Morning Musing on the Final Day of the Art Marathon
Luvlies, Good morning. I did it. I have reached the end of the Arts & Crafts Table – 30 day Summer Art Marathon. I consider myself a real painter now. I spent the last 30 days watching tutorials, studying solvents and ratios, understanding colour mixing, and all other materials I could find about oil painting.
I learned patience and developed a steady hand for the smallest canvas. I literally watched paint dry.
Here’s what I’ve come away with from this art challenge:
- For me, painting is about what I want to see, and not about directly interpreting what I see in front of me. A lose interpretation of ‘Flowers in a vase’ doesn’t make the feeling the flowers convey any less real. You’re painting the emotions and sentiment behind how the flowers made you feel.
- My photos are guides. The more details I put onto the canvas, those are details I believe to be important for the viewer. Next time you’re in a museum, go up close to a painting to see how much detail is actually painted there, versus what your mind puts there.
- Realism can bring out the worst in me when I’m painting an object, but not when I’m painting people. I love painting people as they are because they deserve accuracy in their portrayals, and not projection.
I see the last point in portraiture quite often. Where the artist cannot see the cultural beauty in the person they are capturing on canvas. So they give them features they – the artist – understand to be beautiful (or ugly), which can be hurtful for many. It becomes an erasure of sorts. Changing someone’s skin colour to a lighter tone, adding a wave instead of a kink to the hair, painting a Eurocentric nose on African face. These types of interpretations are not valuable to the art.
Overall this art marathon helped me get over my hesitation to start painting with oils. I wrote on a vision board that I wanted to be a painter by 2025, which I achieved with gouache, but didn’t take the leap with oil til 2026.
Better late than never, right?
…and that’s time. Still here? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
See you tomorrow Luvlies!
xoxo Luv Laney Luv
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Morning Musing is a pomodoro-timed, free thought experiment to get back into the swing of things. No Ai added.
