30 Paintings in 30 Days

30 Paintings in 30 Days. Yep thats what I did for most of the month of January. It was actually 31 days but I was told that it still counts considering I had three partially finished paintings in the series that did not quite make it since they needed more time or something like that and I had a bad migraine that stopped me for two days. Excuses, excuses. Poor as they are I still feel proud of my achievement. These were not small paintings either. Many were 20"x16", at least 4 were 24"x48" and many in-between.

I did not set out to do this. Here is how it happened.

I blame this on my cat named Jackson as in Jackson Pollock. I have many animals named after artist- A Picasso, Michelangelo (I call him Angelo), and Leonardo Da Vinci, otherwise known as Leo. Last summer when I temporarily was very low on funds for medium for my paints and had not painted for what seemed like an eternity but was maybe a couple of weeks, Jackson came to me at my desk while I was in front of my computer and did his cute little brutish boyish thing he does with his paws stance in front of him while he is sitting and does a louder then normal MEOW. That definitely caught my attention because he was more insistent then ever. I remember looking at him and thinking-"Jackson, Jackson Pollock, Jackson Pollock house paint, I have a lot of house paint I could use in place of the medium." Lets just say that the way in which my persistent cat plus the combination of what came after was too imperative to ignore. So of course I go to my studio and start to work on a painting already in progress and proceed to use the house paint I had been using more as stands for larger pieces to stand on then for anything else. I started becoming the chemist. Mixing oil paint with house paint along with some other miscellaneous mediums that I still had a little of. I used this technique on one of the paintings that will be part of the "Crucifixion" series and 4 new pieces.

About six months later with the cash flowing again but different circumstances as to being stalled again working in my studio, this time it was a heat and not drying quickly enough. I was growing a little frustrated because I so wanted to work but was not able to with the original technique I was back to doing since I had more of my regular medium to use again. Just imagine the same scenario with Jackson doing the same thing he did six months earlier with almost the exact same amount of intensity and voila, I have 30 paintings 30 days later.

The medium changed. I used much less oil paint on these paintings so they were able to dry considerable faster. By my third painting on the second day I decided to see if I could produce 30 paintings in 30 days. I had read in the fall on craigslist in the artist section about someone putting together an exhibit of artist who where willing to collaborate in doing the 30 paintings thing. I believe though the sizes were limited to 8"x8" (??). Because I like to challenge myself and since I know I am much more limited in areas where I was able to challenge myself before because of my head injury I felt excited about this challenge since I felt as if I could go through with it. Having only one migraine was acceptable since before when I worked in the environment that I did for a few years for income I would get anywhere from 2-4 a month.

It was also an interesting experience in the way of challenging yourself with the art you create to be extremely consistent with the constancy of producing everyday. If I was not able to create a piece on any given day then I knew I would have to make up for it. I find that knowing my work habits and limitations due to my injury really requires a sense of completely being in tune with yourself. In some ways it reminds me of when I would do bodybuilding competitions and I always had to be and keep aware of everything going on with every part of my body.

I also seemed to be less the critic of myself and my work since it was not about how good or bad the work might have been, it was more about producing and still retaining originality in the work. I feel I completed this undertaking with the utmost care and love with my work.

I am so happy and proud and excited that I could push myself artistically this way and have new work to show for it.

Above are a few samples from this series: