Crawling, But At Least Going Forward

   Okay, I'm here again. I've had some trouble getting motivated as of late. Especially when it comes to getting artwork sold. I've been doing challenges and such and it keeps me creating on a daily basis. My wife bought me an easel for my birthday in December, and I've found a taboret ( a small table for holding art supplies while an artist creates.) so I've been working on a big sized painting. It hasn't been flowing out like I would hope it would, but I'm working on it.
   I've also been to the doctor, who prescribed new medicine for me. It's helping with my digestive issues, but it gives me horrible cotton mouth, which in turn causes me to drink a lot of liquid. Fortunately a lot of the liquid is water, which in turn is helping me to lose weigh. That's a good thing, but all this peeing is starting to get to me. I suppose i should find a happy medium soon. And I should be happy that I've dropped about twenty five pounds so far. Without and dietary changes. I'm also feeling kinda light headed at times, I have a hard time motivating, my vision seems kinda blurry, and I'm tired a lot of the time. Could also be the weather I suppose. I guess I'll fight through.
    My latest project has been a Hand Challenge. I've been drawing a hand every day, in ink. Hands have notoriously given me trouble, so I'm gonna improve. Just like I did with faces. I do feel like I'm making progress. I haven't missed a day yet, which is a good thing. However I have no idea how many days in a row I've done, which is not so good. Here's some hands:

  I still do some small acrylics on a semi-daily basis:

 So, I'm still creating, but I'm having trouble making progress on the business end of things. I do have a GoFundMe right now in hopes of raising money for some of the dozen or so projects I've been wanting to start. I was hoping to do better. Any little bit helps, even if it's only a dollar. Everything is appreciated. I hope for this to get me going all the way through summer. Anyway, that's where I'm at.

AKO ANG HARI
     DOUG

P.S. I've had to reboot my computer twice today. Mo problems

This Just In

  Well, November is coming to an end and with December comes the end of the year. December also brings the one year anniversary of my move back to Cape Girardeau. I still don't have all our stuff moved up here from Paducah. I've been taking a trip back once a week for the past month or so to get everything moved. It's been a stressful stretch, but I do have most of my books here and better than half of my art supplies. My studio is coming together. Finally. My supply shelves are up. My book shelves are up. I just don't have the ability to get the bigger stuff. Like my easels. My poor easels. Weather permitting I'm gonna take another trip tomorrow.

              There's Some Hope For My Sanity.

 

    I've finished my year long (2)daily painting(s) challenge. I finished Inktober. I still do a daily painting, unless I REALLY don't want to, but I've staked out another challenge. I'm doing #handchallenge. I'm drawing a hand (or hands, depending on the source material) every day. I have started a new sketchbook for this. I believe it is sixty pages, so I got about two months of daily hands to cover. Hands have always been a weak spot for me and I want to change that. You can check them out at my online portfolio, here click

           Now, Here's Something You'll Really Like 

 

"Muddy" from Inktober

"Tranquil" from Inktober

"Handpicked" from HandChallenge

 "Circle Back Around" from my Daily Paintings

"Last Minute Tricks" from my Daily Paintings

   I'm staying busy. Not as productive as I'd like, but I'm getting better. I've got projects that I've started that I'd been putting off. I could use some help, but I'll make it on my own if I need to. I always have. Thanks for stopping by.

AKO ANG HARI

     DOUG

Here I Am Again

   I'm working some new projects. Some have me more excited than others, but that can change as time goes on. My daughter conned me into doing the Inktober Challenge:

Some of the prompts are interesting, some aren't so much:

"Spell"? Come on! I think there's gonna be some more iffy (at best) prompts before the month is over. I started, so I'm gonna finish.
    I'm also looking to do a book of all my daily paintings from my "Year Of Daily Paintings" challenge that I gave myself. It's something I think will be very interesting, if only to see how I improved. Unfortunately, I have no real idea what order they go in. By "they" I mean the 369 watercolor paintings and 368 acrylic paintings I did. I can look on my social media profiles to see what order they were in, but holy cow that's gonna be a lot of work. Unless someone out there has a better idea. I was thinking that the metadata in the pictures may help get them in order, but sometimes thinking gets me in trouble.
    I'm also puzzling over how to get the rest of our stuff from our old house to our new house. I'm up for suggestions here too. Hopefully it'll work out soon. Anyway, that's pretty much where I'm at now. So, here's some new art:

