day #365 - the end of an era

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I thought I was on top of it; I had finished early and was looking for a movie to watch already 3 hours ago. And I don't know how time went by. A phonecall, some networking studying, some online shopping and here we are, already past the time for an early movie. Regardless, today is a special day. The blog is over! I finished 365 days of daily painting and recording it, whatever that means. A big part of the process I will have to keep doing mainly for myself. Perhaps taking daily photos of my work and saving it on some folder. This has provem useful many times when I trying to date a piece I've been working on. Also making a small diary of today's achievements. It's still useful. But this will be done for my eyes only. I also don't know if I will be continuing my obsessively daily painting. How would life be if I had days off? Now for example that I'm moving out and I have to daily chores that until now were completely taken care of, perhaps I'll allow my
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day #48 - Automata

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Yesterday I've spent some time reading and watching youtube videos about Frank Frazetta and remembered my love for loose paintings where not every detail is fleshed out. Today I had all this energy and motivation to pickup my oils again (after 17 years of literally not having checked whether the tubes haven't dried out) just to play with (soft/hard) edge control and loose brushwork. I could fell my body vibrating with the energy/desire.

I have a very specific memory of such occurrences: The aftertaste is usually bitter disappointment where I realized it just won't come out of me. And even when it does (rare but happens) the excitement gets bigger and usually the next day, I hit the wall again and this hurts even more.

I was scared anyways. In the end, I picked up my iPad and tried to do some hard/soft edge automatic drawing stuff; and while it wasn't completely automatic (I was exploring shading/volume) it turned out interesting. I have the bitter disappointment taste, but it's distant; I don't know why; perhaps it's just a memory, I don't know. But it's there. Perhaps it's the recognition that while I did something, "okay", I didn't manage to satisfy the original itch, perhaps there were some covert expectations that I still had. Perhaps next time I have all this excitement I should be even more vigilant not to have any expectations in direction or result and simply acknowledge that "I have the motivation to paint..." and stay at that. Not "I have the motivation to paint in such and such manner".

Anyway, what do I like about this piece? It was for the most part very instinctive. I like the shading, the hazy parts, I like the strange X shaped composition with the empty center, the fact that I was only adding dark, never adding white (erasing). I like the ink blog at the bottom-left cornet that is not a 3D shape, just an organic brushstroke. It was intentional. 3D and 2D objects coexisting. I like the harsh contrast between the snow's white and the objects... The vague but familiar nature of the objects andn textures indicated.

I also like that I'm done for the day. Time for bed!

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