Some Thoughts On My Daily Paintings

  I recently finished my watercolor project. I challenged myself to do a watercolor painting a day for a year. I hadn't done much watercoloring in a long time, so this seemed like a good way to get back into it. About four weeks in I decided to add an acrylic painting a day to the project. I was pretty excited about this for the first few months. I still enjoyed it after that, but I wasn't prepared for some of the logistics. At first I did one subject in watercolor and a different one in acrylic. I have lots of reference photos, but this got to be a lot to choose. I decided to do one subject a day. Once in watercolor, then in acrylic. This worked better for me as it took a lot of decision making out of the project. I found it interesting how different each painting became. Often it looked like two different people (as you may or may not know I'm fascinated with people in general and faces in specific). My style fluctuated as the months went on. It was neat to see how it progressed. Often I'd set a mini challenge for myself. For example, working monochromatically, or only in black and white. I discovered a product called Golden Transparent Shading Gray that really revitalized my acrylics. I've used lots of brands of acrylic paint since I started painting, but this really excited me. I used Yarka brand pan watercolors. I really like this brand. The pans wet easily and the pigment is really dense. Nothing new or unusual in the watercolor
  So, what did I learn? Well, I've read articles about people doing "daily painting" projects. I don't recall anyone mentioning how big a stack of paintings you end up with when you do a project like this. I painted on watercolor paper and canvas boards, both pretty thin, but I still have a stack of paintings over three feet high. Plenty of art for me to concentrate on sell now. I posted my progress daily on my social media accounts. I also put a few at a time in my Etsy store. I didn't get rich (yet) but I did sell enough to pay for all my supplies. I'm proud to say that I tackled a project like this and didn't lose money. I also read that people who did this did several paintings at a time and just posted daily. I didn't want to do that, I wanted to actually paint every day. I did do a couple extras, just in case something came up. Like when I got the flu, Type A & B. Go big or go home I guess. I used one of the extras on that day. I was so out of my head I don't remember posting them. I do kinda wonder what paintings done when I was so far out of my head would look like. I also moved from Kentucky to Missouri in the middle of this project. I don't advise doing that on top of painting. What else did I learn? Well, one of my major social media accounts ( I won't say which, they have spies everywhere) quit putting my posts where my fans could see them. Very aggravating.
  My final thoughts on the project: I ended the watercolors on day 369. I did my year and made it a Nikola Tesla tribute. I wasn't sure if I'd keep the acrylic series going, but I have so far. I'm likely gonna make it a whole year as well. I recommend doing a project like this if you're an artist. It really solidifies your chops. It forces you to try new things to keep it fresh (so you don't burn out early). Acrylic and watercolor together was a lot to take on. I'm glad that I challenged myself, but it's a lot. I've done three days of just acrylic and it's been so much less stressful. It takes a lot of dedication to do something, anything, once a day, every day. I'm not sure I'll do another year long challenge any time soon ( but really, who knows?). I'm thinking my next projects will be of the 30 Challenge variety. I'll definitely keep you in the loop. So, with that said, here's some of my watercolors from the past year:

AKO ANH HARI
     DOUG