A Painting a Day

Being productive can be a challenge with all of the minutia of daily life. Then pile on events, responsibilities, unpredictable happenings, and just plain old being tired, creativity can go way down to the bottom of the list and those paints and pencils lie there collecting dust.

I few weeks ago I saw an interview on a great web site called Creative Insurgents. The hosts, Cory Huff and Melissa Dinwiddie interviewed Jolie Guillebeau, an artist out of Portland, Oregon. She told her story of struggling to be and feel like an artist.  By giving her self a special 100 day challenge, she began to overcome her self doubt. She committed publicly to paint a painting a day for 100 days. It really helped jump start her career.

I have experienced the struggle, not only to be productive, but to discover my identity as an artist.  When I began this blog it was all about being an illustrator. Now I realize I just want to embrace being an artist. Illustrating is all a part of a bigger picture for me. So, I am going to take up the challenge too.  Beginning September 1st, I am going to post a watercolor painting a day. I have picked animals as my theme, as I have done some pet portraits and really enjoyed it, plus it is a way for me to reconnect with what made me love art as a child.  Animals, horses in particular, where my favorite subjects. Seems like a good place to start.

The paintings will also be for sale, beginning at $1 for day 1, $2 for day 2, $3 for day 3, and so on.  You get the idea!.  If you see a painting you like, please send me an email at lauraparkhurstillustrator@gmail.com. I will provide this information with each painting. If you really like my work, please be sure to share it with your friends and family because they might enjoy an original piece of artwork too! You can also follow me on Facebook at this link. I will be posting there too.

Thanks for coming by.  I hope you will come again on the 1st of September and on the days following. And I hope you enjoy my work!  I would love to hear from you.

The Inspiration of Having a Job

Let's get practical today.  I know there are those hopeless romantics out there who are offended by the notion of making art to make money and believe that art should be pure and created by the artist to express himself to the world in order to change it.  They imagine an artist who is tucked away in some dingy apartment in the part of town where all the "creatives" hang out, suffering for his art, living painting to painting, not sure when he'll have money to buy his next meal.  So he writes his brother who has a real job asking for some money, cuts off his ear over some dame and then because he is despondent and misunderstood by a world to hard to recognize his great talent and unique soul, he kills himself, making his art insanely valuable when sold at auction 100 years later.

Okay, that was a little about Van Gogh, who I love and who was really a very troubled man.  I can relate to emotional turmoil.  I've had my share.  But couldn't he have been just as productive if he had not had to deal with that turmoil?  Some one like Michelangelo had his emotional junk too, but he was always gainfully employed and I bet that gave him more inspiration than his inner angst.

I mean, as a creative person, it always helps to get us moving in the productive direction when we have a direction to go in.  Song writers and singers don't just sing to themselves in the shower, they want people to hear them and it sure is nice to have some cash at the end of a gig to pay for gas, a meal and have a little left over for a bank account.  And with times being what they are, we are all feeling a little lean and motivated lately.

When my kids went to school, I had a dilemma   It was time to get a job!  And a full time job is not always readily available at this time in history.  So part time is helping out, but I also realized that a couple of part time jobs can be cobbled together to get closer to a full time job.  Not only that, this extra alone time is a great opportunity.  Needing to pay the bills just adds the fuel.

Pursuing a dream for the dream's sake could have been my motivation, but realistically, I know that I have put off the dream because I always had something else, like a payed by the hour job or children who need my attention.  I can truthfully say I have more responsibilities now and have to schedule my time more carefully than I did pre-kids, so I can't say I am doing this now because of the free time.  There is always stuff to fill the minutes with.  And I am finding I use my evenings more consistently than any other time.  Day time is for my jobs.  So, I want to add another job to my daily to do list.

That makes me feel overwhelmed!  But I keep going back to one thing... I want to have a career as an illustrator.  I want to make cool stuff AND get paid for it.  If I just wanted to make cool stuff, that could wait until I'm retired.  But right now I've got to plan for the expenses of life.  I'm doing illustration because I love it, but I'm going to be honest and say I'm making progress toward that dream because I want to make some money.

Oh no, that totally takes the innocent glow off of the dream.  Makes it sound seamy and greedy.  Yuck.
I love a song by a local singer named, Danny Flanigan, (check out his website by clicking on his name.) where he says, "Money gets me down.  Down because I need it.  What a stupid thing to need!"  I so agree with that and I'm not going to let the lack of money get me down, but I'm going to keep working with the hope of filling that need.

I would love to know how you feel about all of this having a job and needing money thing.  I bet it gets you out of bed in the morning!  Please leave a comment!  Thanks for stopping by!