30 Paintings in 30 Days?

I have decided to join Leslie Saeta (http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com/) in her January challenge of 30 Paintings in 30 Days.  About 250 artists are playing & posting their images on her blog.  How fun!  So far I am 2 for 2.

Yesterday, January first, I got up early and did 3 pages of freehand writing (aka "Morning Pages") to start my year off right.  I also resolved to avoid sugar and carbs, adding low glycemic back into my life.  I weighed and measured myself to get a baseline and got on with my life. *sigh* It's amazing how quickly weight can come back on when you start eating in old sugary patterns...

As part of my resolutions I decided to add a little fun to the structure and get out the watercolors.  I can paint with watercolors at home because they are (mostly) non toxic.  Easier to keep cats out of them than oils or pastels.  So I set up a still life with a clementine, pomegranate & an apple and got to work.  Much to my surprise I have a better, more relaxed way of handling color now.  I guess all the crazy workshops have become part of my methods now. What a nice surprise.

Here is the still life "set up", using window light

Here is my final image

Today I went to the studio to work in oils.  I selected a photo reference of  my dog, Bubba, taken when he was sporting a Mohawk. Notice the cool panel holder I am using to paint the small 5x7 panel.  It makes it much easier to handle small format panels.  You can also see a larger painting behind it that I have been working on.  This painting was supposed to be a Christmas gift to my brother in law but since he has no clue I'm working on it there's no deadline.

Now you can see the underpainting of dark, transparent colors. 

This really helps the white dog become more interesting.

Now I start laying in the opaque colors.

I liked it well enough to sign it, but continued to play.

I think its done now. I softened some of the brush strokes and adjusted the darks. It's really fun to work quickly with wet paints / colors instead of taking days, months or years to finish a painting! So this is my day 2 painting for the challenge.

I also managed another day of Morning Pages eating veggies...

Stay tuned!