January 1, 2020
It feels a little strange, sitting here, relaxing with a glass of wine tonight on this, the first time in 365 days that I haven’t set out to complete a small painting from life. There’s a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I have forgotten to do something. In the coming days, I’m sure this will pass as I settle into a new routine of studio-based work, with the odd foray outside to paint en plein air whenever the mood takes.
Looking back, I’m largely happy with the way the project went. Artists should never be totally happy with events because we have to continue asking questions of our work. We strive for perfection in harmony, balance, tension, composition. Of course, that’s not possible. The best we can hope for is a few more steps on the road to excellence. It occurs to me that if anybody ever did reach artistic perfection it would be a horrible disappointment. Long live imperfection!
I had average and better days at the easel. I painted unfamiliar subject matter in new environments. I experimented with painting in gouache. I enjoyed the daily routine…some days more than others. I strived to paint what engaged me and to edit out thoughts of what someone else would like me to paint. I had moments of mental fluidity when the painting seemed to create itself and I was a mere conduit. I had other days where things got a little sweary and frustrating. I enjoyed “the search”, often setting out with a rucksack or on the bicycle. I liked “seeing” things for the first time that I have lived beside but never really noticed before. I hope that I have been able to allow others to see them too through my eyes.
I feel stronger artistically; more skillful than a year ago. New questions that I didn’t know about before have surfaced to be grappled with. As Leonard Cohen said in “Tower of Song”: there is stuff going on a hundred floors above me that I can’t fathom yet. It’s a long road.
I produced a rich mine of information for future work. I have already used some dailies to work on studio pieces. Others that I no longer have custody of have been secreted away in the recesses of my mind, to be drawn on sometime into the future.
For fun I have chosen what I consider my most successful 10% of the year. A top forty. It’s a pretty arbitrary list and I’m probably not the best person to ask, as there will be internal bias clouding my judgement. On another day the list may not be the same. I have tried to choose pieces that I thought really worked, had a sense of the place they were created and passed muster in terms of composition, balance, tonality etc.
Some statistics: I completed 399 pieces, including a few sketches that were made while we were in London without my painting gear. The sizes were: 84 5” x 7”, 232 6” x 6”, 78 7” x 5”, 2 8” x 6”, Sketches 9” x 12”. For those interested, although it wasn’t the primary goal, 199 were sold and acquired by 74 individual collectors in a variety of countries. 42 people bought 1 painting, 13 bought 2, 8 bought 3, 3 bought 4, 2 bought 5, 2 bought 7, 1 bought 8, 1 bought 15, 1 bought 19 and 1 person bought 29. Thank you all for supporting me in my endeavours and helping me to do what I do.
Quite a few people have asked me how long they take. The short answer is that it varied. Actual time with a paintbrush in my hand could be as little as twenty-five minutes, or as long as two hours or so, but generally somewhere in between. I estimate that it took about half a day to complete each piece when travelling, pondering, do-overs, Jo’s cataloging, website updates, invoicing and emailing of clients and delivering the paintings is taken into account, though it could have been longer.
