“The important thing is to do, and nothing else; be what it may.” ~ Pablo Picasso
Thinking about Picasso’s statement, I felt an easing of the grip of creative block that’s been haunting me for months. It’s not what I make that is the most important consideration. It is the action of creating, even something I might consider sub-par, that is at the heart of any habit we want to establish.
As Andy Warhol said, “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
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.
“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’
If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery. It wouldn’t seem so wonderful at ~ Michelangelo
This site is dedicated to maintaining a daily habit of making art. It may contain pages from my sketchbooks, examples from past work, experiments, conceptual ideas and inspirational influences. I may use analogue materials such as watercolour, oil, acrylic, pastel, coloured pencil, ink or pencil to create the artwork. Collagé, needlework, or found objects may also find their way into these works.
As an artist working with the challenge of nerve damage in my arms and hands, there may be days when my works are painted digitally on my iPad Pro using various paint applications such as Procreate, Infinite Painter or Adobe Fresco. OR some works may be a combination of analogue and digital. Experimentation means the sky’s the limit. anything goes.
Trisha’s Daily Painting 