Yesterday I painted the 31st of 31 paintings for the Strada Easel January 2024 Challenge. What a great feeling to have completed this challenge of creating art for 31 days straight.
Some of the things I’ve learned during this month of daily art
- It feels really good to complete a challenge. There were days when I felt like forgetting about it (I won’t win the easel anyway). But from experience I know the negative fallout of quitting. That fallout includes not only foregoing the potential work one would have created, but the psychological defeat one feels after quitting. It’s not worth it!
- I can talk myself into doing what I don’t feel like doing. Some of the things I told myself on days I didn’t feel like creating:
– It doesn’t have to be great.
– It doesn’t have to take long (a quick sketch counts).
– Use whatever medium you like.
And I did, using digital, pencil, pen, watercolour & acrylic paint.
- I so enjoyed revisiting skills I haven’t used during my year of painting mostly landscapes through Acrylic University. Painting these beans, for example, took me back to the time I was enrolled in Billy Showell’s online School of Botanical Watercolor.
- This busy month has left me with a bunch of small paintings that are now available through my gallery at Daily Paintworks. There you’ll find the following and many more!
“Red Poppy Lamp” – Day 6 Strada Easel
- Now I’m ready to do bigger paintings again. Though it was fun to create small works, my brushes are eager for larger canvases.
Here’s to lots of new art in February!
(All 31 days of art are posted on Instagram HERE.)
Violet Nesdoly 