Day 48. Still Making Art.

June 24th, "On the Shelf".  Gouache.

It's day 48 of the #arteveryday group.  People are still posting their art regularly, and it's incredibly rewarding to see how they develop.  For myself it has kept me busy and given me a routine with preparation of the daily theme posts, and creating the collages of work each day.
My personal development with painting is coming along gradually, I watch tutorials sometimes on YouTube, and am really enjoying the new art materials I have invested in.

June 20th. "Bottles". The contents of the caravan drinks cupboard.  I really like the natural colours of these Windsor and Newton Cotman water colour tubes.

June 25th "Geometric".  Water colours and gouache.

June 21st "Solstice".  Water colours.

June 15th "Gateway".  Gouache.

June 17th "Building".

June 18th.  "Pink".  (For some reason I continued to write "May" on my paintings, when it was well into June!

Negative Space

June 11th "Negative Space".  Gouache.   I'd never tried this technique before, but after looking at some YouTube videos I thought it looked pretty simple... actually it was hard, but by the third layer of paint I'd started to get the hang of it.  It's about filling in the space around the image, letting it dry, then adding the next layer back on the picture, and filling in the space between again.  4 layers later (paint becoming stronger) and it looks pretty effective.  Would have been better with watercolours, but at this stage I was just considering buying some.

June 13th.  "Bubbles" building on the negative space theme, I used acrylics for this piece, but determined to get hold of some watercolours and mop brushes. 

June 22nd, "Spikey".  I finally invested in some water colours!  Inspired by brambles I did some more negative space practice.  The paints were recommended by a friend in the group and are really powerful, more like inks, and only cost £5 from Amazon.  The brushes have revolutionised my painting experience (£14, very thick but with fabulous pointed tips).

June 12th "Mythology".  According to the story of the Bearded Lake, tall green-clad fairy women come out of the lake with their pure white cattle to sun themselves on the bank.

After spending the morning researching the god Pan, including listening to a woman from Australia who claimed to be spiritually connected and actually chatting to the deity. (Just putting that there for future possible experimental film soundtrack). 

This is the group collage, and I was so inspired by some of the Welsh legends, I remembered the legend of Llyn Barfog about which I'd been commissioned to make a Welsh language film a few years ago.

June 23rd.  "Daisy" seemed like a nice simple theme, but I overworked this, and lost the simplicity somewhere along the way.

June 14th."Protest".  There is a lot of protesting going on, with statues coming down and the Black Lives Matter movement.  This image is inspired by Greenham Common womens camp, and the 14 mile human chain I, my friends and my parents were part of in 1983, protesting at American nuclear weapons  on British soil.

June 16th, "Smoke".  Portrait of my son who happened to be sitting outside our colourful shed smoking on this morning.  I used a new basic set of Windsor and Newton Cotman water colour tubes.

Releasing the Collective Creativity

May 25th "Layers".

So wonderful to acknowledge that this group is now responsible for unleashing so much creativity on the world

The membership has reached 96, with some people posting regularly, while others dip in and out.  There is no pressure to produce work, but there is a great atmosphere of support and encouragement from those in the group, and it is amazingly lovely to witness, as many members increase in confidence, experimentation and freedom as they interpret the daily theme.

26th May. The theme "door" inspired images posted by 24 different people.  

There were too many posted to squeeze into two collages, so just picked a few which worked beautifully together to create this Insta collage.

For myself the challenges have been many.  Thinking of a theme each night has been difficult at times, but I have treated it as an important part of my journey within the group, and consider numerous options before settling on one which sits comfortably with my understanding of the group, and which is hopefully surprising and inspiring each morning.

The images I choose and edit to go with the post are also given careful consideration, as I take pleasure in the curation of the group, and the routine and responsibility which I have created in the role.

June 5th "Weather".  View from my caravan of the dramatic clouds with their promise of impending storms as the sun went down.  The first time I used a new set of gouache paints instead of the old acrylics I'd been using.

The work I am producing continues to be a visual diary of not only my physical surroundings, but also the state of my mind.  These are strange times.  Not only the incredible situation of a  pandemic and resulting lock down, but now the horrible death of George Floyd, and all the  emotional unrest this has produced.  

May 30th "Spirals"  Mixed media.

May 27th "Dance".  This collage expresses well how joyful I felt at the time of creating it.  It was a lengthy bit of work for a daily exercise, but one I enjoyed immensely, and collage is a medium I want to explore further.

My response to "door", May 26th. The photo I took of the caravan door open at night was really beautiful.  I found it incredibly hard to paint.

June 3rd "Reflections".  For over ten years my family have spent time in a field in Dorset with a huge group of friends.  The time we spend there is blissful, and we discuss how we'll mentally transport ourselves back to Sundowner Bay whenever real life gets a bit shit.   This year it probably won't happen because of the virus.  

June 8th "Blue".  A self portrait which reflects the sadness and confusion I felt after the death of George Floyd, which brought so much  introspection and soul searching around the issue of racism.

June 6th "Tea Time". 

May 23rd "Faceless self portrait".  The first painting I felt really good about.  A rainy morning in the caravan spent recreating my own legs from a quick selfie taken with the camera on the floor.