Art Every Day Month - November 29

A Tray of Gingerbread Cookies








All the activity at home this weekend has been baking, and baking gingerbread cookies, in particular. The whole house smells spicy and warm.

Baking, like painting, is a precise activity, with a certain tolerance for error, but with a critical eye for the characteristics and conditions of those errors.

I could beat myself up over accidental backflows in my watercolor washes, in the same way that I could reject a batch of cookies which got burned on the bottom.
I could do both those things, but right now, I won't.
I know I will become a better painter and a better baker, if I acknowledge my accidents and the mistakes that caused them, and watch next time so I don't make those mistakes.
I may make other mistakes, but, if I stay alert and remain aware of what I am doing, I will continue to improve.

And I will continue to enjoy what I am doing.
It's a bonus for me that other folks enjoy what I am doing, both paintings and cookies!

Art Every Day Month - November 3

Ritual vs. Routine

The trick to staying with a routine is doing the thing regularly.

Doing the Art Every Day for the month of November project - or any other daily painting project - may be an artificial way to initiate a routine, but it works... as long as every day I do the painting (and the photography and blogging to get it online).

I hope for the time when my acceptance of this routine - taping one quarter sheet of watercolor paper to a board, getting the water and paintbrushes ready, selecting the colors, and taking a deep breath before I start - becomes a ritual for starting painting and not just a routine any more.

That's when I will have internalized the action of the daily painting and made it part of me, not simply added it to my daily list of activities.