On the off chance you’re here to find out about the third January painting I teased in the last post, “Phoebe in the Aisle of Eyes”, I am sorry to report that painting was a dud. However, I finished my favorite painting to date over a number of days. This one:
Patience, 16″ x 20″ acrylics. He was told they would sleep the whole time. They did not.
Here are the rest of my results from Paint Every Day, January 1-30, 2023.
11″ x 14″ (and one 12″ x 12″) acrylic on canvas paintings, January 2023 Top Left: Louise, After the Recital
Results: The first painting (blue critter, above), and the last painting (at the top of this post), were the only ones I managed to finish. I had hoped to finish a painting a day but it turns out that goal might not work for me.
I have some paintings to finish for February. We’ll see how that goes.
Today is January 7, 2023. I finished a painting on January 1. The painting is titled Louise, After the Recital, and here she is:
11 x 14 acrylics on wrapped canvas. Louise, After the Recital, by Cindy Dauer.
I hoped to do a painting every day, but the next one took three days, including many false starts. I didn’t give this one a name. Someone who saw it pointed out that the main character looks a bit like the Grinch, which is true.
11×14 acrylics on wrapped canvas, by Cindy Dauer
I am on day three of the next painting, which got a name early on: Phoebe in the Aisle of Eyes. You’ll just have to come back and see. :-)
This video slideshow represents about 85% of my paintings from 2014 to March 2022, with a handful from earlier. Many are unfinished studies, many are quite dreadful! But I thought it would be interesting to see them all together, to see the process of progress.
Progress is not linear. And there were a lot of long stretches of months with no painting at all. I’m pretty sure a live, local community is very helpful for that sort of thing and then we had a pandemic.
I may do another version with a voiceover, but I haven’t done one of those so I’ll have to look into it.
Most of these paintings are currently stacked in my living room. Maybe I’ll list some for sale. I have started to paint over some of them, especially unfinished ones. It’s a strange feeling, to do that.
Composition/Drawing Challenge 1-25, March to April, 2022Opus (plush), pencilKyle the piranha-dog from Despicable Me (plush), pencil
Originally it was a 30-day drawing challenge, but I finished it out at 25, which is still pretty great! It was particularly motivating seeing drawings from all the other class participants. (I can’t link it because it was on a closed teaching platform.) It’s always good to surround yourself with an art community if you are trying to do art, which is so often a solitary pursuit.
Next up is a continuation of the composition instruction, this time with paints, and I will be using oil paints for the first time, after 11-ish years of halting progress with acrylics. I am actually putting together a slideshow of my first 11 years of paintings, which I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I want to see it for myself, and I thought it might be interesting for others.
Acrylic Portrait Studies, February 202216×20 Acrylics, An Unusual Man16×20 Acrylics, unfinished landscape
I missed a couple days so far in February. I am worried because this is what happens yearly – I paint every day in January and then the rest of the year whooshes by with much less productivity.
I think I need an actual project, like a series. I feel like I’ve been practicing to get better for several years now, but for what purpose? So, I’m trying to decide on an idea for a series. Imaginary Animals? Rescued Farm Animals? Not sure yet.
And at the same time, I think I may be close to trying oil painting with some of the non-toxic materials options like walnut oil and walnut alkyd.
Or maybe that is the problem. Too many plans, not enough action. I am currently taking a composition drawing class with Ian Roberts. He is mostly a landscape painter, and with a terrific YouTube channel. After the class is over I will start thinking more about the series.
Here are all the January paintings. Some portraits, some landscapes, some horses, one donkey. One failed cityscape. A pretty good month. I have completed the Paint Every Day in January for 4 or 5 years, with varying degrees of success. I think 2022 is the first time I actually painted all 31 days.
I hope to compile a retrospective of 6 or 7 years of trying to learn to paint with acrylics in the next month or so. It is time consuming! To find all the images and resize them and get them organized. But I always enjoy seeing other artists’ progress.
In the meantime, here is my set of paintings from January 2018:
9×12, 11×14 and some 16×20 acrylics paintings, January, 2018
Mostly dogs in 2018, with a handful of other animals and one almost-kind of horse, in the middle of the top row. I have improved! I just wish I had been more consistent, as always. I have started to paint over some of these. Though, the bat and panda found homes, and the beagle in the bottom row is probably going to stick around.
