All the paintings I've done in 2020 so far - Why Am I Making This, Issue 5
Hello everyone.
(It’s Julien.)
Last newsletter I said I might send you all an annotated list of the paintings I’ve done this year. I’m going to do that now, and let the commentary speak for itself.
(One small word of warning - there are two pieces of She-Ra fanart in here from the final season, which contain spoilers if you're a real stickler. They're numbers 6 and 11.)
1. After about half a year of thinking that textiles (punchneedle from October-February, rugs from March-April) were going to be my forever art form, I had a crisis of faith (in myself and why I was making them) and stopped. I had recently discovered an artist I thought was very cool, who had just started making tutorial videos about painting portraits. I gave their method a try with this self-portrait and was shocked at how well it came out compared to literally any other time I had tried to paint a face.
2. Stunned by my newfound ability, I of course wanted to paint Taylor, since I had literally always wanted to be able to make good fanart of her. I was not very successful with her hair.
3. I wondered if I could adapt a screenshot of Brigitte, from Overwatch, into a painting. I was quite happy with how she came out here, especially how the light feels somewhat glowing.
4. Trying Taylor again, this time from a scene from the then-recently-released documentary, Miss Americana. I mapped out her hair a bit more and was honestly thrilled with this one. I loved how the car interior came out.
5. Having become better at sketching (due to simply drawing a damn grid on my surface before starting my sketch), I wanted to paint all the fanart I had never been able to do well before. I had been obsessed with the Netflix anime Carole and Tuesday in January, and was so excited to do a painting of them after not being able to draw them very well just a few months earlier.
6. Painted from a scene from the trailer for the final season of Netflix's She-Ra, in anticipation of its release. I was excited once again with how accurately I was able to draw the characters and the scene generally.
7. From a photo a few weeks prior, of a hike I went on with Filip. This was my first return to landscape painting since 7-8 months previous, and I was a little disappointed with how it turned out. Since I had improved so much at portraits and I thought my colors in the previous portraits were fairly harmonious, I thought this one fell flat. I guess a landscape is different, and requires different thinking about colors. I also didn’t really like my brushstrokes. However, a painter I admire did respond to it with a clapping emoji on Instagram. Who knows.
8. I debated whether or not to include this one of Ariana Grande. It’s not finished, and I hate it, so I’m not going to finish it. I’m including it because I want to show the bad with the good. It’s all part of the process, baby. I wanted to try a portrait with stark lighting, and the Sweetener promo photos fit the bill perfectly. But I guess I wasn’t ready yet. I started with values that were way too dark and kept digging myself into a hole from there.
9. Adapted from a photo from someone’s Instagram story, that I had asked if I could try to paint back in November. I was very happy with the glowing colors in this one.
10. Staying on the fanart theme, I painted Zelda from the trailer for Breath of the Wild 2. I painted this version of Zelda about a year ago when the trailer for the game was first released, and this painting is about 10x better. (I tried a bit harder with the brushstrokes and was really happy with them.) So at least I’m getting better at something. However, I had felt a subtle disappointment with the last few fanart paintings I'd done. I thought they had been getting pretty good, and I had hoped that they might attract some attention on social media (twitter specifically) because they’re fanart of characters people like. No dice though.
11. More She-Ra fanart, done after watching season 5. There was so much fanart going around twitter after the season was released, but despite my efforts, I still couldn’t grab any attention with this one. It’s so shallow, but that ended up being kind of a stake in the heart for my fanart enthusiasm. I get a lot of joy from making fanart, but when I can’t very effectively use it as a jumping off point to enthuse with other people or make new friends, I start to kind of feel like it’s pointless to make it unless there’s a real fire in my heart for whatever it’s for. I wish there was a way I could get it to feel more meaningful.
12. I had a lot of fun with the brushstrokes in the clouds from the She-Ra painting, so I decided to try painting a few cloud photos I had lying around. I also had a go at doing them without a sketch, since I was worried I was over-relying on detailed sketches in my previous paintings (this may not be a worthwhile thing to worry about).
13. Done at the same time as the last painting. I think this one came out pretty nice really. I actually sold it to a friend when I posted it on Instagram at the beginning of September.
