Mid-April Check-in
The weather has finally dried and warmed up here in California. We’ve had quite a cool and rainy March, so I’m happy to have the warmer weather around. I’ve felt a bit scattered the last two weeks that I’m attributing to settling into my studio space and working to re-establish a routine in the studio after traveling. I’m working on building in more breaks in my week; I’m finding that going into the studio five days a week is untenable if I want to keep up with applications. Plus breaks are nice. So we’re figuring out how to manage that right now.
What I’ve been working on:
I’m continuously adjusting my Yosemite painting, working on the background and foreground to build a better sense of depth in the painting. I think we’re almost there, and I’ll eventually call it done.
I went back to a number of smaller paintings that I started as part of a series of sunrise and sunset paintings that I had started back in January. If I’m keeping track correctly, I had finished 3 earlier in the year, and I just finished 4 more paintings. I started 3 more. The goal is to have 12 paintings in this collection. I think I had gotten frustrated with the 4 paintings and needed some time for the paint to dry to put in the final details. I need to remember to give myself some space when working on the smaller pieces because they can quickly become overworked.
As part of a compositional exercise, I painted an oyster still life painting. I need to figure out what I’m doing with the background as well as tweak a few things about the darkest point and lightest points in the painting, but I’m happy with how the exercise went overall!
Outings
This past Friday, I attended the opening reception for the Left Coast Annual Juried Show at the Sanchez Art Center, where my piece Nestle was accepted. I had a nice time meeting the other artists whose work were accepted into the show and had a chance to speak with the juror. I feel like I always learn a lot from seeing the dfiferent types of artwork that gets selected in a show, realizing that the process is really subjective and highly depends on who is jurying. It’s not an easy job, and I’m always grateful when my pieces are selected!
Those are my updates for now. Being candid, I do feel a little tired and overwhelmed with all that I want to do. I’ve been trying to set realistic expectations for what I want to accomplish. All that I want to do with my art is set by myself. Right now, I’ve been torn between practicing and improving my skills through drawing and composition exercise (which entails reading through various art workbooks, studying famous painters in art history books, and attending figure drawing sessions); working on the various collections of paintings I’ve had the ideas for for a while; and applying to various opportunities to have my work seen. And painting these collections is also in a sense practice in improving my skills. I’ve constantly struggled with wanting to do too much at once, and I’m feeling the tiredness that comes from it right now. But I know that it all comes in phases, and I’d rather have too many ideas than none at all, so it’s a good problem to have in the end. If you have any recommendations on how to better prioritize all that you want to do and how to take breaks, let me know! Until next time, thanks for following along and reading.
