30 Paintings in 30 Days Summary

It's done!  30 Paintings in 30 Days, an art challenge hosted by Leslie Saeta. 'That-there' is a lot of painting hours, you'all. It was fun to put this collage together. It really gave me a sense of accomplishment. That is one of my favorite feelings in the world….accomplishment. On the other end of the spectrum, not following through on a commitment is one of my least favorite feelings. So Yay!  (I am missing a  few paintings, they didn't fit in the collage and the designer in me didn't want to mess up my design).

What an interesting adventure it has been. I experimented with different subject matters and that was fun. I also experimented with how I approached the painting process.  My typical process is to mix a few of the main colors of the piece, taking extra time to make sure I have the color just right. I feel this helps speed up my process of painting and I can focus on the strokes. A couple times I thought I would forgo that part of my process.  Not good.  It didn't work for me so I went back to my old process. Another part of my process is I focus on one area at a time moving from left to right across the canvas. Tried different ways to do this and the same conclusion, I still like the way I was doing it.  I've developed my processes over time and I found they work for me. This concentrated painting marathon help solidify that for me.

At the start I thought I would write about my interaction with my friendly neighborhood commitment phobic gremlins. They were there indeed. But, I did manage to post most everyday. I did discover that my fear of  commitment is not because I can't commit, it is because I am so committed when I do commit.  Make sense? So then those little commitment phobic gremlins get all excited because they knew I would stop listening to them and boy does that make them vocal.  Yes they did chatter the entire time, "you tired today, why don't you stop", "no one cares if you finish so why do you?"…..on and on they went. Oh, and then they would try reverse psychology…."look at Leslie Saete she's painting everyday", "she's remodeling a beach house" and "she's teaching classes" and on and on they would go about that. Even yesterday they were fierce, "you don't feel good. You should take care of yourself and get some rest".  I really did want to finish and I think the biggest reason was because I didn't want to let myself down. There is a whole other post I could write about what it does to your sense of well being and self-esteem when you don't keep promises to yourself. I know there will be some other discoveries after a little time has passed. Those haven't come into focus yet.

Another little surprise benefit to the challenge was interacting with people online.  Painting paintings is a solitary endeavor and even though I enjoy solitude I also enjoy people.  I received such sweet support and so many kind compliments on my blog and on Facebook.  I could really feel them all cheering me on. This interaction made it, oh, so much more fun and it helped me cross the finish line. Thank you all. It made such a huge difference.

So I loved the feeling of accomplishment and there are other things in my life that didn't get done.  One of the reasons I did partake in the challenge was because I wanted to kick start my painting and that it did, but my life got kind of unbalanced.  So my next road of discovery will be to figure how to produce paintings at a regular clip and still keep my life in balance.  I know there is a way. Stay tuned...