With my job keeping me busy in the mornings, I've had to make some adjustments to my painting and business schedule. I've always believed myself to be a morning person. After I have my coffee, I feel more energetic and creative. Before I started my job, I would get up around 7, eat breakfast, drink coffee and read the Washington Post until about 9, then do something that would hopefully be productive until about noon, when I would then go to my spinning class. That was the plan and it worked reasonably well. I never tried to paint much in the afternoons, because I was staunchly a Morning Person.
Now that's all changed. When I leave UCM at 1pm, I often run errands and go to the gym, so I don't get home until about 5 or so. Time to cook dinner and too late to paint! So my painting output has been close to zero! As you painters know, if you don't paint regularly, you get rusty. I found that out when I went to Great Falls last Sunday on a rare Sunday off and tried to paint. Boy, were my painting muscles weak and sore!
So, it's time to make some changes in both routine and perceptions. This morning painter has become an afternoon painter. The day after the Great Falls Fiasco, Monday, I immediately went to Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria after work. It's about 5 minutes away and has beautiful marshlands and woods. Being Monday, it was still and quiet with only a few people enjoying the crisp air. And my painting muscles were raring to go. I did three small paintings from the boardwalk in about an hour and I'm very pleased with them. This session was more a sprint than a marathon because when I left, about an hour and a half later, I still had time for a few errands.
So I'm designating Monday afternoons as "Paint Days." Somewhere, either in my studio, or close by home (so that I don't lose time driving), I'm going to paint. This is a change from when I used to designate entire days as paint days, but since I can no longer enjoy that luxury, I'm carving out smaller chunks of time. The beauty of pastels is that they can be packed up quickly and toted anywhere. I'm putting together a smaller, traveling kit that I can keep in the car and that can be set up very quickly. It won't have the full range of colors that I have in my studio, but it will allow me to start short painting sprints and keep my painting muscles sleek and toned. And it's a good way to start the week on the right note!
Here are a few "sprints":
"Autumn at Huntley Meadows" 9 x 5.5, pastel
$200
"Autumn Afternoon" 12 x 8, pastel
$300
"October Marshland" 9 x 5.5, pastel
$200
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