I need to make art. I need to do this so I can be me. Not unlike Bruce Willis' character from Unbreakable (Hey, we take inspiration from wherever the universe offers it alright?) I feel sad when I'm not doing what I know I was put here to do. "So why haven't you been doing it then dummy?" you're asking, "Did you lose your hands at a Tazmanian Devil petting zoo or somethin'?" No, I absolutely have the ability to make art, I'll even go as far as to say that when I do, I'm pretty good at it. It's just so easy now a days to NOT do things. Wonderful distractions like TV, Movies, the internet and have you ever played Xbox? "Portal" alone would have caused the complete breakdown of modern society if everyone was as easily distracted as I am. Between the world just getting in the way, having a "real" job and my fear of failure (If you don't put in a real effort, you can't fall on your face right?) I just don't make the time. I'm not making excuses. The only thing standing in my way is me.
I've seen a lot of "Painting a Day" Blogs that have artists forcing themselves to create one painting per day but I have a few problems with this. One is that while forcing me to generate SOMETHING having only one day will mean that the work isn't that thought out and I'll end up with a whole bunch of half-assed art attempts instead of a collection of my art that I'm proud to show. Secondly, I am looking to try something that, with a few tweaks, could be sustainable. I think that after a long stretch of putting everything on hold to kick out a painting a day, I would have so much life stuff to catch up on, that it would be a long while before I could get back to painting at all.
One nice thing about essentially sitting on my thumbs for 10 years is that I've learned quite a bit about myself and how I need to work. I need just the right amount of structure to keep this silly fear I have at bay. I'm not one of these artists who love it when the whole world of possibilities is laid out in front of him. The bright white of an empty canvas isn't my magic carpet to take me to a wondrous world of endless potential. For me, it's a stifling end to a hallway and every stroke I add is a door in that hallway that shuts me away from what could have been, where this painting could have gone. The anxiety of whether the path I'm traveling will take me to my intended destination or to a disappointment I wish I hadn't wasted time on is probably a big reason I have to be in just the right mood to pick up a brush.
So let's look at
The PaintMore Initiative Rules
26 Canvases, 79 Days
I've always said I do my best work under pressure so we'll see if thats actually true or if its just the only way I've ever known. See, in the past, I've applied pressure to myself by waiting until the last possible second to start working on a project. Ask my wife about ArtPrize last year and my 4 day painting marathon before I hung still-wet canvases at the venue (actually, don't ask her about it, it would just put her in a sour mood again) why 26? One piece for every year I've been an artist. 79 days gives me 3 days for each piece and one day to spare.
The Only Mediums Allowed are Watercolour and Oil Paint
The skill I've always wanted to improve is painting, so we'll say the only drawing I will be doing is in preparation for paintings. I was a whiz at watercolour in college so I'll make that one of my mediums so I'll have something familiar to fall back on when my confidence is wavering. My weakness in painting is probably oil so that will be my other medium. I'm not going to absolutely forbid the use of other mediums in combination with these two. If I'm gonna get some awesome effects from adding chalk or airbrush acrylic on top of a watercolour, I'm gonna allow it. That's the fun stuff, finding those killer combinations, but the primary painting needs to be watercolour or oil.
No Paint Brushes Smaller Than 1/4" Wide
I get way too meticulous with my painting I've always wanted to have a loose style like my hero Bill Sienkiewicz so I'm gonna pack up my quadruple zero brushes (the ones that are like, a single hair that modelers use to paint eyebrows on their tiny lead figurines?) and I'll limit my brush size to 1/4" wide and larger, that oughta loosen things up a bit.
Canvas Sizes, no smaller than: 13x13 for oil 11x11 for watercolour
Canvas is just the word I'm using to describe the painting surface, they'll actually be Gesso'd Masonite for oil and various densities of watercolour paper. 13x13 is big enough to make some impressive wall art but small enough to not take forever to paint. I originally had set sizes that I didn't want to deviate from just to give myself less to think about when starting these paintings, but I still want he freedom to make multi-canvas creations and with a set size that could get out of hand quickly. I just want to make sure these don't get too small like some of the stuff Painting-a-day folks ended up making. 11x11 is just because I already have a bunch of 11x14 watercolour pads laying aroung that I can cut one side off of to make a square piece. The paintings will probably rarely be these specific sizes(most likely end up a little bigger) but I wanted to affect some control here so I don't get too lazy and paint a bunch of postage stamps.
Only 4 Hours Actual Painting Time per Piece
I work REALLY slowly and I need to move with confidence and speed if I'm going to be an artist with the time I have to actually create. My schedule is only gong to get more demanding as my wife and I start our family in the next few years so I need to learn how to speed it up now. This also speaks to my meticulousness issue, less time to fuss over details will force me to loosen up and go with the flow. The 3 days I have per painting will be spent developing the ideas, studying reference and preliminary sketches. I usually breeze through this stuff so I get to the fun part but if I limit the time that my first squirt of paint goes on the palette till the final stroke on the canvas to only 4 hours I am going to have to spend the setup time wisely or end up with half done and just plain crumby work.
At Least One Blog Post per Painting
This should probably go without saying but in order to keep this interesting for you and keep myself accountable, I'll need to keep a pretty good record of what's going on including photos, thoughts, roadblocks, successes, your standard blog fare, at least every three days.
Amendment Period (AKA: Escape Route from a Bad Idea)
I am reasonably certain this plan is sound and will force me to do what I know I need to. I am going to treat these rules as absolutely unbreakable but I need to offer myself a small parachute in case something is really not working. I would rather make some amendments and salvage a portion of this project than spend the next 79 days so miserable I never even want to look at a paint brush on day 80 or end up with 26 rushed, half done works that look worse than my portrait of Skeletor from age 6. So here is the deal. These rules are more indelible than the law of gravity until I get 5 pieces done in this fashion. On day 15 I reserve the right to tweak the rules for the ultimate success of the Initiative. That's fair right? ...well who asked you anyway! Ooh, I'm gettin' cranky, must be time for bed.
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