The Hideous Portrait: An Artistic Journey,
warts and all.

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

I like how things worked out these last few days. On one hand I'm overwhelmed by reseaching on what to do about my new apartment and studio, looking for compact wall-easel solutions, light and everyday stuff like a sofa of painting the wall. I can see how this is completely draining me (choice, indecision regardless of the topic, tires me, and drains me of creativity). On the other hand, I still do find some time to both post instagram art (albeit less thoughfully) and at the same time work a bit every day. Today I did some watercolor and ink sketches, trying to bridge my "digital" doodling self, to my analogue one. I'm quite satisified. Among others, I did an interesting self-portrait, did a couple large "worldbuilding" attempts, and also got to combine ink with a few watercolors! That felt non-purist, and very invigorating! Time for rest! Oh, and here we are: One day, before the last! Tomorrow is the final day of this blog. I don't know if this will

How long has it been since I last did ipad art? How long has it been since I last did doodling in procreate? Today I logged onto discord and did some. It was quiet, for a change I wasn't too concerned with what others where thinking: I have the armor of somebody who is not part of that competitive world, but in the more wide world of artmaking. Of course this is only because it's been a long time that I haven't been there. Something tells me that if I keep coming back I might start loosing the armor. I did lots of skulls and figures today. Various styles, from sculputry heads to cartoony, to disney to anime. Lots of body-postures. I am overall happy with my performance after such a long time not doing anything related. I also happy about a few characters; there is personality and looseness in the line and the postures. I also did a number of hands, all very successful. Today felt like "I am fluent in these things". In other news, I'm working in setting up my s

For today only a bit of studying the human form via sculpting. I enjoyed the challenge of it: Trying to see the relative position of body details in 3D space! I can't imaging getting to the point that I can do what I do in 2D space in all 3 dimensions, but I'm sure that any improvement is good. Other than that today I focused mostly on photographing artwork; I've decided that two pieces are a wrap. I am glad I didn't push myself too much, neither do I feel bad about it which is an improvement. Time for rest.

I almost forgot writing my entry today! Got back and turned my computer on. Today I tried to be relaxed and took out the "cheap" watercolors trying to something that isn't too consequential but something fun instead. Not sure I enjoyed it (apparently, it doesn't work if you expect it to work) but I did three small pieces. A part of the success is that I kept them simple. I accepted the faxt that these pieces didn't have to be anything important. The second thing I enjoyed was remembering how these watercolors perform. It wasn't as impressive as that one time, but still they were quite fun. Finally I like that I re-did that reclined human posture. There is something about it that I like. Achilles drinking while reclined. I don't know where this impring comes from. In any case, this has been a productive day (despite not having made any "instaworthy" painting - I hate how I measure everything by that standard now and how this is taxing me). I got

Today I focused on maintainance: I had already 6 pieces in progress so I found myself in the mood of wrapping up a couple of them. What is more, I had the exciting realization that if I heat my pastels up, they soften and their properties change making it easier to layer them up further which is good since a)summer has arrived and b) I work in thick layers so I need as much reworkability as possible. Overall I'm satisfied with the progress. One of the mini-games I play with myself is trying to match the colors that I had produced when I was creating the painting. After some days have gone by, it's no longer obvious which colors produce a certain mixture so there is some guesswork, trial and error and some experience accumulation taking place. Today I also got to visit my new apartment that is going to act as my very own studio which is an exciting development! Time for rest.

I'd say today's highlight has been that I painted the human form from imagination after seeing it in my mind's eye over a number of sketches. Of course seeing it is a stretch - In reality I had a glimpse of some part of the body and a notion of the general posture and I'd try to put it on the paper. I'm happy though overall. It's a way of painting I haven't cultivated, yet my "training" has all been so that it will enable me to fill in the gaps. Plus I did some attempts at trying to paint reflections in mirrors; I think I understand the general principle, though it's a bit heuristic/constructive and I wonder if there is a more ...artistic (ie less mental) approach. Other than that, I painted for only a few minutes the Venus piece: I started planning on painting, but I couldn't stand from some inexplicable tiredness which is crazy and eventually got back inside and started sketching in the sofa. I'm worried that I am too scared to attemp