The last painting in the 30 Day Challenge

This is the last painting done for the 30 day challenge.  I didn’t create 30 paintings in 30 days but I was very happy with the 17 I did paint.  That is the most I’ve ever done in 30 days and I think my skills increased somewhat. (if I do say so myself, haha)  

However, the biggest lesson was to paint and not worry too much about mistakes.  Knowing that paper can be thrown away and canvas can be painted over with gesso is very freeing. It allowed me to let go knowing that I could cover all the mistakes with gesso if I wanted to get rid of  incriminating evidence of my painting ineptitude.  :-)

The second lesson was to learning to like abstract paintings, mine and others.  I learned when some are done and when they need more work.  A few of the 17 do need more work but I was working with the rules of the 30 day challenge, which was one painting a day, no going back to finish it.  OK, I admit that I broke that same rule a few times when the painting was going well but I didn’t have time to finish in one sitting.

If you ever have the opportunity to try a challenge like this, I recommend it.  I admit that it was hard trying to paint every day  especially when I wasn’t particularly inspired.  Some days I just sat there with paint brush in hand wondering where to start.  But all in all I enjoyed it and will do it again sometime.

Thanks again to Gary Reef for the 30 day challenge.  If you haven’t been to his site yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s now called Art from the Heart. He keeps changing the site’s name but I adore him anyway.