30 Drawings. 30 Days.
Inspired by a recent article in Pastel Journal about daily painters, I wondered whether I could do my own scaled-down version of a painting a day. My work-days are long, and when I finally roll in at 10pm I'm exhausted and just want to plop down on the couch with a glass of wine, the crossword puzzle, and a pile of kitties. My weekends are a frenzy of micro-farm management and housekeeping, which leaves me not only tired at the end of the day but sometimes sore and achy and weather-worn to boot. I get studio time either by sleeping less, or racing through my weekend chores and skipping the weekly hike with the dogs. So could I fit daily painting somewhere in there? Maybe just daily drawing. Maybe just a daily vignette. Maybe just a little daily vignette on a reduced paper size, and maybe just of produce, my favorite subject. Surely I could handle that.
After doing 8 drawings in 7 days, I'm feeling pretty confident about going the full 30. And maybe continuing beyond that. And while I started off drawing my favorite subject, in this case silly little vignettes of the lemons I just plucked off our tree, my biggest revelation came in the form of tiny landscapes.
I struggle with landscapes in general, wavering between trying to draw in the style of the expressionism that I love and automatically reverting back to the realism that comes more naturally. In forcing myself to work on paper sizes no larger than about 4 x 5, and sometimes even smaller, all the tenets of Expression come out naturally. I'm working from photos, since I work so late at night, but I'm tempted to limit myself to these tiny sizes in the field for awhile. On the one hand, I'm not sure it's worth it to haul all my equipment up some mountain to make a 3 x 4 drawing. But on the other hand, I haven't even been going out at all for lack of confidence and my inability to resolve my compulsion to exacting realism. And besides, the dogs get antsy when I plop down for a spell in the middle of their grand adventure, and the little 3 x 4's only take about 30 minutes. I think it might be the perfect solution, for awhile anyway.
Here's my first 8 daily drawings, the tiny seascape and tiny pasture being my favorites so far:
After doing 8 drawings in 7 days, I'm feeling pretty confident about going the full 30. And maybe continuing beyond that. And while I started off drawing my favorite subject, in this case silly little vignettes of the lemons I just plucked off our tree, my biggest revelation came in the form of tiny landscapes.
I struggle with landscapes in general, wavering between trying to draw in the style of the expressionism that I love and automatically reverting back to the realism that comes more naturally. In forcing myself to work on paper sizes no larger than about 4 x 5, and sometimes even smaller, all the tenets of Expression come out naturally. I'm working from photos, since I work so late at night, but I'm tempted to limit myself to these tiny sizes in the field for awhile. On the one hand, I'm not sure it's worth it to haul all my equipment up some mountain to make a 3 x 4 drawing. But on the other hand, I haven't even been going out at all for lack of confidence and my inability to resolve my compulsion to exacting realism. And besides, the dogs get antsy when I plop down for a spell in the middle of their grand adventure, and the little 3 x 4's only take about 30 minutes. I think it might be the perfect solution, for awhile anyway.
Here's my first 8 daily drawings, the tiny seascape and tiny pasture being my favorites so far: