Painting A Day

  Ten years ago a few artist friends and I started a small art group in NYC where once a month we'd gather for an art critique night with one of our members.  It was a "art social night" each of us really looked forward to and always felt a little nervous about when it was our own turn.  We were a mixed group of realist, conceptual, abstract, and minimalist painters all viewing each others work with the most critical eye and sometimes the harshest of comments.  But, we all loved the inspiration gained through these critiques as it offered the most honest viewpoint of both weaknesses and strengths in our work and the challenge to improve.

I've always been a fussy artist, taking great pains in the detail of my work, as realists often do, and spending weeks... even months to complete what is often a large and very  intricately detailed painting.  I still love that kind of challenge.

But,  the years I spent with my art group pushed me to explore a not so fussy side to my work... to find a more painterly quality to my brush strokes and "freshness" in the finish.  

I took up this challenge by starting a painting a day project that lasted several months... ending when I had to prepare for my first solo show in Manhattan.  

But, the "daily paintings" brought a new life to my work...  a certain sureness of stroke, an added confidence in my abilities as an artist.  Certainly, the discipline to keep me focused enough to create twenty five new paintings in six months time.... most of which were 48"X 48" still life paintings.  

Now, recently completing four very large, complex landscape paintings for Bay Pines Veterans, I long to return to those little canvases where each painting day results in a finished, not so complicated piece of art work.  

A new challenge in deed!