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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 #270 - Doodleday

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Today I tried photographing the finalized Complex Dynamics piece, but the weather didn't allow so I'll try again tomorrow. I did however do some work cleaning up my archive and in the process did revisit works from old. I'm somewhat happy seeing that my work from 2012-2016 no looks good in my eyes: that means I've improved! I can't say the same for my work from 2017 but then again maybe these things can be seen only from afar. I sure hope so! Inspired by last night's speedy doodles, I decided to indulge in the same today aswell. Did numerous faces, creatures, scenes, all in all very satisfying. Though I feel my consistency lacking, and value compositions weak, I know it was only because I hadn't done any doodling in a long time; it wasn't only until the very end that I rememebered how much I like shading! In any case, I like the richness of designs, and the dynamicism in many of the postures and creatures and I'm surprised as always by how a few
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day #269 - Complex Dynamics v7

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Not the best mood today, but I managed to resume working on the piece; I fixed the thing I had already decided to and I believe I've now wrapped up. Tomorrow (or whenever) I'm going to verify everything is fine, do the photoshooting, and fixate it. It's been a long time that I haven't done any posture or "pretty girl" practice and today as I was feeling reluctant to get to bed, I decided to do a late night session of doodling. In retrospection I can't say whether this decision was because I'm used to speed-doodling on discord and my brain wanted to sustain the anxiety feeling that it was already feeling, or whether I was provoked (won't say inspired) by the movie King of Staten Island that I just watched where the protagonist was doodling and did a quite professional comic-styled superhero design, but despite the level of this work of his, he was turned down for a job at a tattoo shop where the owner told him "I could draw that well when I was
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day #268 - Complex Dynamics v6

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I think I finally finished today. I'll check next time and see if there is anything left to fix (already identified a couple of minor problem-areas by flipping the image on the computer screen). Today I mostly worked with highlights and the sense of material glossiness! Very interesting! That's all for now. Time for rest!
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day #267 - Sketchday

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Today I did some sketching. An interesting character (with more feet that hands) where I let loose with my pentel pockebrush (it still excites me!) and a second where I (cold) practiced drawing a pretty-face and tried doing it from multiple angles. It's both a success and failure; the bottom view is outright ugly, but overall I was happy with the fact that I managed to maintain the characteristics somewhat stable across the views, and despite how rare it is that I draw faces nowadays, it came out half-decent. Another thing I liked about today is that my apetite for painting wanted more (but never got to it) - it's a good sign that I'm not overextending myself. Then again, it's also a sign that maybe(?) I'm not doing enough? In any case, since it's rare, I welcome it! I had to do a bit more for today, so I picked up my pen and filled this additional page.
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day #266 - Self-massaging

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Tonight, I feel different, I feel soft. I didn't manage to paint much (20mins or so in the afternoon) and while I was planning to resume in the evening I decided to change my plan and do something else. For a change, I don't feel guilty for it, but self-compassionate. It's okay. I accept the day as it is; 20mins of painting, yes, it does hurt, I do feel the fear of doing so little, I do feel the nagging "you're not doing the best effort" - I empathize with these voices; they want me to feel secure and happy, they want me to be creative, to progress, to make it, to be proud of myself. All well meaning, but today I should also celebrate the other, the liberating voice that is asking of me to move beyond "dutifulness" towards my craft, and towards a more joyous, free and kind approach to it. So here we are. 20 minutes, is a step in the right direction, my 266th step without losing a beat. It's small, reminding me that not all steps have to be strid
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day #265 - Complex Dynamics V

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Today has been another satisfying day. I cought longer hours of light that usually and stopped working not because I run out of light, but because I felt I wasn't contributing anything. I'm starting to accept the idea that some things mature over time, and taking breaks is good. This piece feels almost done too. When I put my pastels away, I had decided that I'd look at it tomorrow and if nothing is glaringly ugly, I'd photograph, fixate and sign it. Eventually I found numerous minor issues both while looking at it later and on the computer so I'll be definitely retouching it tomorrow; but probably I won't need a second day. We'll see. In any case, I reached an interesting point: I could see myself continuing refining the piece, but then again I know I wasn't adding any real value to it, I was merely making it cleaner. I decided to invest that time to keep working on new stuff and improving - and perhaps allow myself in the future to reach this point of
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day #264 - The complex

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Today, I invested my time (and the good weather) in tightening the piece I started a few weeks ago. It's still enjoyable working on it, and now that I'm starting to eliminate the "whiteness" off the paper it feels good. Breaking wrapping-paper bubble good. Then again, when I opened the image on my computer to post it, I discovered that the skin highlights look like eggs! I need to create more variety between the two shoulderblades, the shoulder, tricept and buttocks because it's looking ugly like that. Anyway, overall I like these final sessions of refinement, and also like discovering how much control I have over color and corrections compared to my initial assumptions!
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