Challenging Lessons

Painting at the foot of Neahkahnie Mountain

Here it is, only Day 7 of the challenge and I have learned more than any of the other challenges put together. Of course, with each challenge I am in a different place so it would make sense that I would learn different lessons.

I think the biggest lesson I have learned this week is this: Much to my chagrin, I have come to realize that  I currently do not have my life set up to paint everyday or even as often as I would like or need to. I will say right here, this needs to change because I understand the value and necessity as an artist to having ones life set up to revolve around the creation of art.

This seems like such a simple and obvious thing, but it isn't really. Like so many people, I have a busy life. On taking a good hard look at where the time goes, I have come to the realization that I really need a system to manage my time more efficiently, or a ritual.

I have to admit, I don't seem to be able to keep to a highly structured ritual. Life seems to throw in extra goodies such as the peaches at the Farmer's Market on Friday. How do peaches disrupt a schedule? Well, peaches are tricky to come by here on the coast. At this Friday's market, someone brought flats of organic peaches from their farm. We bought two flats, which meant I had to can and freeze them before they go bad. This all came to an unscheduled task tacked onto a long day, leaving me exhausted today after working at the store all day. I can hardly see straight, let alone think straight enough to paint at the moment. This also explains my not-so-polished off the cuff blog posts too by the way!

I could go on to list all the wonderful and not so wonderful things I get to do in this life but I think I made my point. Change is needed.

Yesterday morning I had a wonderful two hour online seminar which dealt with what it takes to create a successful art career. I know, there are a lot of these but this one was given by someone with the experience and track record to back it up. The seminar also brought home to me some of the issues and obstacles I have been discovering during this challenge and gave me a good roadmap to overcome them. Coincidence? Maybe but I think more like synchronicity.

I am not going to go over all two hours point by point but will start with just one, time management so I can paint.

The challenge continues of course but will shift. I started out with painting everyday as my goal. That is still my goal but in a broader sense. My challenge has been refined to creating a lifestyle that puts painting, drawing, and artist related activities into a daily practice.

I feel that I am putting this so poorly. It reads a bit like a cliche to me but that could be my tired mind and body. I will stop here on this topic and leave one last fun tidbit .

I am going on a short artist road trip! I will be leaving this week for two days to go down the coast to visit the 21st Annual Maritime Art Exhibit at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, Oregon.
I will be staying at one of my favorite spots on the central Oregon Coast, Yachats (pronounced Yah-Hots). I will be taking my painting pack of course. I will also have time to think, plan, and reorganize so I can be on my way to having consistent time at the easel and continue to build skills and a body of work.

If you made it this far through a somewhat rambling and personal post, thank you! I promise I will have some fun things, and paintings, to share this week too. Here is a bit of the beauty that inspires me to keep at it.

Short Sands of course, as the tide is receding.

-Renee

Day 5: 30/30 Challenge: Hot Sands!

"Hot Sands" work in progress

The unusually hot weather continues and I did indeed go to Short Sands. I went in the morning and took a liter of electrolyte enhanced water with me. It wasn't as windy at Short Sands as it was a couple of miles down the road where I live. If I would have known that there would be almost no wind, I would have taken my plein air umbrella. More about that in a minute.

This is a work in progress. I was already quite warm when I got there, set up, did a few sketches. When I started painting I soon had rivers of sweat running down, all over. It was hot. We are not used to heat here. I know many artists live where it truly gets hot but then I usually read that they either go out at the crack of dawn or stay in a cool studio. Judging by the temperature reports coming in from folks around here, I am guessing it was in the 90-95 degree (F) range. The sand and surrounding cliffs were also radiating heat. I was sorely tempted to plunge into the ocean but did not relish the hike back through the forest and drive home in wet clothes. It might be worth taking something to swim in if I find myself heading to Short Sands in the heat!

I only lasted two hours. Which was OK as the light had changed too much to continue. I had drank all of my water and was starting to feel ill from the heat so I packed it in. I have decided that I will work on this tomorrow and try something I have been meaning to try for a while now. I think I will work on this, from memory, and push it around a bit. You can learn a lot from playing around with a painting. I meant this to be a study anyway so it is done on a canvas sheet. I might ruin the painting but that is OK. Maybe I will take pictures of the progression.

I have a BestBrella plein air umbrella which I have written about before. It is a decent plein air umbrella but it just wasn't made for coastal conditions. Most of the time it is windy or we get sudden, unpredictable gusts and gusts that change direction from one minute to the next. My BestBrella lasted two weeks before a one of those sudden gusts of wind hit me and sheared off the brass connection. They were made from a granulated rather than cast material. At the moment I have Tinkertoys holding the connections together and I only use the umbrella where I know there will be no wind, such as the last workshop I attended in the Sierra foothills. I am learning to compensate for not having my panel and palette shaded. Unfortunately, there is no shade available at Short Sands on the beach. Turning into the sun usually means putting your back to the sea, not a good idea. Any other shelters I have though of have similar drawbacks to the umbrella or will not let me see well.

