Raising the Bar

It’s funny how you can be a practicing artist your entire life and it never occurs to you to do something so simple as to work on more than one piece at a time. I was completely taken by surprise when reading about one of my favorite artists that they worked on 30 paintings at one time. Why I missed that this is a common practice is one of my personal quirks I find funny. I was teased frequently for being “functionally fixated” and with reason. Despite  my entertaining inflexibility I have learned many wonderful new ways of doing things and working on multiple paintings at one time is a new way of doing things for me. I have to say I LOVE IT! I had the idea of setting up a drawing board with velcro  on it that I could attach a number of small boards to and it has worked beautifully. In two days I managed to do the underpaintings for 15 paintings. Each one was very much paid attention to – yet it kept me moving at a better pace than I usually do. I found my mark making getting more relaxed and confident, I started playing more and I jumped from piece to piece. This worked beautifully for the sketching, tracing and redrawing and underpainting stages. Now the challenge will be the final painting stage. I’m interested to find out what will happen with the pressure of having six different images waiting for their own specific emotional aspect being brought to life. So far this has been both fun and I’ve found a new depth in image making.

Six Painting Setup