Mid-May Check-In
We’re at the halfway point of May and it feels like a lot has happened since my last check-in. I wrapped up Plein Airpril and completed all 30 paintings, which is an accomplishment that I’m proud of. A little over halfway through April, I started to lose motivation and felt like I was dragging my feet to paint each day. I’m glad that I stuck it through and painted all 30 days, because they ended up looking really nice together! I’ve also sold a few of the paintings to friends. It’s surprising to me which paintings other people like, because they’re different from the ones that I like. It also feels reassuring when people like ones that are not my favorites, because it’s a reminder to me that people have different preferences and like different kinds of art, so I don’t need to constantly be making a “perfect” painting in my eyes.
The process of painting daily in April also helped me realize that it’s helpful for me to have some external goal to work towards in my painting practice. I have started looking at calls for art from galleries in my area and have been trying to figure out where I would be a good fit. One of the calls for art that I have applied to is a show called 50|50 at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica, CA; for the show, artists paint 50 6”x6” paintings in 50 days. I’ll find out the results of my application next month. Another call for art that I’m thinking about applying to is a California National Parks exhibit at the Wildling Museum in Solvang, CA. I just started on a painting of Joshua Tree for the call for art, which is due July 10th, so I hope to be focusing most of my attention on this for now.
I’m still working on my smaller flower paintings for now, but I think I’ll soon focus on my Joshua Tree painting because I have an external deadline for it. Working on the flower paintings is an internal goal of mine, and I’m sure that I’ll get back to them. Similar to my California Highway One paintings: I haven’t forgotten about them, but I’m taking a break from them for now.
Outputs
I had family visit at the beginning of the month and it was really fun showing them the area around where I live. It rained most of the week they were here, which has been a common theme around people visiting me, but quite uncommon for California weather generally. We did a few hikes in the rain and didn’t see as many wildflowers in bloom because the flowers close up in the cold and rain, but it was quite green, which is unusual for this time of year.
I have a bit of traveling coming up in the next few weeks. I’ll be flying to the east coast at the end of next week for a wedding and spending some time with family. A few weeks after I come back from the east coast, I’ll be taking a week long trip to Yosemite, which I’ve been looking forward to for a while! Since I’ll be traveling a lot before my Joshua Tree painting is due, I’m hoping to spend this week and next week focused on working on my Joshua Tree painting. I want to have a good base down before I’m gone for a couple of weeks and not feel behind in the painting.
I think that’s all for now. Thanks again for reading through my check-in! Let me know if you have any thoughts about using external deadlines as motivation or if you have recommendations for visiting Yosemite!
