It’s been twenty days and I’ve only painted seven times, though I managed to do quick pen sketches almost everyday. I guess it was a bit unrealistic to set myself a daily painting challenge at the same time as moving into a new place on the other side of the world from London and having no set routines.
At first I had best intentions to paint in the evenings, but would fall asleep while putting the kids to bed. When I managed to stay awake, I didn’t have much energy and would choose to paint simple subjects on either watercolour postcards, like the apple above, or small Fabriano watercolour paper (12.5 x 18 cm).
This one of Calla flowers never got finished. My kids choose these yellow flowers, which I probably wouldn’t buy myself, but I agreed to their choice thinking of the simplicity and the beauty of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, which I discovered recently. While struggling to chose a flower bouquet in the shop, I realised that I prefer the natural messiness of the growing plants to the careful arrangements made by human hand. I miss having a garden.
Sometimes I just wanted to play with colour. It turned out to be very therapeutic.
As days progressed it was getting easier and easier to find excuses not to paint, so I bought some yellow lilies and started getting up earlier to help me find the time and motivation to paint.
30 paintings in 30 days challenge statistics:
Started on: 31st December 2013
Days missed: too many
Paintings completed 12