What did you do today artwise 2012

artyczar · #1 07-16-2012, 03:22 AM

I know the year is half over, but I thought I would rekindle this thread yet again for the 3rd year: asking artists what they worked on today creatively, even if it was small. Even if you just developed a new idea and didn't draw or paint it. What was it?

Maybe you did you paint today. What did you paint? What colors? What was it of?

Or maybe you did something art-related: read a book about art, looked through an art mag, read some art forums, gathered info in some way shape or form.

Today I worked on the book I'm writing. I wrote over 8000 words today, the most I have ever written in one day - ever! My rough draft is now at 105,067 words.

Saturday I worked on 3 paintings at once, almost finishing one.

This sound like I am super productive, doesn't it? I'm not this industrious normally (lately any way) I just committed my weekend to painting and writing and much to my surprise, I followed through. Ha! Fluke? Time will tell.

caldwell.brobeck · #2 07-16-2012, 08:01 AM

Well it's Monday today, so I have to spend a little time planning my week. Then I have to print up more art cards, and order supplies. And - unusual for this year - it looks like rain soon - so maybe I'll get a little cleaning in.

I've been working pretty flat out for the last 18 months (mostly figurative work) so I am sort of taking the summer off and only carrying on with one formal project. Tuesday was a formal session for the project, but other than that, it's whatever strikes my fancy - e.g. Wednesday was a birthday card for my partner; Thursday, I had gotten a call from a model looking for some work, so I took her along to a plein air session (which was great); Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I spent the days just pencil/pen sketching whatever targets of opportunity I happened across (the dogs, people in the park, a fog bank in the harbour, leaves and flowers, sailboats, people fishing off the pier), working mostly on quick figuratives, tonal relationships, and what Gombrich calls the "and etc. principle" - i.e. detailing only in critical areas and letting that detail suggest further detail in other parts. Though Gombrich uses other examples (mostly Constable), my favourites come from Rembrandt's landscape sketches, particularly in how he handles trees.

As for books, I'm revisiting some of my favourites atm - mostly Lautrec, and A. Hyatt Mayor's Prints and People, which is a delightful read with lots of good reproductions. Someone also lent me Colin White's book on Edmund Dulac, which is interesting....

So its busy and relaxing at the same time.

olive oyl · #3 07-16-2012, 09:20 AM

Oh...THIS thread again...always makes me feel like such a slacker.

Most of the time that I'm on WC is when I'm at work, which is where I am right now and will be for the next 3 days. Nothing creative ever happens Mon-Thur. because of the 10 hour work day plus 45 minute commutes at each end. Also, since we're having a heat wave, I didn't have much energy to paint this weekend. Mostly, I sweated and slept but I DID manage to stretch my next canvas and work on the idea for it and saw a Marsden Hartley exhibit. Seems fitting, that while I'm in this state I started reading "The Love Lives of Great Artists: Five Stories of Creative Intimacy." Now up to couple #3 - Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Wish I had all their creative energy and "liberating" freedom. Speaking of sweat and sleep....

suzuri · #4 07-16-2012, 06:41 PM

I bought a new sketchbook and some pens, sat down and did my first non-digital sketching in years. Results on the paper? - meh, not so impressive. But it felt great, and considering how out of practice I am, maybe the results ain't so bad. I'm going to try and do a sketch a day for a couple weeks and see how it goes.

suzuri · #5 07-16-2012, 06:43 PM

Oh - best of all - I discovered an awesome arts supply store in my home city. I've been within a hundred yards of it many, many times, have driven right past it hundreds of times, but never saw it, never knew it existed. I walked in there today and it was like encountering a long lost friend in my backyard. It smelled like home.

fritzie · #6 07-17-2012, 10:19 AM

July is an extremely heavy teaching month for me, and my approach is to focus entirely on that without diversion for the three weeks I do it. So the only other semi-creative thing I did yesterday was to progress happily in reading the book that was the product of The Novel:Live, a relay of 36 local writers writing for two hours each, in public, in tag team fashion on a novel about saving an old residential hotel in Seattle. It made me think a little of some writing of my own to start this Fall.
Beyomd this I thought some of an infographic form of presentation of some research.

olive oyl · #7 07-20-2012, 08:09 AM

Wednesday night (I know that's not TODAY), I skipped an exhibit opening - worked too late, drive too far, too antisocial to socialize. This was a national juried group show (70 artists) at an arts museum, in a small MA town. We'll go tomorrow and see where they put me and then we'll eat something fancy. I was feeling sort of peacock-ish. Then, a few minutes ago, I found out I didn't get into another show, a New England collective, which was back in my old Boston neighborhood. Obviously, they hate me. And now I'm feeling like a loser.

