beat myself up about it. If I turn painting into a chore I’ve lost sight of its purpose.
If you read my “Through the Looking Glass” post, you’ll know that I struggle with reconciling the two halves of my personality. One being very loose and creative, the other being very orderly and exact. Sometimes I operate too much from the rigid side, and then to compensate swing too far in the other direction, attempting to FORCE myself to be loose with no guidelines. Then I swing back again trying to be rigid with creativity, creating challenges like the one above. Oi.
A client did a soul-reading for me a few months ago and shared a meditative vision. She said that I will be most inspired at the intersection of where these two halves meet, one being a bright white light and the other being a blue column. I interpret this to mean creativity in my own orderly way. Based on my projects so far, I’ve definitely found this to be true. I like practicing images a few times in a row, but not too many times. I like having a project with some parameters, so I know what to paint when I sit down and look at the blank paper, but also allow myself the flexibility to break the rules when I feel like it. Stop or change the project when the original parameters are no longer serving me.
Three (Abstract) Self-portraits
I was inspired to try to capture the feeling of my two halves in paint. A dear friend created an amazing Pisces image for my daughter, and it kept coming to mind as I was thinking about how to draw these two halves. I am also a Pisces. To depict both sides, I used an Indigo pigment - the same for both light and dark.
Self-portraits make me think of Frida Kahlo, who I’ve been told I look like more than once. I always wondered why she painted herself so many times.
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”
-Frida Kahlo
As I paint, I think about life. Sometimes I think about death, too. I know someday I will die, and life seems more painful and more vivid to address that reality. After I die, perhaps my paintings will remain. Maybe friends and family will look at them and remember something about me, or remember a time we shared. It feels like I’ll be leaving little bits of me behind.
While painting the splatter version of this portrait, I finally got some paint on my, until now, pristine plywood desktop. Finally! I’ve broken the seal! Now I can stop worrying about the top and get a little messy. Perhaps it’ll still be “tidy” in the way that I can find what I want, but un-buttoned in that I don’t have to keep every drop within the lines. Or… maybe there won’t be any lines at all? Who knows.
-Lana
Love your experiment! Even if you don't do something every day, what you DO do counts as practice towards mastery.
Your attempt to do a daily practice suddenly rang a bell for me. 10 years ago, my father sent me a 9-inch x 7-inch book for Christmas called "Q&A a Day: 365 questions • 4 years • 1,460 sketches." Each page has a date at the top left and a small prompt like "Empty your wallet or purse. What is inside?" or "Can you illustrate the sound of snapping fingers?" (I'm amazed at what I drew for that one back on Feb. 9, 2016; most of my sketches are weird and funny, like the prompts.)
To the right of each prompt is a large grid with four squares. Each square says 20_ _ below it for you to write the date. (I wish I could show a photo of all this but Substack won't allow that.) I filled out quite a few Square #1s with pencil sketches during the first three months of year 1 (2016). And then: NOTHING! I'm guessing at some point I cleaned up the house and put the book in my stacks of coffee-table books and forgot about it.
I know you're practicing painting not sketching, but maybe something fun like this prompt book will help un-button yourself in a small way. I just saw on Amazon that there are quite a few of these books out there (and probably some "used" unused ones), but below is the one I have and am enjoying looking at today (-: Maybe now I'll put it somewhere where I will actually SEE it and use it.
https://www.amazon.com/Q-Day-Creatives-4-Year-Journal/dp/0804186405/ref=sr_1_1
Thanks for sharing! You do look a bit like Frida Kahlo especially her in that photo! Life feels a bit richer when you're able to take time to observe it and then express it through your subjective point of view through watercolor or other avenues.