Confession time.
I haven’t been in the studio since July.
Yeah. I know. It’s driving me crazy.
I threw out my back the last week that I was preparing those paintings to hang in Erabellum for the August Art Crawl. I was able to finish them up and hang them in the gallery, but I never got back to the studio after that.
Then, the kids started school. My freelance design work and day job got really busy. Next, we took the kids to the beach for fall break.
Suddenly it is almost November, which means Art Every Day Monthis upon us. The prospect of working on art every day for a month is a welcome one for me.
I’m so ready to get back in the studio.
This will be my fourth year to participate in Art Every Day Month.
In 2009, I gave the concept a shot, but I had no strategy for Art Every Day Month. I just photographed stuff and doodled and said, “I did several things today so that counts for the next few days.”Nope, that’s not how it works.
You don’t work out three times as long one day and say that workout counts for the next three days. The same goes for your art. You’re only going to see change when you put in the work regularly. (I’m preaching to myself, here.)
I discovered abstraction in 2014
So in 2014, I understood I had to have a plan. I had learned that trying to crank out a single painting in a day was a recipe for burnout for me. So I just painted as many days as I could, even if it was just for 20 minutes before work.That formula worked.
I discovered how much I love abstraction and how freeing it is to let the paint do what it wants.
Rock-and-Roll in 2015
In 2015, I explored painting rock songs, and everything turned really dark. I think a lot of that had to do with my emotional state. So much was uncertain. I had gotten laid off. We left a church we liked when some things happened that made us feel unsafe. The kids were starting a new school year. I had some freelance coming in, but not enough to get us through the end of the year. I didn’t know what my job future would look like. My wife started cleaning houses so we could make ends meet.And all that bleakness showed up in my painting.
A concerted effort to bring back the color in 2016

That brings us to 2016. What will I do for Art Every Day Month this year? I’ve been working hard to bring color back to my paintings, and I think I’ve succeeded. I’m happy with where it is going, but there is still a lot to be done to shape it into something I am really happy with and excited to share with everyone.
I’ve had a lot of ideas knocking around in my head lately. Recently I wrote about how I’m inspired by several things right now. Do I paint fog/haze? Pure abstraction? Expressive forms? Flyovers? Bright colors or a limited/analogous palette? Use sacred geometry? Something inspired by lazy pressure-washing on the sidewalks?
I wonder if there is a way to combine all of those things. Would all of those things make the art confusing? Fog and bright colors don’t really go together. Or do they? That’s the beauty of art. The beauty of beauty itself. Contradiction and paradox are wonderful things, because they tease and stimulate the mind.
To prepare, I’ve done sketches over the past few months. They don’t look like much right now, but for me, that’s enough to get something started. I’ve found it is best to simply start with the kernel of an idea. Trying to control the outcome of a canvas is counterproductive. A single idea like a shape or a color or something like that is enough for me.
I’ve also been adding to several Pinterest boards. Pinterest is visual candy for me. I love how it recommends things based on what I’ve pinned before. It keeps showing me more abstract expressionist paintings, and images of fog, people working on giant canvases, and the like. And when Timehop shows me old Instagrams and I decide I still like them, I will throw them into a private board as fodder for painting ideas.
So, what will I paint in November?
Since it has been a while since I’ve spent any time in the studio I don’t want to sustain a creative injury from doing too much at once. So I’m going to start small, and go bigger from there.I’ll post weekly progress reports here on the blog, but if you want daily email updates during Art Every Day Month 2016, sign up here. (If you already get my email newsletter, this is a separate email that I’ll send out.)
And of course I’ll update my Instagram and Snapchat accounts as often as I think to.