New supplies, ready to paint
Last year our friend Teri Capp participated in the Seattle 30-Day Art Challenge and we went to the show during the first Thursday art walk in Pioneer Square. It was a fun event with 8×10 paintings of all types and quality plastering the walls of the gallery space. It got so crowded and hot in there we finally left to walk around outside to go visit other galleries. The show was very inspiring and I actually started doing some pastels again as Teri was working on her 30-day paintings and I thought “hmm, maybe I should try this next year if I’m not doing contract work.”
It is now next year and I signed up this week to do the 30-Day Challenge. Since I’m just working on my own iOS apps right now and haven’t been able to do my usual physical challenges of a marathon or ultra I decided this would be my “marathon” challenge this year. The Challenge starts tomorrow when I pick up canvases and ends on November 17. The show will be on Dec. 5 at the T.K. Artists Lofts in Pioneer Square.
My big debate was what to use for the paintings. I would prefer to use soft pastel but given the nature of the show I don’t think pastel would have worked too well since I couldn’t cover them with glass and am not too crazy about fixative and even that isn’t going to stop smudging. I decided to try water soluble oils thinking that I could get them to work with some quick dry medium but today discovered that a painting I did five days ago was still tacky. Time for a change of plans so I headed out to Daniel Smith this morning and bought new supplies, this time acrylics. This is going to be interesting, I haven’t used acrylic paint since high school art class and wasn’t really too proficient again at oils since it had been a while since I completed a decent painting in them. Trying to get 30 paintings done in the next month should get me up to some proficiency with the medium.
I decided on a theme of “My Year in Tenkara” for the paintings. I’ve poured through my iPhone photo library and found about two dozen photos so far of landscapes from my fishing adventures this year. I plan to augment these with some still lifes and hopefully get a few more photos before the month is over. I’ve been reviewing Landscape Painting by Albala which has been my go-to reference for painting. I’ve been practicing this past week doing 8×10 and 9×12 paintings trying to get to where I can knock out a painting in 1-1.5 hours, basically doing it plein air style but in my studio with the photo displaying on my MacBook. I think I’m as prepared as I can be at this point. Tomorrow I pick up canvases at noon and plan to get started in the afternoon.
I’ll be posting updates as the month goes on, describing my process and progress.