Me? Well, I've learned I need to paint my watercolor paintings with a time limit. Yup, you heard it right the first time! Twenty minutes to be exact. Why twenty minutes, you say? It seems I do my best work in this time slot. Any longer and I end up belaboring over it, muddying it up, making a mess, generally ruining whatever I was painting. I would get frustrated and decide to ditch my piece. But with twenty minutes running on the clock, I have found success!
Here in cyberspace I had found a blog called The Twenty Minute Challenge. The premise couldn't be any clearer: Paint your work within twenty minutes and stop. For me it's been working. I have been building a nice body of watercolor paintings in that twenty minutes of time. It has helped me in my daily battle with resistance too. Yes, Resistance and I battle it out every day. Before I learned about painting in twenty minutes he would win almost always. Now I win almost always!
I'm painting fast and loose, quick and free, and done! A quick sketch on the paper without alot of water on the brush, painting my subjects with abandon. When I'm done I sit back and look at my work. Most times I'm pleased with the outcome. However, it's been the process that has kept me painting.
If I tell myself I'm going to work on this piece every day for as long as it takes to get it right, I'm fried! But in twenty minutes I can paint and be finished. It's very freeing and gives me just enough motivation to do it all over again the next day, for another twenty minutes!
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| ©2010 Dora Sislian Themelis |
Here's one of my still life watercolors painted in twenty minutes. Although I have a big palette with plenty of colors to chose from, this little travel set has been my go-to set. It's available when I want it, along with my still life objects. I've been babysitting a new granddaughter so painting in the studio is not happening for now and the dining room table is where I'm at. When the baby takes a quick, twenty minute nap, there I am painting.
Let's say it's been working out for the both of us!
Visit me on my blog for more of my yapping about art and life, and not fitting it all in at Coffee And Paint Drips!
11 comments:
This is beautiful! So wonderful to see creativity in short bursts on a time-limit!
Hi! Iy seems to be working for me at least!
Oops, I meant to write "it"!!!
Wow! this is beautiful! I wondre what you would do with an whole hour!!!
Well ni, it depends what I'm painting..Sometimes an hour works, sometimes..not so much. At least in twenty minutes I can come away kind of pleased, rather than furious at the mud I can make!
I love this! I just overworked & ruined another piece yesterday :) I need to get a little more grip on the medium first (learning watercolour too), but I'll definitely revisit this!
Love the painting you did!
& congratulations on the new grandbaby :)
The story of my art life Yvonne! LOL but seriously, the short time frame is helping learn a lot about watercolor, and pointers from some great commanders has helped, too! Thanks!
Oopsy.. Meant to type "commenters"...
Wow! You have a way of capturing the view that makes you want to just crawl in the painting....I've dabbled in water color and have been playing around with watercolor painting with patina on metal....Your work is inspiring!
Thank you for that wonderful compliment Melinda! I'm happy to know my painting is inspirational.
Fantastic job. I really enjoy water colors because I think they portray a kind of fragile beauty.
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