Painting small, ordinary things as a reset
Last week I sat down with a single lemon on my kitchen counter and just painted it. No plan, no reference photo from a trip, no pressure to make it portfolio worthy. Just me, a little gouache, and that lemon.
It reminded me why I started doing this in the first place. Before I was thinking about prints or worrying about finding my niche, painting was just the thing that made my brain go quiet for a while. A cup at a café, a cracked tile, somebody's front step. The subject barely matters when you're just letting yourself be in the moment with it.
I think we forget that sometimes, especially when we start treating our art like a business (which we have to, eventually). But sitting down with something ordinary and painting it with zero stakes? That's the reset I didn't know I needed.
Does anyone else come back to this kind of "just paint the thing in front of you" practice when everything else feels like too much?
@Sadie Webb Hey Sadie, I hear you! I have been painting all my life, but with no clear intention of marketing my work in a professional way. I have been in group exhibitions, been commissioned to paint portraits and have had two portraits exhibited in well known exhibition venues. However, now I have nothing to show for all that work, apart from some original paintings which I am firmly hanging on to before they disappear also. This is when I realized I had to get serious about marketing future paintings. However, it has also taken me on a whole new direction, completely overtaking my art practice.
This has been my 'existential crisis', including my need to transition from oils to acrylics. Yet another ball game! Because I am slow with my larger paintings, having to research the subject, but then I question if it will sell! I have plenty of ideas, but the boards remain empty. While I consider painting over some discarded oil paintings, hang the solvents! I think I will place a lemon on a blue Delft plate and paint it while I am having my morning coffee. Or, at least start priming the boards waiting for me to play. I know one thing: "Expression is the cure for depression"!