14. With my fanart enthusiasm deflating, I was starting to spiral into my usual “why am I making this” malaise when I signed up for a spur-of-the-moment portfolio review with an illustrator I like. She was very enthusiastic about my palette knife paintings from about a year earlier, so I thought I’d give it a try again. Pretty fun, and I liked how this one came out.
15. Filled with enthusiasm again, I did some quick palette knife lake paintings right at the end of May.
16. Another one, same day.
17. Third one from this day. I kind of liked these. And then I stopped painting.
In June I did ceramics and started this newsletter. In July I did photography. In August I became obsessed with a new cartoon called The Owl House (some characters from it are painted on the cover of my most recent sketchbook) and did a bunch of figure sketching because I was unhappy with my cartoon drawing ability. I didn’t paint outside my sketchbook.
18. Towards the end of August I did a small drawing with Posca paint markers on panel while out painting with a friend. She asked me whether I was still thinking of applying to galleries, and I said I wasn’t sure. But with the seed planted in my mind, I was back on the painting train.
19. I had actually bought a big canvas (30x40) back in February, but never did anything with it. I thought the time was right to make use of it, so I adapted my spring path painting for this large scale. It was a challenge, and it didn’t come out perfect, but I was so happy to have done a big painting for the first time in a year! I can definitely see how doing more big paintings would help me learn how to handle paint on a larger surface better, and it’s something that I am looking forward to getting better at.
20. I had sketched out this image of an Indigo Bunting sitting among yellow leaves back in May, but didn’t get around to painting it. Foliage is tough! Definitely something to refine my ability at. I have this idea to paint series of bad bird photos I’ve taken, but who knows if/when I’ll get around to doing more.
21. Done very quickly one morning. It’s larger scale than usual for me (12x16), but it was a simple composition, so I was able to just do it without thinking too hard. It's based on a photo I took while driving back from Ottawa in October 2019, a trip I have been remembering fondly this year. I was very happy that one of my friends’ reactions to this painting was that it reminded them of a road trip they had taken, and that it felt like a story, a moment in time. That’s a great compliment to me.
22. I took a few photos of a friend by the river one afternoon, and when she sent me her favorites, the one this painting was based on really jumped out at me, and I knew I wanted to paint it in a wide format. I’m so happy with how it came out. One of my favorite paintings I have done to date. The colors, the rocks, the figure - I must do more paintings jumping off from this!
23. I thought - maybe it was time to try some more portraits again. But I wanted to do a few of animals, so I solicited pet photos from friends and this cat was a winner. The painting came out okay (the cushions and floor are my favorite part), and I think I could get better at these pet portraits with practice. They can be a real crowd pleaser.
24. Still thinking about water after my river painting, I thought I’d try to do a really carefully mapped out painting of a wave, a very very cropped-in version of a photo I had taken over the summer. Happy with it - I feel now like I’m discovering all these new things I’m able to paint, and that I could explore further if I wanted to. It’s exciting!
25. A pet portrait and water. Perfect. The owner of this cute dog bought this painting from me too, which I was flattered by! My favorite part is the bright blue razor.
26. Since I was on such a roll with painting, I thought I would get something to help make it easier for me to do some plein air, which I had only done a handful of times, and never in the fall. Enter my little cupeasels easel (see my last newsletter for photos). I did this small test painting based on a photo I took in Japan a few years ago. I used the easel on my lap while sitting on my couch, which worked surprisingly well. I used a canvas panel, which felt absolutely terrible after painting on gessoed panels for almost all the other paintings I’d done recently.
27. First outing with the cupeasel in the field. A pleasantly fall-y painting. Worked well, so easy to set up. Promising.
28. The next day, I went out with the cupeasel again on my lunch break and painted some flowers! They came out messy but better than I expected. People have seemed to like this one. (People think of Monet, I think. I’m happy enough to do a poor Monet impression in a lunch break painting.)
29. A coworker was inspired by my painting of the figure in the river, and asked if I would do a commission for her based on some photos of her family swimming. This one was just practice for a bigger one I’m planning, but she really liked it and wanted this one as well, which I was happy about. Somewhere in the last year or so, people have gone from telling me they like my art to occasionally asking if they can buy it, which feels like some kind of progress.
