Author: Doug Rutherford

Okay, who could refuse a headline like that?

I have a strategy for when you just can’t seem to put together a painting. You lose, for example, the sky and nothing seems to follow. Or, you make a colour selection that’s too dark, and with watercolour, there is no real way to recover. These are not the only problems that make you throw a painting in the recycling bin, or start a new one on the back. They are, however, two of my favourites.

When I started painting a few years ago, I started with the sensible approach of working small. I found a 5×7 inch painting a day quite easy to handle and represented a rather small investment of time and resources if things didn’t work out. In the beginning, that happened a lot.

When I get into a rut where you can seem to muster any painting skills whatsoever, I fall back on the approach of working small. I usually paint 8×10 or 11×15 paintings, but when I get stuck on a painting or two in a row, I go back to doing smaller paintings. For some reason, a 5×7 gets me back on track.

Maybe it’s the necessity to remove detail because the painting is smaller or maybe it’s because I’ve painted more pictures that size, but it just seems to do the trick.

I’ve gotten into a rut of not being able to do a good job, so I decided to go back to doing a few smaller paintings. These have been fun to do and one was a complete experiment, which, of course, is even more fun (when it works, of course.) So, here are a few of the smaller paintings I’ve done this week.

It’s the first day of Spring.

Time flies.

I cannot grasp that a second year of the Painting a Day challenge has passed, and I painted a painting for each day, along with 3 bonus paintings.

I certainly missed a few days. I had two trips outside for medical appointments and didn’t paint the 4 days I was out. However, I also had a residency where I did quite a few paintings. The end result is yet another year of paintings.

With the end of Year 1, I thought I might paint a few different topics. I did paint a few Cape Breton pictures, as well as two Irish scenes.

So, now on to another year. Again, I’m not sure if I will keep going, since I do occasionally think that I am doing a painting for the sake of painting rather than doing a specific scene because I really want to. I do need to plan a few painting trips and I have applied for two residencies so, like in everything else, we’ll see.

There’s a few things to note.

First, I am still knee deep in the painting a day challenge. The second year has about 2 more weeks left.

Painting sales did slow down a bit, although they weren’t wild and woolly last February, either. However, I did sell three in the last two weeks so things may be picking up a bit.

I have a showing coming up in October. One of the shops in town will be exhibiting some of my paintings. More news on that later.

And, of course, there are some more paintings to show.

I put the last post up in a hurry, so here are a few more of my paintings from the residency.

• 

• 

• 

I started the painting a day thing last March. As I mentioned previously, I wondered how long this would continue. Yesterday marked another milestone with painting of the day number 500.

I spent some time trying to pick what I would do for number 500. If nothing else, I wanted something I would like a lot more than the way number 300 turned out…

I was reminded of the first watercolour painting I did, which was a painting of a solstice sunset from Fox Lake campground in 2015. It turned out quite well for a first ever attempt, good enough that my grandson claimed it immediately. (I suggested he put it on his fridge…)

Therefore, having just come back from a camping trip to Fox Lake recently, I figured that I’d do another sunset from Fox Lake, So, here it is.

I have been having fun doing this on a daily basis, but it may be time to taper off a bit. If for nothing else, I am getting ready for a residency next week in Tagish and doing a workshop on Saturday, August 7th as part of the Yukon Fresh Artists in Residence Exchange. I’m looking forward to it, although I must admit that, after 30-odd years of teaching, it’s the first time teaching this subject and there may be a small case of nerves involved…

I haven’t posted recently, so I figured I would throw a few recent paintings up. For statistics sake, the Picture of the Day is up to number 461.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•