Sigh. In an hour, it won't matter anymore because I'll be at yoga and will come out all blissful and balanced. But then, once I'm home and the bliss has worn off, I'll forget this and remember that and I'll mentally swing back and forth the rest of the day like a yo-yo.

Unbalanced + Blissless = Whee.
Whee is me.
(now that just made me laugh...)

artyczar · #8 07-20-2012, 04:06 PM

It seems I get a rejection letter at least once a week. It winds up depressing me for the entire day - maybe I should try yoga?

Today I probably won't do much - maybe work on my novel, but it's too hot to paint. I did have a dream however that I was working on four paintings at once and they were all almost completed. Does that count?

I did manage to finish one painting the day before yesterday. It's the first towards a solo show (not yet scheduled), and now I'm a bit stuck on where else to go from here.

olive oyl: I tend to skip out on group shows I'm in also. I have to be in the right mood to be social, which doesn't happen frequently.

**La_** · #9 07-25-2012, 12:19 AM

four wash/under painting coats of flailing nonsense; a day wasted

that whole 'creativity must find you working' thing can be an evasive, rabid mongrel.

la

artyczar · #10 07-25-2012, 02:04 PM

The other day I wasted on building a shipping box that was not up to par. I was trying to reinforce an old, used box that wasn't even the right size. I got so involved with getting it to where I wanted, I totally missed the fact that packing up an artwork like that is not only unprofessional, but maybe the stupidest thing I could do if I want someone on the other end to respect my art. I just got lost and couldn't see the forest through the trees.

I finally bought a brand new box yesterday and now I'm waiting for the shipper to arrive to take these three pieces to the East Coast for a group show.

Nothing creative about any of this! :-))

Carcharhinus · #11 07-25-2012, 08:14 PM

I was about to reply to this thread by saying I got home from a short vacation late this evening and just stared longingly at half finished works.

But then I realised that before I left to come home early this morning, I asked if I could borrow some books from the (huge) bookshelf of the family members I was visiting. I ended up taking a book about finding and keeping clients which has some useful stuff for selling my paintings and developing relationships. I got a book about working within a high risk career. I got one about 19th and 20th Century Painting and finally one about setting and achieving goals. I read some of these while I was there. My relative is a high-flying business man which explains why he has some of these books.

I also spent the entire journey back brainstorming about an academic book that I am planning on writing in my spare time.

So actually a pretty productive day, if making plans counts as being productive.

Keith Russell · #12 07-27-2012, 07:40 PM

Built and delivered a 32 x 50 inch frame for a customer. This customer is very demanding, so the fact that she was pleased with the frame was a very good thing...

saje · #13 07-28-2012, 10:09 AM

doing some research for the next project. do you know there are over 800,000 missing persons a year in the United States. there are over 4400 people that die yet are never identified in the US?
then there is the number of unclaimed dead whose numbers have risen because of the hard financial time. Detroit leads this number where they are storing bodies in refrigerated trucks because the morgues are full--- thus:

"Tomb of the Unknown"? working on the concept to best make a tomb to commemorate these folks unknown--jim

!Artnik · #14 07-28-2012, 10:47 AM

I continue to experiment with pour mediums and acrylics. Attempting to learn more about the color wheel because when I did pencil drawings it didn't matter much but now it does. Obviously I'm a beginner not a professional.

Katie Black · #15 07-29-2012, 10:28 PM

Its Sunday here, and I always feel I don't need to do much on a Sunday, but I did go down to my studio to try to continue a painting that I started yesterday, because it looked promising really, but it didn't work out, after half an hour I realised I was hungry and I tried to continue remembering I didnt have bread today with my two eggs (I think bread is really quite bad for you) but I still eat it as I need the energy, ten minutes later I am yawning at the canvas, and feeling that things arent working out, and I am feeling a bit shaky, so I go back upstairs and have some bread and butter with peanut butter on top and decide to pick up my book and lay on my bed, I will look at the painting tommorow...

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