30. I spent some time by the lake for about a week and did a ton of paintings from life, often aided by cupeasel. This was the first one I did and is one of my favorites, which is a little concerning (that I was getting worse instead of better).
31. A lot of people have liked this one but I hate the colors. Did an ok job with the building though, which I am usually notoriously bad at.
32. These tall phlox in shadow really drew me to them. I really like this one.
33. A still life! My first still life since 2018 I think. So much fun - I didn’t realize how good it would feel to paint colors (like the cloth under the apples) and patterns that don’t exist in nature. I thought: I must do more still lifes.
34. This bright patch of flowers had been tempting me for a few days but I did a bad job painting them.
35. An outdoor still life! I’m obsessed with how this painting came out. Basically through luck I ended up getting colors that I really, really liked. Not too bad on brushstrokes either.
36. I liked the idea of more bookish still lifes and wanted to incorporate the red leaves that were starting to appear everywhere. Not so happy with how I handled the text here, though.
37. The lake was looking really autumn-y and I wanted to try to capture that. I kind of like this one but think it came out a bit too wishy-washy, too many soft edges.
38. Same day as the last one, still trying to get those fall lake colors. But this one I think came out really messy and with sort of weird, unharmonious colors?
39. First painting after leaving the lake. An autumnal house around where I live. Also came out super messy. The last four paintings I had done were all pretty rushed - I think I might have gotten overconfident after the first few paintings came out well. Or, for whatever reason, maybe I was feeling like I couldn't take my time. Whatever it was, it’s something I should try to be a bit more diligent about.
40. A more thoughtful, planned bookish still life. (The book is This Is How You Lose the Time War.) I do quite like how this came out (except for a few color choices), and absolutely loved painting that sharp-edged, carefully sketched out text. I posted this on tumblr a few days ago, since I thought there were probably a good number of Time War fans there. The post only has 13 notes as of right now, but one of those is interested in buying it, so... I guess massive popularity isn’t always the most important thing.
41. Yet another rushed plein air fall painting. Whenever I try to paint when there are other people around, I end up rushing and it doesn’t quite work out.
42. Limited palette portrait of Filip. Loved using the limited palette and loved getting back into people-portraits. Would like to do more of both of those.
43. One more rushed plein air. This time my excuse was that it was cold and I wasn’t wearing gloves.
44. After not having a super successful plein air painting in a while, I decided to slow down and do my best to put down colors and shapes methodically. I like how this one came out far better than the previous couple.
45. Another rushed plein air. It was going well, and then I met up with a friend in the pumpkin patch and felt hurried again. Stop rushing!
46. Still in-progress! My most ambitious portrait yet (it’s 18x18, over 3x bigger than any other one I’ve done), of a dear dear friend. I realized, painting Filip, and now Eva here, that it brings me great joy to paint people I care about. Thinking about the planes of their face, the tones to paint their features - it makes me really feel appreciative of the people I love!
So there we go, from May to mid-October, over 40 paintings. I’m pretty pleased with that, though I had my ups and downs through it all.
Over the past few weeks I have felt my painting energy petering out, but I think as long as I can keep my brain feeling satisfied about working at a more plodding pace, I should still end up working through a solid few more paintings by the end of the year. But I am likely to be working on a few other things, too! Whatever they end up being, you will hear about them.
Talk to you in November.
Julien
P.S. I think this newsletter has a nice story, with all the paintings - if you’ve read until here and enjoyed it, I think this is a very good one to consider forwarding to friends or family! Because I know most of you personally, some of your friends or family probably know me, as well. It is quite unlikely they are subscribed to the newsletter, though. So maybe forward this along, with a note of “did you know that Elizabeth/Julien has been doing all these paintings? Why don’t you have a look and then maybe subscribe to this newsletter!”
P.P.S. If you have received this newsletter as a forwarded missive from a friend, or just as a link from me, and you aren't subscribed... why not subscribe? You've read all of it, so I am guessing you didn't hate it. You can do so here, and then unsubscribe super easily if I start to bug you.