Now that life has slowed back down to a normal pace, I think I’m going to try to be consistent with this blog again. I made a few attempts earlier this year but was already too overloaded with obligations for it to stick. Now that October is over, things are slowing down and I feel like I have a second to take a moment to have a coherent thought.

I also quit my day job. It was a short three year stint of cleaning nightly rentals, and that was honestly enough for a lifetime. I’m done and my back hurts. Plus my own house needs a good cleaning and I’d like to have more family time. For a part time job, it took up all of my time. Add in managing my rv rental business and becoming a vendor at art/farmers markets and my hands are full. It’s nice that all of my jobs are seriously slowed down for the winter and I can finally catch up on all of the things I’ve been putting off, mainly art. I’ve done very little art this year despite it being my most successful year in sales.

Enough about that. Let’s talk art.

This November I’m working on daily painting. I’m not finishing a painting each day, but just painting for an hour or so each day and posting my progress to instagram. So far this month I’ve completed a small 6×8 landscape and 12×12 cow painting, and started a 12×12 landscape and 24×48 still life. An odd mix of subjects, for sure.

Originally, I was going to finish a bunch of landscapes, but very quickly was distracted by the desire to paint a cow. Then, while painting the cow, I found myself wanting to slow down my painting. While I really enjoy painting alla prima, I also enjoy taking my time. And I’m realizing that the methods are very different from one another. After painting alla prima predominantly for the last few years, I’m finding it difficult to switch back into a slower approach. I keep reaching a point in a painting where I’m either going to finish it or I need to wait for it to dry and I typically just finish it. In order to make it easer for me to let layers dry I need to go back to having multiple paintings in progress again. I used to have anywhere from 3-7 paintings going at any one time so I always had something to work on.

With slow in mind, I pulled out a large painting I started back in December of last year for my husband. Since it’s so large, it forces me to slow down a little. I’m still making great progress on it though. So far I’ve painted or repainted all of the red and white strips. The plan is to repaint the stars/blue part as well as the gun itself. When I originally started it, I didn’t do a very good job so I’m repainting everything I did previously. It’s a lot of work, but I think it’ll be worth it in the end.

Thank you for reading, I’ll be updating you again next week with my progress. If you want to stay up to date on a daily basis, follow me on instagram @amber.honour.