Tomorrow I have an online art seminar and I will work on the painting above to see how far I can push it. I also just brought home veggies, two flats of organic peaches, a 1/2 flat of raspberries, and several local pie apples from our Farmer's Market. I will need to get them either canned or in the freezer. Life is good!

-Renee

Day 2: Painting at Night

I worked at the store today. Usually by the time I get home, make dinner, clean up, and finally sit a bit after being on my feet all day, I don't want to move. It is even hard to get up and get ready for bed.

Today I also had to paint. At first, I didn't want to and my mind raced to find an excuse I could live with. I honestly couldn't find one I could live with. So, I got up and climbed the stairs to my studio. My mind kept saying, "I don't want to do this" or,  "you are too tired so you will probably have to wipe it off anyway." My body kept setting up to paint. It only takes a minute as I am using my plein air easel in the studio to make it easy to just move aside.

I started to paint. An interesting thing happened. My exhaustion receded, not entirely, but significantly. My mind snapped into creative problem solving mode, and my very tired feet forgot they were tired for a bit. Ahhh, much better. I ended up painting for just a little over an hour. An hour was all I was really hoping for.

I did discover that I really don't like painting at night. I much prefer the daytime.

So here is a work in progress. There is a story behind this still life which I will tell as the painting progresses. It isn't a fancy painting but will actually work as a study for a larger painting that I have in mind.

This a tiny part of the painting, which, as I mentioned above, is a work in progress. I am starting with a color block in for this one.

Day 2: WIP (work in progress for those folks who are not familiar) 1 hour 20 minutes..

Here is the first part of the story behind the still life:
The beach along the Oregon coast is a magical place. It is always changing, never the same from day to day. There is a particular beach on the Northern Oregon Coast that is, in my opinion, more magical than most. I go there a lot to paint, draw, and sometimes just hang out. There are a few creeks and small rivers that find their way to the mother sea and they carve channels into the sand on their way to rejoin the salty ocean. At one end, there is a waterfall that cascades onto the rocks, or into the waves, depending on the tides.
The sand shifts and can quickly cover a rock formation or build up into banks. It can all be washed away the next day and expose new rocks and sometimes remnants of human artifacts.
One day, near the spot where the ashes of my dog Twill are buried, the ocean left me a gift...

Both still life and story to be continued!

I work at the store again tomorrow. We shall see if it gets easier to do my stint of painting.
Please forgive any errors in the above post. I am cramming this in before hauling myself to bed.

-Renee

Twisting a 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 1

Prepping panels for painting

I am once again participating in Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. Leslie is great at encouraging everyone to make it fun and change it to fit ones needs. I decided to do just that. First, let me back up a tiny bit before describing my challenge.

It has been a very busy summer with music, work, and painting en plein air every chance I get. The summer has been unusually sunny with very little rain for the Northern Oregon Coast. The visitors have flocked here and it has left many shopkeepers, and us employees, grateful for the customers but a bit frazzled.

Labor Day, which is today as I write this post, officially ends our summer season. The kids will be heading back to school and summer vacations are ending. Things will be slowly quieting down around here. I must admit, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief. It has been a bit too crowded and hectic for my introverted tastes.

Last September I did not participate in this challenge as I was recovering from surgery. My attempt at January's challenge did not fly as I suddenly went back to work a few days a week, to pay off the surgery bills! So here I am again.
I decided to do a few things differently this time around as I am in a different place in my drawing and painting now. Here is what I propose for myself for this challenge:

I work two days a week in a women's clothing store in our tiny little town. There are two such stores dedicated to clothing, in addition to a couple more stores that have a bit of clothing for sale, and they are both a destination for many out-of-town shoppers.
Did you catch that introvert reference? I like people, honestly, but they exhaust me and I need a lot of down time and solitude to recover after each work day. I have felt too tired to do much of anything when I get home from working at the store all day. I want to try to change that. I will not be completing and entire painting on my store work days, but I want to get into the habit of painting everyday.

So the first part of this challenge is to do just that, paint everyday even if it is for an hour. I have been building a daily drawing habit for a while and I want to continue to do that and solidify it.
The second part of this challenge is to focus on a particular skill building area. I have decided to focus on composition. I have been so busy building up skills piece by piece, that I have neglected the whole. It is time to put it all together.

A found item I won't be painting at this time, Velella,velella. A sea creature of the jellyfish persuasion.

Leslie suggests having a theme. I decided my theme is "Found". I will be using the many intriguing items that I find on the beach in various still life paintings. I am also including "found" beach scenes as I will continue to paint en plein air.

Given all of this, I probably won't have 30 completed paintings. I am not sure how many I will have. I will put any painting that I think worthy up for sale. Most of them will be small and will be $100 for the challenge month. 

I promise I won't be writing such a long post each time either! I am also asking Please, no critiques of the paintings, constructive or otherwise, at this time. They will be critiqued privately. I need the space to experiment, grow, and make a mess. I am willing to share the process but process is not perfect or perfectly finished paintings all the time. It is going to get messy!

Here is Day 1:

"Summer Green", 6"x6", oil on panel. Plein air still life, pyramid composition. Bottle, including sand, and floats found on beach. NFS

Stay tuned!
-Renee