Thanks so much for dropping in! If you’re doing art projects this year, let me know so I can check them out. :-)
Well hello! (If anyone reads this! Who knows!) My last post was April 2021, at which time I was doing an online art class. It went.. ok. I discovered I do not like to paint with acrylics on a wood panel. Perhaps I was not doing it right! Eh. It’s ok not to like it.
Here we are in the middle (toward the end?) of the Omicron portion of the global pandemic. And I am once again painting every day in January.
Although I’ve still got a few days to go, here are some horses I painted this month. I am new to painting horses. It went pretty well!
Three horses, acrylics, January 2022
And here are some portraits I painted this month. The ones on the right are definitely more successful than the ones on the left.
Four portraits, acrylics, January 2022.
And here are some landscapes I painted this month. I am new to landscape painting, and used free reference photos from unsplash.com. It went pretty well with the sunlight and atmospheric perspective and a cute little (lopsided) car:
Four landscapes, acrylics, January 2022
Are you doing any painting projects in 2022? Let me know so I can check them out! :D
Thanks for dropping by! I can be found on instagram at cindydauer.
Reader, it goes poorly. The goal of the class is to produce a finished 11×14 acrylic painting on a wood panel. And this is the no good very bad condition my painting is in right now. In fact, I started a second one (also poorly) in case I throw this one in a fire.
Not. Going. Well. The face has been repainted about a dozen times. You can see how I got mad and scrubbed it with sandpaper (and then had to redo a bunch of the pencil lines). I am not used to this painting style and so far have adapted poorly. I am pretty sure this style demands a level of patience I do not possess! But it’s not over yet.
We do have two weeks left. This is the middle The middle is the hardest, right? And then I figured I would write a blog post and share the misery with the few lost souls who find it. I tell you what, I am NOT saying don’t take this class. Everyone has a different experience, is my guess. I am doing more art than I normally would and that was worth the price of admission. Oh yeah, it’s kind of pricey. I used some stimulus check on it and I consider it well-spent.
I will also say this class has a large variety of peers, many much more skilled than me, and some maybe with fewer skills. But the ones who are posting their updates are all KILLING IT with their painting progress. On the other hand, many people are not posting any updates at all, and I am worried about them.
Below is most of what I’ve done for the class. We started with sketches and ideas and then worked toward a final character and image, transfer that to a wood panel and get to painting.
I believe it started going wrong when I wasn’t really happy with my final image, but went with it anyway. The bottom left with the bird is not resolved and needs another or a different creature. The dog character looks too much like a malformed dog and not like an imaginary creature as he should have. Then I didn’t decide my colors ahead of time. THEN I could not get the hang of painting smoothly and being patient. Which is where I am today, as I write this blog post.
Here is my timeline of progress.
So there it is. I hope my next update is much more chipper!
Most recent – this window poster, on poster board. I need to make a stand or something because our window is just a tad too far from the sidewalk and street.
Look, my next poster will be uplifting and shit but this is the first one.
I have been very slowly learning acrylic painting over the past couple years. These most recent three are a good indication of current events and also of learning to paint.
8×10 acrylics on canvas board, March 3, 202011″ x 14″ acrylics on canvas, March 10, 2020 12″ x 16″ acrylics in progress, March 11, 2020
Apparently I’ve been on an orange kick. Thanks for visiting!
It’s hard to see progress in your day-to-day life, but after enough years go by, a timeline emerges. Self-taught post-40 via Youtube and many trials and errors, some help from Sarah Kaiser at Studio 215 and lots of drawing practice.
Below are a selection from the past five and something years, These first two in orange are the earliest vs. the latest in this series. Hard to believe the same person did those.
Still orange! 2014 acrylic painting vs 2020 acrylic painting
The first 30-day painting challenge I did was in January 2014. I did a bit more in February but not much for the rest of the year.
I could not find much for 2015-2017. I was practicing art but mainly with ink and pencils.
In 2018 and 2019 I painted every day in January along with some of the internet, and then with sporadic practice the rest of those years.
In 2020, January went up in a puff of smoke but I did paint every day in February and I have finally been finishing paintings, which I did not manage to do much before.
Looking forward to another five and something years of progress, particularly since it’s become *slightly less difficult to get to practicing once a little progress is made.
