Experimentation

Another thing I learned painting for 30 days straight is that I have grown to love my sketchbooks.  In them I experiment.  With color, technique, composition, value, you name it.  For the most part, no one ever see's my sketchbooks, so there is no risk.  I am free to screw up, not finish, play, write about it.  In short I can just be me.  There is no pressure and like a written journal, these visual journals have created in me a sense of self.  I see growth in my art as well as my personal life.
But for 30 days it was not so very private.  I think the 30 days straight of painting and blogging about it helped me understand and share my process, concept to execution and the why of it all.  At a time when I was wondering why at all!
Below is today's little sketch.  Concept: looking through photos Sunday for the week (a new practice I started to prepare for a week of painting!) I came across photos I took this summer of several hummers that came to the feeder on my patio. I loved the lines (I did not get the lines right here) of the delicate form of the hummers bending to feed.  Love the line of the beak.  Did not love the feeder. Process: played with composition, a new feeder (petunia for added delicacy and frill), made color notes and decisions and experimented with the technique I've been using on the primrose of late (for the blur of the wings).  And then I executed, knowing I did not have to share if I flopped completely I liked a lot about this and some of it I learned what I wouldn't do again!  Then I made notes: liked the wings, color too bold on bird, missed the contour of the line of the bird entirely--which was part of why I chose it!
So another day, another painting, another lesson!