Day 8. Painting these large rock faces has been interesting. I think I may even be starting to get the hang of it. If I think of it as more of an abstract and am really messy about mixing my colors with my brush I can get a large variety of color and textures. The rough randomness really help it look more belivable. At least that’s what I hope.

While painting today I noticed some intersting trends in my work. When working on landscapes, I tend to work from the top down and complete the background before focal points like plants. When I work on still lifes, I work from the center out and paint the background last. When I paint people or pets, I also do the center out approach. Anyone else approach different subjects differently?

Day 9. I needed a little bit easier landscape today after the rock intense landscapes of the last couple days. I really enjoyed painting the sky in this one as well as the little yellow flowers by the tree.

A few days ago I ordered an empty paint tube. It arrived on the 9th so I went ahead and squeezed out the entire tube of Titanium White and slowly mixed in linseed oil. I probably only mixed in a teaspoon of oil, but it makes all the differenece in the world. I then filled the empty tube and now have useable white. Before squeezing out the whole tube I had kind of hoped to find all of the oil at the bottom, but there wasn’t a drop of separated oil to be found.

Day 10. Now that I’ve fixed the white and finally gotten used to the zinc yellow hue, mixing colors is no longer a chore. I still don’t really like the yellow, but it is working well enough. I have to use substanitally more of it than I would use a normal yellow since it doesn’t have the best tinting strength and then it gives a mildly pastel look to many mixes. It’ll be so interesting to see how much of the tube is left at the end of painting these 30 paintings.

Day 11. I thought this would be a painting that I would tackle toward the end of this challenge. I’ve historically had a really hard time painting rocks so this was pretty far down on my list of images to paint. I love the picture though and I’ve been really happy with my rocks so far, so I decided to give it a try. The worst case scenario being that I would wipe it off and paint something else. To my suprize, it turned out better than I expected. I’m really proud of this painting.

Day 12. When I first heard of people doing daily paintings I thought it was a completely unachievable goal. Then I saw the paintings they were creating and was floored. As someone who spent weeks on paintings, I just couldn’t fathom completeing a painting in a single day. To have that painting turn out beautiful made me sure of their mastery. I tried a 30-day challenge anyway and I’m hooked. I love the challenge, the practice, the purpose, and the results. I can’t stress it enough: the results are worth it.

Day 13. I really needed an easy painting today and this one fit the bill. This is the top of Hidden Valley trail looking at the La Sal mountains in the distance. I’ve hiked this trail more times than I can count and it still never fails ot kick my butt. It’s a good one.

Day 14. I’ve officially made it through two weeks of landscapes with a limited palette. Color mixing has definitely gotten easier as well as the rocks. I think this painting would have been slightly more sucessful if I had painted it in somewhat more desaturated colors. It’s interesting how much about painting and colors I continue to learn with each painting.

Please check my store for available paintings. Buy any landscape in this series for $60 and get the second for $30 when you use the code BG319.