My experience with Daily Painting

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I last posted a video here. I took a month off from YouTube to participate in a painting challenge in which you have to paint daily from life and share it online. I thought it would be a great way to start the year, especially since I was struggling with art block for quite a while and it was exactly what I needed. I would like to share my experience in case you'd like to try something like this yourself. On the background you're seeing one of the paintings I did two weeks ago or so. I love to add flowers and greenery into my portraits but the ones I make they are never precise or accurate in any way so I thought I would use the opportunity to paint some flowers from life since that's something I have never done before and in the end I didn't paint as many as I had planned or hoped but I will come back to them. They have quickly become one of my favorite subjects. At least roses, those are the only ones I've tried. Daily painting isn't always easy but for me the hardest part of it was having to share it online even when I was not even close to be happy with the result. Also for me painting during weekends is almost impossible so I ended up doodling something really quickly and calling it a day. Just done, whatever. I was used to, and I still am I guess, to only share what I consider to be good works or at least acceptable works and the photos have to be taken with good lighting and in such a manner that it would make it easier for the algorithm to show them. Instead I had to let go of that and be okay with posting whatever crappy photo I took in a rush, more often than not late at night. I usually post around 3pm or so but most days I couldn't, I wasn't able to do it so it had to be at night with very bad lighting or, you know, not the best conditions but I couldn't do it in any other way so it had to be like this. The first few days were a bit harder, after a while I didn't care anymore but those first very bad photos made me feel a bit nervous. Before the challenge started I considered whether or not I wanted to open a new account to share all these seemingly random works for the challenge or for future things that I may not make or post on Instagram because they don't fit in my regular account or they don't fit according to Instagram standards, I mean... But I just couldn't be bothered. Anyway, Instagram has not been doing well for a long time, I'm gonna say months but it's probably, I don't know, close to a year, I don't know but it's not been doing great and many artists complain that they are losing a ton of followers daily and that their reach has plummeted and mine as well, I don't care as much anymore since I had very little to lose I just went ahead and started sharing anyway. In case you are curious, it did not get worse for me during the month despite the very low engagement and restricting my reach because I had quite a few posts flagged as if they were not following the guidelines or something A couple of roses, an orange or two and a fireplace Very offensive fireplace Anyway, there is something very freeing in having such low expectations I knew from the beginning that very few people would even see my posts and therefore they would get very few comments and likes and I was right, but those are so valuable to me I also knew that many of the paintings wouldn't turn out to be great and that many would be flops but I was mentally prepared for that I tried to go into this with a learning mindset and not caring about the rest and I think that I've improved more during these last few weeks than in the previous months or even a full year and I think I've learned a lot about myself too what I like to paint and especially how I like to do things This is particularly important to me because previously I've done some works not all of course, but I've done some works that even though they were nice and I know they look nice, I wasn't happy with them and it's something that bugs me a lot I think it all comes down to expectations whether they are from yourself or from others what you think others expect from you and the apps themselves and the algorithms and the speed that is required to create this fast If I have or feel the pressure to make new artworks weekly that are relatively big and well rendered that are a specific type of portrait it all feels rushed because of this I don't get to put much thought into each piece because they require planning and there is not enough time and I end up doing things for the sake of doing more and take them out of the list or just something more to share However, during this month I've allowed myself to work on simple subjects and to paint small and also to use whichever medium I wanted to and because small paintings take much less time I could set up something relatively quickly play with my subjects and the lighting and once I was happy with them start painting a couple of hours later and you are done and you can move on to something else new painting or anything else it was just so nice even if the painting didn't work out well the time that I had invested wasn't that much and it didn't feel like a waste and anyway I always learn something and because of this I feel more proud and happier with some of these paintings than some of my bigger portraits I don't know, I enjoy painting them I like how they look and I definitely like what I've learned from them so, ah, so enjoyable there was no trying to come up with good ideas and work out a composition out of your head then try to find references that match that or make your own or both and then paint a detailed portrait record it, edit, etc. and post it and if on top of that something you don't feel like painting then, well, you can imagine it doesn't go too well I think it's too much to ask for a new painting or two every week that requires so much work behind it the biggest lesson was that I really need to paint what I like and what I feel like doing in the moment I know it sounds obvious but trust me, sometimes it's not you can feel almost trapped to do something in a specific way and, yeah, I don't know I'm just voicing my thoughts so I think I really need to focus on working on what I want to do versus what I think I have to do I want to take the time to make art I'm proud of even if that means having less things to show on social media or sharing things that I know won't perform well I love painting portraits that has always been my favorite subject but sometimes I want to try different things for example these roses painting flowers is something that I want to do more often and I know they will probably not do that well whenever I try sharing something that is not a portrait a specific medium that looks in a certain way there is no visibility but I cannot let that influence what I make and what I share the thing is I haven't enjoyed painting this much in such a long long time I loved it I'm not counting on weekends of course or the occasional day when I was too tired and had to push myself but overall it has been so great prioritizing the process of painting and learning instead of the outcome and often the outcome has been also nice I also have to admit that it was a bit challenging to make time for editing videos for Patreon and I wasn't able to make any for YouTube so I can't say that I could do it long term but I can't complain and also it's something that I can bring to my usual work or to my usual schedule if I want to paint I don't need to come up with crazy compositions or ideas I can just set up an easy or relatively simple still life and just paint away yeah amazing I'm so glad I tried and it's possible that I will join again later this year I think it's in September when hopefully the weather will be nicer and I can try painting outside but for now I have some small projects I want to work on and cannot wait to get started as always I would love to hear your thoughts and what was your experience if you tried something like this before thank you so much for your support and for sticking around and for the very lovely comments that I get I really appreciate them I hope you have a nice day and see you soon bye-bye