    AKO ANG HARI
         DOUG

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

I'm Still Here

  Still painting. Still putting one foot in front of the other. I've done 302 straight daily watercolor paintings. I'm about thirty days behind that on the acrylic paintings. I'm getting much better at painting. The practice and the discipline have done wonders for my painting chops. I am gonna be glad when the year is over. I look forward to taking a day off. Just to not do art lol. I am proud of the work I've done and the streak I'm on.
  I've also finished another project. I was commissioned to do a series of five dog portraits. It took me a while to get in to the groove and finish the first one, but after that it was a fantastic voyage. I'm looking to land more of these, so if you (or anyone you know) are interested, here's the link to start the process of getting your very own pet portrait: link. Here are the finished pieces:

"Duncan"

"Mocha Joe"

"Daisy"

"Cordy"

"Skye"

    So, that's what I've been up to. Now, I'm off to finish another commission. Life is pretty good.

AKO ANG HARI

     DOUG

Be Careful

   They say you should be careful what you ask for. (no, I don't know who 'they' are). I believe that's correct. I've been an artist for most of my life. I've been putting serious effort into it since 1999. I got to thinking about that. What makes an artist great? I'll tell you. Suffering. Pain. The same things that make a great comedian, in my humble opinion. I sometimes think that the reason I've suffered so much is because I've been asking to be a great artist. Or, does all this suffering make me want to be a great artist? Probably not, but who knows. Now, don't get me wrong. I've had a pretty great life. I have a wonderful wife and a great family. I have awesome friends. I feel like I'm possibly the coolest person I know. But, I have suffered. Some of it was due to being young and stupid (redundant?). Some of it was poor choices. Some was my devil-may-care attitude. Some of it, though, was the universe throwing things at me just to see how much I could take. Well, I've survived , I've reached my goal of being a fantastic artist. I've since set my goals higher, constantly pushing myself. i wouldn't change anything I've been through, because it's made me who I am. But, damn, if you had asked me at the time, there were some things I would have changed. Anyway, I entered some paintings  in a contest to be posted on billboards in Los Angeles. I entered three of them. I like my chances:

AKO ANG HARI
     DOUG

A Little "Behind The Scenes"

   I hear questions from my fans from time to time. Lately I've been getting questions about how I come up with titles for my paintings. Well, some are easier than others. Some paintings tell me their name as soon as I finish them. Some are much more difficult. I have a couple of books I like to thumb through sometimes when I need a title. One is a book of Grateful Dead lyrics. That one is very handy. Another is "The Ultimate Guide To Perfect Word", a book of lists and phrases written for scrapbookers. It has proven to be quite handy as well. Lately I've needed some extra help since I do two paintings a day. Every day. I did stumble upon a trick that has really helped me. Since I post them first on Instagram, I post them through my phone. When I need a name I now type a short description of the painting in my phone. With no spaces in between. Then, I look at the list of word recommendations my phone gives me. Anything that strikes me as fitting becomes the new painting's title. Hopefully that didn't ruin your mental image of my creative process.
   Another thing I wanted to pass on was the process of a watercolor painting I did yesterday:

It's called "Wholesome", (which is what my phone came up with), but I wanted to point out something about the way it was painted. When I laid the face out, I did a rough sketch then used the three line "Those Guys" face to put the eyes, nose, and mouth in. I've done this several times to rough out a face, then I've gone back and cleaned and tightened the drawing. This time I though "what would a Those Guys face look like if it was left simple but made 3D with the watercolor shading?" I should probably explain for those not familiar with Those Guys:

They started out as a sketch book exercise, to see how bare bones I could make the face and still convey emotion. Somehow, they became quite popular. They are fun to draw, so, I'm  all about Those Guys. Anyway, if they were in full color and shaded, "Wholesome" is an idea of what they'd look like. So, that's what I got. Some random thoughts for the folks who like my art.

AKO ANG HARI
     DOUG