“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.” ~ Victor Hugo
Accidentally tapped my sleeping iPad and the Apple Notes app opened with the set of drawing tools active, so I took it as a sign to stop what I was doing (coding I think) and play for a bit. Doodled for a while till a recognizable form poked its nose out of the chaos of pencil strokes. I dubbed her ‘Melancholy Girl’ as she gazes pensively from behind a flowing mane of hair.
Artwork Copyright Patricia White 2023.
I never really got a solid start at Daily Painting a couple years back, but am giving it another try. I am slowly coming out of a creative slump and believe this practice will aid in my progress. Feel free to follow along, make your own daily art, write, sculpt, do woodwork, photography, create a recipe, make fibre art, sew—whatever floats your boat.
In her book DAILY PAINTING: Paint Small and Often to Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist, author Carol Marine noted that: “While the idea of painting every day may sound overwhelming, let me assure you, there are no specific rules or requirements. Really when I say you should paint “daily,” I mean you should paint “often”-but “Artists Who Paint Often” wasn’t catchy enough to jump-start a whole movement! Sure, the ideal might be that you paint every day, but not many of us can commit that much time to art, so we must settle for as often as we can. The daily-painting movement encompasses artists who paint daily, weekly, monthly, or intermittently. What ties these artists together, and qualifies them as “daily painters”? The simple fact that they strive to paint frequently, without getting bogged down by perfectionism, procrastination, or any of the myriad things that keep us out of the studio.‘
So. That is what I’ll endeavour to do—make art as often as possible on days where other daily concerns don’t get in the way. Will work mostly with analogue art materials (watercolour, gouache, acrylic, or oil paint, ink, pencil (graphite and/or coloured pencils), pastel (hard and/or soft), mixed media including collagé, et al, on canvas or paper). However, on days when time or arthritic pain is an issue, I will likely create digitally using my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil with apps like Procreate, Adobe, Affinity Photo for iPad and Mac and a some older apps such as Art Set, which I like for its realistic tools and for getting down concepts quickly.
Note: All original works posted in this blog are copyright Patricia White Creative.
A modern, inspirational guide to the to the art of the miniature by Karen Libecap
I’ve been reading a TON of art books these past months. This week it is THE BIG BOOK OF TINY ART by Karen Libecap.
CREATIVE EXPERIMENTS:
My 1st attempt at drawing MINIATURE ART.
Of course, it’s an APPLE, my subject of choice for the past few weeks, but this one is only 1” wide.
I generally work large so this was a unique challenge that forced me to pay attention to the smallest detail.
MATERIALS: Strathmore Mixed Media 300 Series sketchbook (https://is.gd/pJoFtf) using Derwent Coloursoft Pencils (https://is.gd/BKHilv).
Artwork Copyright Patricia White, 2022.
“Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.”
– Paul Cezanne
Over the past months I have been reacquainting myself with many of the master artists of the past. Most of them came from traditional roots and many were ridiculed when they broke with tradition to explore other ways of looking at and depicting a subject. They are also the artists we revere the most all these generations later.
This is my quick study, working title ‘Paint Like Cézanne’
All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.
All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.
“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” ~Pablo Picasso
AUTUMN’S COMING WIP
I’ve been in file-backup-hell all week. Changing web providers and spent hours this week cleaning up a slew of email accounts. Wreaking havoc with my hand and arm pain so scribbled on my iPad today.
Not wild about it as a whole but there are parts that I had fun exploring. was trying for a bright coloured autumn’ish’ landscape with a large bank of clouds dominating the piece.
It feels unfinished but the DAILY DRAWING mantra is to just get something down on paper or tablet :
”DO NOT OBSESS”.
Artwork Copyright Patricia White 2021.
ART FIX: I’ve been making art in small sketchbooks for the past while as my studio is in process of being moved. I have a few smallish sketchbooks stacked up in my “BEDOFFICE” along with pencils, paints and pastels and have been trying to do at least a couple sketches or concept ideas every day, morning and night. These sketches may stand on their own or become inspiration for a larger work later on. This little painting, THINKING AHEAD TO SPRING, is a tiny 3-1/2” x 4” piece painted using water media on December 26th.
Artwork Copyright Patricia White 2021.
Today’s Daily Painting builds on a vintage pencil drawing updated with digital watercolour. Everything old is new again. Original drawing from the mid-80s. Maggie, Ryas Runabout Ryas. I’m liking the combination of working digitally with analogue paint and paper images.
Artwork Copyright Patricia White.
DRIVEN to ABSTRACTION: I invite my FB friends (who I recognize generally seem to enjoy my more realistic figurative art) to COMMENT on one of my recent abstract pieces. I like to throw these expressionist pieces into the mix every once in a while to ‘DISTURB the CONTINUUM’. This piece (working title ‘ORIGINS’) was an effort to recognize black history month by noting the DIVERSITY that makes up the HUMAN race. This iteration EVOLVED from a more figurative early sketch into this abstracted piece that ELIMINATES distracting DETAIL in favour of more contained shapes that MELD into, and become PART of, each other. Subtle desaturated colour indicates differences in skin colour that, while important, shifts the focus to our common humanity. The shaded space where the eyes are located create an interesting dynamic that is not easy to define. Some depths we have not plumbed? Or do not wish to see? I enjoy making ART that challenges the viewer to THINK beyond the canvas. P. S. Late in 2020 I started using my iPad Pro as a virtual sketch pad to be used as a concept tool to create traditional paint and paper or canvas works.
Artwork Copyright Patricia White 2021.
A friend took a photo of a stunning sunset a few days ago inspiring one of my morning pastel sketching sessions (see photo reference displayed on my iPad Pro in pic 2 below). One of the sketches is on 5.5” x 8.5” Strathmore 400 series fine tooth 60 lb. dry media paper using Faber-Castell soft pastels and a set of 24 lusciously creamy Stabilo CarbOthello pastel pencils (really need to get a full set of these babies. They’re magnificent). Also working on a second ‘in process’ drawing on a more unforgiving black photo album stock using a tray of well-used vintage pastels (still need to add the tree line to the black-papered version after spraying with workable fixative to enable an additional layer of chalk).
Artwork Copyright Patricia White 2021.
Trisha’s Daily Painting 