Last week we finished up the third round of the 7 Day Series challenge over on Instagram, and once again it turned out to be a rich and interesting week for the participants!
A week can seem deceptively short; every time I run this challenge I see people surprising themselves with what they can produce, and what they discover.
This time there was a definite feeling for several of us that our chosen focus for the seven days was actually broader and deeper in scope than we’d anticipated, and would need further investigation. I love that even such a short period of time can reveal so much about process and about ourselves as artists, as much as it can simply be about creating seven {or however many} paintings.
As before, I put a call out at the end of the challenge for any participants who’d like to be featured here on the blog. I was somewhat inundated! So it’s become a two part post; tomorrow part two will be published!
Enjoy!
Michael Richards
A selection of Michael’s paintings from the week
“For me it was an exhilarating experience. Exploring different ways to approach a single subject every day for a week was astonishingly liberating. I felt no compulsion to produce ‘finished’ work even though I was posting it on Instagram. The journey was the key, empowering me to experiment.
Thank you so much for inspiring this series and encouraging us all. Your admission that your own work wasn’t going as planned was inspiring in itself.”
Christa Clark
“This week… has been eye-opening for me (although I think I only realized it towards the end). Allowing myself to purely play within a set of self-imposed parameters has given me confidence to explore not only a different medium, but also another way of expressing myself as an artist. For some reason, I dropped the anxiety/self-censorship and simply showed the marks I wanted to make. How liberating, and how very enjoyable!”
Marilyn Wescott
“Painting the same subject each day within a 15-30 minute time frame forced me to loosen up and focus on capturing what I feel… not just what I see.”
Vandana Krishna
“I learnt that taking some time out everyday (may be just 5 minutes) to create something as a small or mini-series, helps me learn something new & improve my existing skills and importantly it sparks my imagination for new large scale projects!”
Jill Carrott
“This challenge was exciting to take part in. It was very interesting to see everyone else’s work and how different we all are in our interpretations. It was also helpful having other people commenting on my work.
Rose Ketring
“I really enjoyed making my little series of six (missed the first day!). These quick sketches featured different mediums, keeping the subject and the colors used the same. I learned not to take myself too seriously and that it’s important to allow play to happen in my work.”
Jennifer Edwards
“I often agonize (truly it is agony) over the fact that I love making and creating in so many different mediums and creative endeavors. It haunts me that I cannot seem to stay put in one expression of art, be it representational drawings and paintings, abstract or non-objective works, knit and crochet free-form works, hand stitched fabric collages.
Through the simple act of making marks on paper this week, Day 7 revealed that I simply love it all. And that is all that is needed. I am thrilled to now have a daily practice of non-objective mark making both in my sketchbook as well as out in other mediums.”
Francesca Tesoriere
“The challenge revealed to me I can find time every day to make art (although it was hard sometimes with my day job). It’s within my reach have time to do some experiments. My dream is to put these experiments in a larger scale and make some big format paintings.”
Andrea Wilson
Sara McEachern
“I really loved this challenge, especially since it was just a quick one-week project. It was the perfect timeframe in which to experiment with new techniques. I’ve wanted to explore palette knife painting for a while and as a landscape/seascape painter, I focused on creating abstract landscapes and seascapes solely with the palette knife. I am so excited about where this project took me. I discovered a style of work that really resonated with my followers and ignited a flame within to create more. I will be expanding this series out and can’t wait to see what great paintings I produce!”
Michelle Wallace
“When I started I had no idea if I would finish. I did do some rough thumbnail sketches in my journal but in the end didn’t use most of them. I would go to bed each night thinking about what I would do the next day and would get up excited to begin. I found I worked well with a self imposed limit of trees, watercolour and stitching in my sketchbook.
By narrowing it down I didn’t need to make any decisions about what or how to paint – I just sat down and did it! It was about the process for me and how each painting led to the next. It was about discovering the freedom of dropping into the painting and leaving the everyday behind. And it was pure joy to have no expectation of outcome or pressure to succeed. The paintings aren’t particularly brilliant but I didn’t want or need them to be. What I wanted most was to splash colour about on the page and experiment with machine stitching. What I needed was a confidence boost and to experience happiness at making art. And doing so helped me to reconnect with my creative self. Thanks so much, Tara.”
Shelley Langford
Such a lovely diverse selection of artwork! Stay tuned tomorrow for the second batch! 🙂
Touchstone is now open for registration! It’s part deep dive into you as an artist, and part practical project to help integrate what you learn along the way. Click the image on the left to find out all about this course and join us.
Excellent work- what a lovely result for theproject❤️
I always love how diverse the work is! I sometimes wonder why so many of us worry we’re not making authentic art!
What fabulous outcomes, and everyone approaching the project from different places, with different interests and subject matter.
Very enjoyable seeing their achievements.
Agreed!