News — Process

We make art because we love something about the process, product or both. Part of why I love painting is because I love the intellectual challenge of it. I love creating problems to try and then solve them. I love that painting gives me a venue for overthinking, one of my favorite past times. I love how painting has changed how I see the world. I love how painting has brought me closer to my mother and grandmother (both incredible artists) and introduced me to some of the most amazing people I know.

And yet, for all of that love, art is not always an easy love. Sometimes I'm not real excited about showing up. Yes, I do have the days when I leap out of bed...but mostly I wake up kind of cranky and have to coerce myself into the studio with promises of coffee. My love of art didn't suddenly make me a morning person.

But maybe that's because I've been doing it wrong. Each of us has to find, through probably some serious trial and error, how we work best. To kick off January, I took part in two daily art challenges. For 31 days, I started each morning with Lisa Congdon's simple line drawings. It was low stakes, and often fairly straightforward. And a surprising thing happened: I started the day with a pure and simple joy. Unsurprising, however, was that starting my day with joy meant the whole day was better, and it propelled me eagerly into the more challenging artist problems awaiting me.

So now for February that's what I've been doing. I start the day with something simple, somewhat easy, and filled with joy.

How do you start your day? With the hard stuff or the easy stuff?

Daily painting number 34

I love leaving the hair white. It doesn't always work and mostly I end up covering up the white but on this one it stays.

It feels good to be able to say, "So far in 2016, I've painted 32 paintings." It's the proof I need for myself that I'm headed toward my goals. Goals and progress can both feel so arbitrary. I'm definitely someone who is comforted by having a number and a schedule. And today that number is 32.

Day 20!

What I like:

I always have this debate of how much to mask the pattern vs letting it push through. In part due to the exhaustion, I'm stopping earlier than I might if this painting was taking me a week or a month. However, I also stopped early because I sort of fell in love with how she looked earlier than I normally do. I actually went a layer beyond where I wanted to purely because I thought I should.

Where to work:

I'm not sure what to do with pencil lines in my work. I'm not against seeing the original drawing and in fact, I often really love seeing parts of the original drawing underneath. However, that's only if it seems to fit in purposefully. I still feel like I see my lines because I haven't figured out what to do with them as opposed to them adding to the gesture of the piece. I'll be thinking on that in the weeks ahead.

Mixed Media on Paper, Kelly Anne Powers[/caption] I’m bad at the long view. Aren’t we all. It’s easy for me to look at what’s underneath my hands today and say, “This is crap. I am crap,” and forget that this isn’t about accomplishing something this afternoon. Or even tomorrow. It’s about a lifetime devotion to art.

I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, and if you haven’t read it yet, I strongly strongly recommend it. A writer friend gave it to me, and it’s one of those books where you’ll want your own copy so that you can mark it up and highlight aplenty. There’s such great truth around every corner.