Little Cactus

This little cactus is one of many small daily paintings I'm challenging myself to do. It is surprisingly difficult to dedicate 2 to 4 hours a day to a painting. This was day 4, of what will hopefully be 100 days.

As you can see this photo has color issues. We can talk about photographing art in a later post. Since this is just a daily painting I just took a quick snapshot. The point of these is supposed to be that I wipe most of these after I'm done. The idea is to free yourself from the thought that you're trying to create a masterpiece every time. The objective being to go outside, and start a painting. Learn what you can, and do the same the next day. Spend an hour or two max.

Finding a place, a subject, an angle, a shadow, lighting, all difficult. These are challenges I face every time I go out. Not only is finding a subject difficult, but composing the painting is as well.

I start with a rough drawing. This helps me place objects, and the shadowing helps create the values. Those values help with the overall composition (step back and look from a few steps back), then come close again. Repeating throughout the whole painting.

A very quick sketch also captures the light as it is when I start. It will not stay this way. This particular day was overcast, so the shadows

were embellished a little.

Figuring out when to stop is normally a challenge, but with daily paintings I can just stop when I feel I have more to gain/learn from starting a new one.